Wouldn't it be nice to live together in the kind of world where we belong

You know it seems the more we talk about it
It only makes it worse to live without it
But let's talk about it
Wouldn't it be nice

Dear Penny Lane

So, the other night, us Fort Knox alumni got together for our monthly poker night. The usual bottle of Jack was cracked open and beef tasting nibbles were passed around and good ol’ Fudge, he had a great treat for us… special brownies… yeah, that’s right, don’t look so surprised… talk about being baaad assss!!! Gosh, I remember how you used to smoke it in your bathroom. I’d be all fast asleep in the comfort of your bed and you’d go do your thang and then come back to bed and annoy the crap out of me. I mean, what’d a dog have to do to get some sleep around that joint? So anyway, Chocolate, Fudge and me, we were just shooting the breeze and to be completely honest, we had gotten rather giggly thanks to the brownies, when who should show up but young Ginger. I tell you, I was pretty darn shocked she had the nerve to show up after all the nasty rumours she’d been spreading about Fudge and Teddy all over Dogtown. But we didn’t turn her out because well, you know, she’s a young un’… never had anyone to show her the way really what with her arriving here so young and all and she always had a bit of a tail on her, that she did! So then she broke down with everyone glaring at her and apologised for making up all those lies and it was hard not to melt, that look in her eyes. Next thing we know, we’re all high pawing each other and look up to see Teddy shuffling in in his trademark purple coat, sunglasses and carrying his walking stick. There was a bit of an awkward moment while he took in the scene in front of him but he caught on in no time and enveloped Ginger in a warm hug. Good ol’ Teddy… you don’t live to 90 and become elected the Head of the Underground Society of Dogs Against The Adoption of Cats as Household Pets and not get wise to a few things. We don’t keep these catch ups exclusive to Fort Knox you know… we like to keep in touch with the family dogs too. So sure enough, Max and Dinky joined us and Dinky brought along that grumpy smelly sourpuss Gizmo. I know he’s family and all and that’s why we tolerate him, but really that doesn’t mean I have to like him.

By now, we’d started playing and we were well into the brownies… I’m telling you girl, it was insaaane in the membrane! I should’ve joined you when I had the chance… can you imagine me and you rolling around the bathroom floor in giggle fits!! It would’ve been da bomb. By the way, I don’t know if you’ve noticed but my vocab has gotten way better since I moved here… I know I could just about manage Woowoowoo when I was with you but these dawgs sure know how to teach a beyatch a word or two. My main man is this cat named Snoop Dogg and he has us chanting all sorts of fun stuff like bow wow wow yippee yo yippee yay…

But anyway, back to our poker night. We were playing Texas Hold ‘Em and I was doing alright… even stevens really… so were Max, Dinky and Gizmo. Ginger was down pretty bad, so were Fudge and Chocolate… Teddy was just raking it in as usual. It was a stormy night and it was coming down something fierce when suddenly the door flies open and who should run in soaking wet but Biscuit. Ginger nearly fell off her chair because he cut a most dashing figure with his dark eyes and chocolate fur, engaged in the act of shaking the water off himself. They’ve never met of course… he having lived with you in the early 90s and Ginger only in 2004. It was puppy love at first sight… I felt so very wistful watching them… god knows how different things might’ve been if Scooby from down the road hadn’t been so goddamn obnoxious… I mean, that is what attracted me to him in the beginning but towards the end it just got so tiresome our whole barking-madly-at-each-other-through-the-gate routine. I’ve heard on the grapevine that he’s taken up with a black Lab from down near the supermarket. All I can say is good luck to her.

So that’s really all the news from our end. Things might’ve gotten slightly nasty that poker night when Gizmo and Teddy faced off for all or nothing but luckily Dinky was way past his alcohol tolerance level and chose that moment to return from relieving himself, completely miscalculated where his chair was, and fell flat on his tiny bottom! We were all on the floor laughing after that. Chocolate sends her love as always. How are things going with you? How’s baby sister? How’re mama and papa Lane? Is mama Lane still sadly under the delusion she has any kind of control over the canines she lives with? Ah well, we must leave her with some hope to hold on to, harmless thing that she is. I routinely call Rusty on his mobile to tell him to give ‘er hell and sometimes text him fun ways to make mischief! And what about you then? Still missing me? I know you are. I looked at all those photos of all of us with you the other day. I don’t know if you felt my paw on your shoulder but I was there.

Oh I almost forgot to tell you… I ran into my old man Crispy on the street the other day. He is one good looking mo fo… now I know where I get my drop dead gorgeous looks from. He’s doing alright and invited me to a meal next week. I can’t wait to look at more baby pictures of myself.

And oh, oh, met up with Appachen when he visited Dogtown on a daytrip. I told him I'd be writing to you so he said a big Hi.

That’s it I guess. Write soon and I’m attaching a pic of us from the other night.

Miss you and love you as much as the day I left you.

Holly xoxoxo



Wouldn’t it be nice if they were all living it up like so? Wouldn’t it be nicer if they still remembered us? Wouldn’t it be nicest if they hadn’t had to leave us at all?

Down the way where the nights are gay and the sun shines daily on the mountain top...

Fiji was freaking awesome. We did absolutely nothing and still every night I’d pass out like a ton of bricks and have a huge issue waking up the next morning which caused my lover no end of grief because breakfast was included in our resort package but well, I just couldn’t motivate myself even at the thought of having paid for it already but somehow forced myself to go at least three of the five mornings after constant wake up calls. Anyway, that was breakfast. We developed a nice routine for the rest of the days and nights too. After breakfast, we’d go back to our room and gather our belongings for the day which would be a book, a sarong, the room key, and the all important towel pass. The towel passes were awesome because whenever you felt like you could get fresh beach towels for the pool and beach so never had to deal with any of those tedious non-5-star-resort issues like sandy towels in the toilet at the end of the day and having to dry them for the next day, having to carry the same towel around with you the whole day, etc. etc. So some days we’d start by jumping in one of the pools or sometimes we’d head straight for the beach. There were three pools – the Coral Pool, Takali Pool and Main Pool. The main pool we stayed well clear of because it was always packed to the brim with easily excitable, screaming, swimming children. The Coral Pool was right below our room and had an awesome view of the coral lagoon just beyond and was quite far away from the main pool so was never very crowded and quite pleasant. Our favourite though was the Takali Pool because it had great sunset views and it was strictly adults only so was most peaceful. We ended most of our evenings here, sipping on drinks and watching the sun set. So in between breakfast and sunset, we’d alternate with swimming in pools, the beach, lying on deck chairs, reading in the hammock, nibbling on lunch, drinking (having our drinks brought wherever we wanted because of the great bar and food service), snorkelling, jet skiing, kayaking (uh yeah, this tired us out fairly quickly every time so we’d kayak for all of 10 minutes) and then our main activity for the day – sailing the catamaran. This became a great cause for excitement as we played sailors with tacking and tightening and what not. We became rather good (well, it certainly ain’t rocket science) but each day made our man more confident and took me closer and closer to that dreaded wave break, you know, where the real ocean starts after the lagoon… the sight of that always terrifies me. Maybe because it reminds me of the outer Great Barrier Reef when we were all playing around in 12 metres or so and a few metres away, the break ominously fell to something like 200 metres apparently. But anyway, we went closer and closer each time until this one time we had the perfect wind in our sails and it was really choppy suddenly in that area and we were coasting faster and faster and suddenly I notice that his side of the catamaran is completely out of the water and in the freaking air and my side is ready to be submerged any second and oh my god, I lost it. I haven’t been so terrified since I’m not sure when… probably since the snake. Anyway, somehow we slowed down and the catamaran returned to its upright position and I insisted we turn around and head back to sweet safe land which we did. Was great fun though, the catamaran… What else did we do… well, the swimming in the lagoon was an experience in itself… the water is incredibly clear and the fish swim all around you in incredibly shallow water, its crazy! The first afternoon we decided to be very adventurous and walk in the water from our side of the resort to the main lagoon beach… this involves crossing many rocks and such and sometimes there’s no beach to walk on so you have to walk in the water and that’s of course when I met the eel. I was extremely terrified to go any further because I really wouldn’t have been keen to meet its friend, the sea snake but somehow made it out of there. I took the inland route on all future occasions and I only had to contend with creepy garden lizards… oh god, and there were regular wall lizards as well... ugggg… creepy bastards! One day we were different and went on a tour to a completely different island… caught a boat down a river which took us to the Robinson Crusoe island, went on a jet boat ride, snorkelled, made some random tour friends, watched some traditional Fiji customs (in photos later) and drank the most potent rum I have ever drunk in my life. It’s called Bounty Rum and it beats even Jamaican Coruba Rum… I had to refill it with more soft drink and it was still incredibly foul and it got me incredibly buzzed. Now, everyone knows I am the last thing from a one-drink-buzz girl so you have to believe me when I tell you how strong it was. So our days were happily spent…

In the evenings, after our poolside drinks and sunset we’d head back to shower and we’d drink our duty free alcohol and listen to music and get quite buzzed, make a ready mix for the 5 minute walk to the restaurants and head for dinner. There were 3 main restaurants open for dinner and of course we tried them all. One of them was the Black Marlin Bar which also served as the resort’s nightclub. God, it was painfully hilarious. The DJ would play everything from Madonna to Harry Belafonte, from the 80s to the 00s, and people would dance. We did our usual jive thing for a couple of songs and beat a hasty retreat. We’d then wander the beach drinking from our ready mix until we were ready to hit the sack. The other two restaurants were Kalevu and Takali and we liked Takali so much we went back there for dinner on our last night. After dinner, we headed to the Black Marlin Bar in expectation of an 80s night, as promised by a poster, but there were all of 5 people and no one seemed particularly into the 80s, so the DJ didn’t even play the 80s and played some horrendous music some guests provided him. But anyway, it was our last night so we made friends with some of the staff and got suitably smashed before retiring. The next day we left the bright blue and green tropics to return to cold, dreary Melbourne. The nicest souvenir from the trip is my awesome golden brown tan that will keep me in the island spirit throughout the paling, non-sunny winter. That, in a nutshell, was our trip and here are some photos…

The ocean view from our room... you can see the "break"... it was low tide so all that brown stuff is coral

The Coral Pool below our room

The beautiful lagoon and main beach... we met the eel somewhere down here when we were walking in the water

Oh god, the EEL in all its creepiness... that's water if you can believe it... it's so freaking clear

Bright blue starfish such as this one were scattered everywhere in the water... again, that's in water

Robinson Crusoe Island where we went daytripping

Traditional Fiji style of cooking on coals in pits... called 'lovo'

Firewalking

Firedancing

Every day they have crab races like this... number the shells of some poor crabs and assign numbers to guests and the first crab to cross the circle wins!

You can't really see, but look closely and you might see the faint glowing blue... at night, the coral was lit and we'd get ocean side dinner tables on the terrace and it was really most lovely

Sunset as viewed from the Takali Pool... it was a slightly cloudy evening though

But I'm sad to say,
I'm on my way,
won't be back for many a day