New wheels and old memories

Summer's got a new shiny bicycle. While Brett dropped her old one at the recycle centre, he scored a bike for me. He drove home with it strapped to his roof racks.

It has a little surface rust, but otherwise, someone has too much money because there is nothing wrong with it. I still has dimples on the tyres! I am now a happy bike rider. We had a lovely Sunday last week, riding to a new café for lunch and then on to the playground. It was a great family outing. Since I have ridden to the library with the girls too. I do need to get a basket though.

I am no stranger to scrounging at the town dump. When I was a child, growing up in country Kalangadoo, Dad managed the local tip.

I spent many a weekend and school holiday foraging and fossicking through the towns discarded waste.

We got used to which bags contained Mrs Hayes' Great Dane shit, and which had toys and books. You never saw five kids move so fast when on of us yelled out "Toys!".

We had endless old cars to play in, and a herd of feral kittens to try catch. Mum never let us take them home.

In those days, all the old tyres were piled high and set on fire. The smell was atrocious, and we were mesmerised at the stories high plumes of the blackest smoke billowing into the sky. We were never allowed near.

General rubbish was graded up into piles and set alight too. These days we scrambled to find empty aerosol cans to throw into the burning flames. The exploding cans was fabulous entertainment for five little kids.

The lady down the road (who became one of mum's best friends), later told Mum how she felt sorry for her with her kids there.

I am aware now that some people probably looked down on us as kids. But it was just he way it was. We didn't feel sorry, we had a great time when Dad managed the dump!

Dad went on to run a successful scrap metal recycling business. We to this day, still call it Dad's supermarket. We'd always find something to take home after having a pick through.