Shopping For The Boys

The lovely Brooke from Velvet & Linen left me this comment on Friday. 'Millie, hope the shopping went well. I don't know how you get gifts for all of those boys.' Well I'd like to say dear Brooke that I shopped for them here

or here

or here

....beautiful chic & stylish homewares stores in Adelaide & the Hills, where I've been known to happily spend an hour or three. But no, I had to shop here

for this

and this

because of this.......

This gentle Readers is referred to as a Project Car. We've had a number of these 'grace' us with their presence over the years. There is no clear cut definition for what constitutes a project car. Finding the perfect one takes a lot of time, a keen eye & many issues of The Trading Post. And the thrill of the chase is most times far more exciting than what follows after. Often they have found their way to my driveway, being delivered in the dead of night, so I'm blissfully unaware of their arrival until it's too late to protest. This particular 'beauty' is no longer at The Hedge. It was moved to another location very speedily recently after I gave the Owner an ultimatum. 'You have 2 hours to remove it or I call the Wreckers & get them to send around a Tow Truck pronto.'

This particular Owner had previously experienced something similar a number of years prior. Following many requests to remove a certain 2-tone brown rusted out Ford Cortina from the driveway of our previous house, the Owner found out that Mum wasn't joking. In his absence, the Tow Truck was called, the Cortina unceremoniously dragged onto it & the nice Driver gave me $110 for my trouble. So this time, when he could see his Mother was on the war path, he moved rapidly. He made urgent phone calls to all his brothers & mates, who appeared in the blink of an eye with a car trailer & the heaps of muscle & grunt needed to push the engineless thing onto the said trailer.

The boys have been working on the white Ford wagon for years. It's become the focal point for all of their mates to gather around in the garage & drink copious amounts of beer for hours at a time. All the while discussing the finer points of vehicle 'restoration' & getting their girlfriends to duck down to Mickie D's for more burgers. Although they assure me that its almost finished, it looks no different to me than when they started. However, they reckon with the couple of above gifts tucked into their Christmas Stockings, the Wagon will be able to compete in the Concourse D'Elegance at next year's Classic Adelaide Car Rally. I look forward to that moment boys with great anticipation. Would you care to make a small wager with your long-suffering Mother on that?