Travellers

By Sue Bagust

Travellers is Sue Bagust's second collection of short stories and travels down the East coast of Australia sharing a tent with a dog and a Maine Coon cat. You have met the people here in these stories at some other time, in some other place.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sue Bagust
• Release date: Dec 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310329890

Sue Bagust

Sue Bagust is an author, playwright, advertising copywriter and Reiki therapist/trainer who lives in SE Queensland, Australia, with her husband, cats, dog and a few noisy geckos.. Sue previously published two Reiki workbooks and also writes plays.

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Travellers

And other tales

© Sue Bagust 2013

Published by Sue Bagust at Smashwords

Thank you for downloading this ebook. It remains the copyright property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com, where they can also discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents have been produced by the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, or to any actual events or precise locations is entirely coincidental or within the public domain.

My sincere thanks go to members of the Ravenshoe, Gympie and Pomona Writers Groups for introducing me to the art of writing short stories and for generously sharing their expertise. Even bigger thanks to Pat Ritter, my big-hearted mentor who encouraged me to publish my stories, and thanks especially to my husband Roy who listens and gives a truthful reaction.

If you have enjoyed reading this book, I would love to receive your feedback. You can contact me on my e-mail: [e-mail]

Sue Bagust

www.ideasunlimited.com.au

Travellers

It’ll be fun, said my husband. It was great to see him so eager, so enthusiastic about his new project. He had been so quiet lately, so bored with his life, so unwilling to turn 60 and to accept the slowing and settling time of his life, but to sell our home and everything we owned, to pack what was left into a Ute, a trailer, and a small car, and to take to the roads in search of a new home was just a bit too far out there for me. I am staid, settled, a creature of habit. Why couldn’t we have a big birthday party for him with all his friends? Why couldn’t we go away on holiday? Why couldn’t he take up a new hobby instead?

Then I looked into his eyes, alert and alive and interested for the first time in months, and agreed we should undertake this mad adventure. We left our home on 19th May for the last time and I was determined not to look back, not to regret our decision.

My husband drove his loaded Ute towing a trailer, with his little terrier barking wildly with excitement. I drove the old Hyundai, loaded with everything we could cram in including an unenthusiastic Maine Coon cat, not at all impressed with the idea of taking a trip to unknown territory. In total, we were on the road for six weeks, until the 30th June.

In that time, I learned a lot about myself, about my husband, but more especially about our pets. Our little terrier didn’t care where we went, or what we did. She was happy, just to be with us. Driving all day? Great! Eating fish and chips by the side of the road for dinner? Great! Sleeping in the Ute? Great! Pulling up by the side of the road for toilet breaks? Great! Being smuggled into a motel room for the night? Great! Even better, sleeping in a small tent on the beach and sharing with two humans and a cat, when we couldn’t find any pet-friendly accommodation. That was the life!

The cat however was not happy and let us know his feelings right from the start. He did behave well on the road, unless I had the bad taste to listen to classical music when driving. Then Bill would climb up onto my shoulder and sing along, until I put the music back to the station with old rock tunes. Classic rock music would encourage Bill to climb onto the load in the back, settle down, and sleep the journey away, with one big paw resting on my shoulder to make sure I didn’t leave him when he slept. I am sure that Bill is a reincarnated old rock ‘n roll musician, the way he makes his music preferences known and refuses categorically to listen to any other genre.

As well as vocal language, Bill was very expressive with his huge, fluffy, tail. Bill’s tail is as agile, as animated, and as communicative as a possum’s. Driving all day? Curl tail around body and sleep to old rock music.

Eating fish and chips by the side of the road for dinner? Accept fish distainfully, but swish tail backwards and forwards slowly to express dissatisfaction with dining arrangements.

Sleeping in the car? Bounce and flounce around small space in car flicking tail into my face, until I put on old rock music suitable for sleeping.

Pulling up by the side of the road for toilet breaks? OK, but refuse to toilet and swish tail until some human digs a hole for his sanitary convenience.

Being smuggled into a motel room for the night so the humans can sleep in a bed again? This is not acceptable behaviour for any well-bred cat, and although his body is well hidden in a roll of blanket, Bill makes sure his huge tail hangs down behind and swishes furiously, like a metronome on polka beat.

When we finally chose a home in Gympie, it was Bill who was most enthusiastic about our new home. As soon as he cleaned the butter off his paws he was first out to explore his new territory, to lord it over one neighbours little boy cat, and to preen himself on front of the other neighbours three pretty little girl cats.

In the first twenty-four hours Bill has explored every cupboard, checked every crawlway, and selected his new favourite spot for sleeping which he reaches by climbing on top of the Ute, to jump up into rafters and to walk along a beam like an Olympic gymnast until he reaches his preferred spot to sleep on an old blanket where he enjoys a panoramic view out the back windows of the garage.

The old dog, on the other hand, is more like me. She has accepted her new dog bed and lies on it to soak up the morning sunshine, but sometimes she looks up at me wistfully as though to say the holiday was okay, but when will we go home again? Perhaps my husband should have buttered the dog’s paws and my hands, before releasing us into our new home.

Music

Our world is full of music. Turn off your machinery for a moment and listen, and you will hear a whole symphony not created by man. Every day our background music starts before dawn, as the birds wake and check out their world.

Hi Harry. You made it through the night!

Yep. Good to see you too, Jim.

That owl we saw yesterday didn’t find us then?

"Nope. Not us, but we haven’t