Bye bye Patrick

The Brisbane skyline as seen from the Arts complex just across the river from the city centre


Well we spent a lovely weekend in Brisbane - sort of - taking Patrick back up to uni for the start of term. It was my first visit as I was coming back from the UK in February when Patrick started the year up there, and it was left to Michael and Ella to do the honours driving him up with his stuff.

I'm glad I suggested leaving here on the Friday and staying for two nights instead of one, because it's a long way! It was an 850 kilometer round trip i.e. over 10 hours of driving given a) the speed limits and b) the state of the roads... There are a number of choices about how to get up there: you can just take the Pacific Highway (route 1) all the way there, more or less along the coast the whole way, via Grafton (you have to go through Grafton whichever route you choose), or you can head due north from Grafton via Casino and at some point you have to cut across country. Now the Pacific Highway is full of big trucks with big trailers, speeding and sitting on your tail in a dangerous fashion, so we all agreed that once we were through Grafton we'd go via Casino and avoid the worst of the trucks. On the way up on Friday we cut north through the Border Ranges up past Casino, crossing the Queensland Border on the flanks of Mount Lindesay, with the mistaken impression that we were heading for a major freeway in the form of the Lindesay Highway. Ha, ha! As we twisted our way for 70 kms across the mountains on a basic road that wouldn't have been out of place in the Alps (although if the Swiss and/or French were maintaining it I venture that it would have been straighter, wider and in better condition...) we gradually realised that we were on the Lindesay "Highway". Bloody hell. It took over an hour to get across the mountains, at the end of which we'd lost a lot of time and not travelled very far. As Michael says, 'they do things differently in Queensland'. In Brisbane I saw a poster which referred to the 'Department of Main Roads' - maybe it's one person with a desk, slowly overheating in the Queensland summer...?

Oh well. Once we'd got there and overcome our disappointment about the hotel we were staying in (yes, I did book it, but it was cheap...), we enjoyed ourselves. Everyone was very indulgent of me on Saturday, allowing me to spend most of the day in the arts/culture complex across the river that houses the Queensland Centre for Performing Arts (abbreviated to QPAC, apparently), the Queensland State Library (which I shall have to come back and visit again; AMAZING piece of architecture and a fascinating collection!), the Queensland Museum of Art, and the new Queensland Gallery of Modern Art. Sadly I'd missed the Asia-Pacific Triennale which finished at the end of May, but even so the exhibitions were exciting. See my other blog at http://doubleelephant.blogspot.com/ for images! Mind you, it might take me a while to put the pictures up there given how long it takes to upload things here... be patient!




Mad installation art by Katharina Gross!

We had dinner at Gambaro's seafood restaurant on Saturday night, and then finished things off with a dim sum breakfast in the city centre on Sunday morning before dropping Patrick off and starting the long trek home again.

It was strange seeing Patrick in a college environment. I can't say being amongst a bunch of 18/19/20 year olds is an exciting experience: lots of strange clothes, facial hair and non-commital grunts going on - not my cup of tea! When I was at college the men and women on my (mixed) corridor were a fairly sanitary bunch; if they had nasty personal habits I didn't trip over them, and rooms were reasonably tidy and didn't smell... I think a male-only college, certainly in this day and age, is somewhat different. Just goes to show how old I am! Patrick is enjoying it, although he's now decided that he'd like to move out into a shared house next academic year.




Patrick's room at St Leo's College - small but functional!










We'd had a bit of a grumpy week of him being at home. We were all tired after coming back from the UK, and we were getting on each others' nerves quite a lot, so leaving Patrick at St Leo's was a mixture of sadness and relief, I think, for all of us.

Isn't it funny how life changes? For a long time Patrick felt as if he was banging his head against a brick wall living at home, partly because it's hard to see, as a growing adolescent, that anything around you is changing. Perhaps one changes so quickly that everything else seems slow even it life around you is changing too. At least at college, however squalid I might find it, he's free to create his own life - new tattoo and all! I can remember how difficult the moving-away-from-family phase was for me, for different reasons, and I can see how difficult it is for Patrick too. Doubtless we'll all be getting on each others' nerves some more over the coming months... I think it's true to say that Patrick and Michael and I are achieving a new appreciation of each others' good points - from a distance! Being away from home allows you to get rid of the niggles and enjoy the fun bits of weekly telephone calls and tales of your latest exploits, without your parents nagging you about the state of your room/what time you came in last night/how much money you've still got etc.

We'll wait and see what happens next. Patrick needs a job so that he's got some more money and some more independence, and he needs a driving licence too. Quite how he's going to get either of those things will, I guess, become apparent over time - all part of the saga! - but it's exciting for him to think about being in his first shared house! I don't think he realises how much time will be taken up with things he doesn't have to cope with now, such as shopping, cooking and (presumably) cycling into uni for lectures and stuff. Nor does he realise how much money it's going to cost in terms of a larger food bill, internet and phone charges, gas and electricity and rates bills, rent and transport costs. But I guess he'll work it all out, much as we have all had to do. Michael and I had a bit of a flip out about his announcement that he'd like to live out of college next year, partly because it's the exact opposite of what he'd previously said, and partly because we'll now be having nightmares about giving a parental guarantee for the rent on a house full of his ne'er-do-well mates and having to carry the can for them when they're irresponsible with the landlord's things! Maybe it will all be different: it's Patrick's job to find some housemates and organise things, and our job to sign on the dotted line and hand over the cash... with the proviso that he'll be paying us back if it all goes bottom-up!

The person it will affect most, I think, is Ella. If Patrick rents in Brisbane it's inevitable he'll come home less frequently, and so Ella will see even less of him. Despite the fact that they fight and nag each other, they love each other very much and Ella was desolate about having to say goodbye to Patrick yesterday. But what can you do?




Patrick and Ella hamming it up in the cafe at one of the galleries...