A Christmas Day Story (to remember)....

Friends, I do not know where to start. Christmas Day was perfectly, imperfect. There was lots of fun, tears from overtired toddlers (namely ours), baked goods consumed in excess (by me), Pims at nightfall (with cucumber and mint - sensational!), swims in a beautiful pool with a very cool blow up slide, more slides and swings, presents given and received, ham consumed but not so much so that I found myself wanting to roll in mud 'Peppa Pig' style, and many laughs.

 

I have decided that Christmas is a bit like getting married though, don't you think?

We get so excited. We plan. Spend money, eat, drink and buy presents and then all of the sudden, it is over.

 

Our Christmas Day will however, always be remembered because of a town called Inglewood - 40 km's from Goondiwindi. We had driven through Warwick, knew we needed more petrol prior to getting to Goondiwindi, but decided (stupidly) that we would get petrol in Inglewood.

Inglewood isn't a small country town. There is a main street, Queensland Government Offices, a Post Office etc - you get the picture. With 25km's of petrol on the clock, we pulled into the Shell Service Station at Inglewood, keen to refuel quickly and get to my sisters to see my family and celebrate.

As I went to refuel, I noticed the pumps were locked but there were still customers in the actual petrol station. I approached the attendant and was told abruptly: 'We are now closed. The petrol pumps have been zeroed'.

I explained our predicament, that we hardly had any petrol left in the tank, had a toddler in the car and that it was Christmas Day - surely she could help me out and serve me? I even cried, people who know me won't be surprised by this :) The attendant still refused to sell me petrol, obviously keen to close up and commence her own Christmas Day celebrations.  In fact, the attendant couldn't even tell me where the next petrol station was! Funny, the next petrol station was at our destination - Goondiwindi.

So we set off in the 35 degree heat, somewhat shocked. How could someone be so unkind on Christmas Day? In short, we drove until we ran out of petrol and ended up in a sleepy town called Yelarbon. We parked under a tree opposite this very lonely looking petrol station which was, clearly closed :) - but, of course. 

We then as grown adults had to suffer the humiliation of calling in for back up, which came in the form of my beautiful Brother in law and Father. If you could have only seen my Brother in law hop out of his Ute smirking when they arrived with petrol: 'You lot run into some trouble?', he said in his best Australian accent (his is pretty good). He had a cowboy hat on and black RayBan's. I should have taken a pic for instagram - he is quite the modern day country boy.

Anyway, we made it to Christmas Day lunch. Fun was had and needless to say, will NEVER purchase petrol from Shell again.

 

On a positive note, while we waited for an hour for help, I was able to carefully consider my New Years resolutions. I am sure that you are keen to hear about what I have planned for 2014. All this and more will be provided in a post later in the week :)

 

How was your Christmas Day? Come on, try and out do my family drama... I dare you :)

 

Great to be back friends....

 

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