The Art of Conversation Lives On

Mark "Hello, Western Exposure, this is Mark speaking."
Chris "Hello, I'm calling about a booking I made at the weekend for one of your Broome-Darwin tours. I mistyped the e-mail address, so I'm ringing to find out what's going on with the booking."
Mark "Oh, hi, it's Chris isn't it? Yeah, I've booked that for you already."
Chris [surprised pause] "Yes, that's me. That's good news, but I haven't actually had an e-mail about it yet, though."
Mark "Oh, have you not? Hmmm. I thought I'd sent you one - I remember doing something with it on Sunday morning, but I had had a few beers the night before. Or maybe it was Monday. I'd had a few beers that night too."
Chris [suppressing giggles] "Oh, OK. I'll have another look for it.... No, I've had nothing."
Mark "Ah well, I remember sending the e-mail off to your wrong address, then opening the next one in our inbox and that was from you with the right address - you'd swapped a G for an E, hadn't you? Maybe I didn't send the second one - sorry about that."
Chris "You have a pretty good memory considering you'd had a few beers!"
Mark "Ah cheers mate. I also charged your credit card a bit early - we're only supposed to do that 4 weeks before. I probably shouldn't have done that."
Chris "Well, that's all right - it's only a week or so early."
Mark "The PC that stuff all lives on has been put to sleep for the night so I'll get on to sending you another e-mail out first thing tomorrow."
Chris "Excellent, thanks - hope tonight's beers are great for you."
Mark "Sure they will be, mate!"

That's not quite verbatim, but it isn't too far off! I put the phone down and collapsed in fits of laughter.

The aforementioned trip is this one, and I'm going in the middle of May, when I'm not likely to get myself either roasted alive or drowned in a flash flood. As far as I'm concerned, the two main highlights are visiting the Bungle Bungles, something I can remember wanting to do since Helen Daniels went there in Neighbours, and driving through a town called Humpty Doo. After this, I'll only have one state left that I haven't yet visited - Tasmania. That one I need to save for next summer, though, as it has a decidedly British climate for most of the rest of the year.

On a holiday theme with this post, Colm and I are going to do a bit of a grand tour of Victoria over the Easter weekend. We're off to the Grampians, to do plenty of walking and animal-spotting (although I've just discovered that due to bushfires in the area last year, many of the walks I'd most wanted to do are closed - can't go here or here (main photo) for example). Then we'll drive back to Melbourne along the coast, taking in the Great Ocean Road and a couple of state parks along the way. Likely exhausting (it'll be somewhere around 1000 km of driving) but fun!