Here it is

Hopefully coming to an IGA carpark near me soon, although if I ever see it in the flesh I'll probably start to hyperventilate.
Thank you Leanne from Wicked Campers for asking me to submit a saying to grace the back of one of your vans. It looks fabulous. I love it.
If you don't know what the hell I'm on about, you'll find the full story here and here and Leanne's A Wicked Evangelist blog here.
Now I'm going to have a cup of tea and a lie down. The excitement's just about done me in.

Channeling Elvis 3

School holidays started on the weekend and the town's already awash with "No Vacancies" signs.
I love all the tourist seasons but especially winter when you can wander down the main street and play Spot the Visiting Sullen Teenagers.
These are the ones who'll be making their way through the horizontal rain that's hammering the pavements, pretending they're not related to the man and woman walking directly in front of them.
They will be mobile phone-less because their dads will have said, "We didn't drive 400kms so you could spend all day texting your mates."
Shortly they'll be herded into family cars and driven off to look at The Gap and The Natural Bridge, where they'll consider throwing themselves off.
But before that, Mum's going to make them go into every single gift shop on York Street.
When they get to Wombat Lodge, which is total kitsch heaven, they will find the Dog Rock snowdome pictured above.
I love this snowdome so much, I've bought it many times for family and friends. It costs $10 and was made in Sydney. The "snow" is glitter. It's breathtaking.

Above is a picture of the real Dog Rock, which comes courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.
I had every intention of driving down Middleton Rd and taking a picture myself but it's pouring down at the moment, plus it's also blowing a gale and the temp is 12C.
The real Dog Rock is a huge granite outcrop in the shape of a bloodhound's head. See the cute collar someone's painted on it? I think that's what probably did it for the Sydney snowdome-maker. I think he saw that and couldn't contain himself any longer.
Luckily, his loss of control was our gain. I don't think you could find a finer souvenir.

Dear me

I've got more hair on the left-hand side of my head than on the right-hand side.
I know this because I've been told so by various hairdressers, the most recent just yesterday when I was having my hair cut.
They've also told me that this condition is really common but I can't say I'm convinced.
I mean, I've never had one person say, "Yeah, me too," when I've mentioned it in conversation, which admittedly I don't do very often because then everyone would know I have a sub-standard scalp.
Sometimes I wonder if my life would've turned out differently if my hair follicles had been more evenly distributed.
As in, maybe people would take me more seriously.
Maybe the asbestos-fence removers wouldn't have dicked me around for six weeks if I'd been able to say from the get-go, "Listen mate, you're dealing with someone who has an exceptional follicle-to-skin ratio."
As it was, the bloke on the other end of the phone kept me waiting for ages, called me "dear" five times in 90 seconds and then instructed me to jiggle my phone plug in the socket because there was interference on the line and it had to be at my end because, "It was fine until you rang, dear."
Follicularly unbalanced as I am, my brain was urging me to tell him that Dear would be popping over shortly to rip out his voice box via his rectum and maybe go over a few points he'd failed to assimilate at customer-service school.
But seeing as his was the only asbestos removal company I could find in the phone book, I said things like "Thank you" and "Sorry" and "No worries" instead.
Not that it made any difference. I ended up calling him three more times, was called "dear" a total of 21 times and was eventually sent a red herring called Les.
Les knocked on the door and said he'd be here to remove the fence on the Wednesday or, no, hang on, probably the weekend, depending on the kids' sporting fixtures.
That was three weeks ago.
Then my husband rang and, hey, guess what, two blokes came round the very next morning and removed the fence.
In the meantime, in an effort not to go completely insane, I've been busy establishing an Unbalanced Head Support Group. You're welcome to join even if your head's normal.

Sale of the Century

Well, not quite but a Booktopia book sale is always good and the one they've got on at the moment (their end of financial year sale) is a ripper.
You'll have to wade through 41 pages to check out all the specials but it's worth it if you want to get your hands on things like Peter Robinson's Inspector Banks novels for around $5.
There's all sorts up for grabs but I know from past experience that you have to be quick - they sell out fairly quickly.
Postage is $6.50 for up to 100 books, their service is great and the books are usually delivered within a week (they're based in Sydney).
And I know I sound like a walking advert so I should probably point out that I have no connection with Booktopia other than being a customer.
We're a family of mega readers - we have books coming out of our earholes - and I've been meaning to blog about good internet bookshops for ages.
A really fabulous one is Book Depository, which is based in the UK and not only has a list and prices that rival Amazon but also has free delivery worldwide.
Again, the books are usually on your doorstep within a week and the service is excellent.
You can get bucketloads of hardback titles at Book Depository for about half the price you pay in Australia (it will vary according to the exchange rate) and you don't have to worry about the weight because the postage is free.
I managed to get Rick Stein's Mediterranean Escapes for about $30; it was selling for more than $60 in bookshops here (they have a massive range of cookbooks as well as house and garden, craft, photography, art - you name it).
There are links to both websites just to the right of this post (under Places I Like To Visit).
If you're a booklover, believe me, you'll be like a pig in the proverbial.

And the winner is...

Actually it's a tie because I still can't decide between "Keep honking - I'm reloading my gun" and Robin Williams' "If women ran the world we wouldn't have wars, just intense negotiations every 28 days".
Leanne, I'll leave it up to you which one you use and thanks again for letting me have a go, I can't wait to see the photo.
I only hope the finished van doesn't make it to the IGA carpark down here, I think the excitement would kill me (sad but true).
Apologies also for not getting all your comments up quicker, the result of two birthdays in the past week, massive hangovers and the realisation twice in five days that even though I'm old enough to know better, I still don't.

Happy camper

One of the many advantages of retirement is that I'm now eligible to enter all the competitions The West Australian holds when it wants to boost its circulation figures.
You know how it goes: "Win five Holdens in five minutes!!! PLUS if you also get The West home-delivered, we'll throw so much money at you you'll start to hyperventilate!!!"
I learnt long ago that this sort of thing is not to be sneezed at. My husband's late Aunty Marie practically made a career from it. She was a professional competition enterer who for years had set aside a couple of days a week to enter competitions in as many magazines and newspapers as she could lay her hands on.
The amount she spent on mags and postage was more than made up for with free trips overseas, holidays throughout Australia, hampers of food, crates of booze and more floral arrangements than you could poke a carnation at.
Her home was packed to the rafters with K-Tel bottle cutters and mismatched soft furnishings, curios and ornaments - all of them brand, spanking new; all of them to someone else's taste.
She bought so many women's magazines, I was amazed Kerry Packer didn't show up at her funeral so he could give thanks for a life that was integral to his financial well-being.
Sadly, seeing as Marie was an aunt by marriage, there was nothing genetic going on husband-wise, so that special combination of skill and dumb luck was not passed on.
Basically, my husband's a dud at winning stuff and I'm not much better.
Inspired by Marie's regular and often astounding windfalls, I did try my hand at it for a while when the kids were little and managed to win a trip to Singapore.
It was a Valentine's Day competition in the Women's Weekly and you had to write a poem for your true love.
As far as I can remember, mine went like this (I don't think the 5th and 6th lines are right but, hey, it was 25 years ago):
"Pitter, patter, little feet,
"Mother dear feels dead beat.
"Through each grimace, whinge and scream,
"She cherishes a secret dream
"That one day, darling, you and I,
"Will wave our cares and woes goodbye.
"We'll leave the kids with mum-in-law
"And bugger off to Singapore."
And we did - bugger off to Singapore, I mean, for a week of unalloyed luxury. We were flown first class and it was so good I would've been quite happy to spend the entire seven days on the plane.
But despite that major success I haven't entered a competition since because the dedication required to reach Marie-like heights is, truth be told, really boring after a while.
I'd like to hold a competition of my own, though, because after writing the Poxy Lady post (click here to read it) I was contacted by A Wicked Evangelist from Wicked camper vans.
And, hey, guess what??!! I've been asked to send them my favourite quote or saying and they'll have it spray-painted on the back of a van and send me a photo of it!!! (All the exclamation marks are to convey how utterly thrilled I am to be asked. Next time I think I'll write about how much I'd like someone to give me a million dollars. You never know your luck.)
The problem is coming up with just one quote.
My favourites so far are:
* Keep honking - I'm reloading my gun.
* I plan on living forever. So far, so good.
* The problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis and only enough blood to run one at a time (Robin Williams).
* There's no such thing as fun for the whole family (Jerry Seinfeld).
* If women ran the world we wouldn't have wars, just intense negotiations every 28 days (Robin Williams again).
If you'd like to help me choose, let me know which one you prefer via the comments thingy below. Or if you think you have a better one - and here's where the competition comes into it - let me know.
No prizes apart from the honour of having your quote on the back of a Wicked van, which is pretty bloody excellent if you ask me.
PS: If you'd like to check out A Wicked Evangelist, click here.