“Oh Really” Reidy laughed. He had a broad smile that took over half his face. It was hard not to laugh with him, maybe if I hadn’t been so embarrassed I may have chuckled along.
Deano reappeared and I felt my face flush, I glanced at Reidy who winked at me and put his forefinger to his mouth behind Deano’s back. He was going to keep schtum for me. I tried to stand up but was a little uneasy on my feet and light-headed. Reidy caught my arm and held me for a second.
“You best stay here a little bit longer” he said “You’ve lost quite a bit of blood. Do you want a Mars Bar?” he asked.
A Mars Bar dropped down from above me and Reidy caught it before it hit me.
“Thanks” I said
I hung about for a bit longer and listened to all the comings and goings around the Tower, in amongst all the hustle & bustle I’d been left by myself. It was surreal actually being there when I’d watched it so many times on my TV screen. After another half hour or so, I’d recovered enough to finally stand on my own without feeling light-headed. I managed to walk over to the sink and there was a small mirror so I cleaned up my face where the blood had dried. I walked over to the steps leading up to the front of the Tower.
“Erm guys, I think I’m fine to go now. I’m gonna head off home” I shouted up to the guys who were watching the water. It was Reidy and Dean. They turned to face me
“Oh ok, are you sure you’re ok? Do you have somebody who can come get you?” Dean asked
“No, no just me. I’ll be fine. I’m staying just over the road” I replied.
“Well ok then, if you’re sure. It was nice to meet you. Enjoy the rest of your stay in Bondi” Dean stood and offered his hand to shake.
I’d decided I wasn’t going to tell Dean who I was. I’d leave that for tomorrow. Hopefully I could make a better first impression the second time around. I waved and shouted Goodbye to Reidy
“Who knows, maybe I’ll see you around” Reidy shouted back. He was such a teaser. I headed back to the apartment with my bloodied shirt in my hand. I couldn’t help but laugh to myself on the way. Trust me, only I could finally get to meet the Bondi Lifeguards and leave a first impression like that. Tomorrow’s meeting was going to be interesting. Dean seemed so nice though so I was hopeful that I could kind of skirt over the incident.
After spending half an hour explaining to Justin why my shirt was covered in blood, and him chuckling no laughing at me. I returned to my laptop and started writing my first blog. I’m sure people would appreciate the laughs of my first Australian experiences.
The following day I was so nervous, I’d put the previous day to the back of my mind. I had to or I would never have gone.
I put on my skirt suit, a cream short-sleeved on with a scoop-necked top underneath. I wore my day heels, 3 inches as opposed to 5. It was a short walk to Hoppo’s office in the Bondi Pavilion building.
I knocked on the door and Hoppo answered and showed me in. As I walked in Deano was sat on another chair behind the other side of the desk. He took a double-take when he saw me.
“Hi I’m Bruce, good to meet you. And this is Deano” Bruce shook my hand and I turned to Deano with my hand extended.
“Hi, erm we met yesterday, didn’t we?” He had a slightly puzzled look on his face.
“Hi, nice to meet you. Yes, yes that was me yesterday. Sorry I didn’t say anything I was a bit embarrassed” I replied.
Deano explained to Hoppo about how we met and bless him he actually made it sound like I wasn’t a complete idiot. The incident didn’t play out that way in my memory.
The meeting went quite well. I explained my purpose for being in Australia and why I’d chosen Bondi and the Lifeguards as the subject for my first blog. They seemed really impressed and offered to help out as much as they could. I had a heap of questions for them so ploughed through as many as I could. They were so easy to talk to I could have continued for hours. They were so nice and offered to help me with experiencing as much of Bondi life as possible. I think they saw it as an opportunity to help Australian tourism. I couldn’t have asked for 2 nicer people as my local Bondi Ambassadors. As I left, both guys said if I needed anything to give them a shout. Hmm I may need them sooner than they think – they may regret saying that.
The next couple of days whizzed by with writes and rewrites. Being as it was my first ever published piece I was so nervous. I had to email it back & forth a couple of times to Julie to proof-read and she gave me some pointers but the bones of the blog remained intact. She told me she was actually enjoying it which gave me a huge boost. Not bad for a first attempt I congratulated myself. Once I’d submitted the finished blog I decided to explore my local area. I hadn’t really had a chance to experience any of it. I’d even avoided the beach - for obvious reasons.
I rewarded myself with a day off and decided to walk the coast road over to Bronte Beach. I figured I could avoid Deano, Reidy & Hoppo over there and get some sun on my pasty white skin. If I was gonna blend in like an Aussie I guess I should have some colour. As I got to the beach it seemed fairly quiet compared to the madness of Bondi. I found myself a quiet spot on the beach about halfway down between the promenade and the shoreline. I had a baseball cap to protect my face from the sun. I was rather proud of how organised I’d been. I brought my tablet pc for reading & checking my social media. I’d been off it for a few days during my transition from UK to Oz. I’d even remembered water to keep hydrated and my BondiZinc suncream, well if it was good enough for lifeguards eh?
Now one thing occurred to me as I was applying said suncream. How the hell was I gonna apply this stuff to my back? As I struggled, wishing I was double-jointed. I heard a rumbling behind me. It was the rhino.
“Hey Are you alright there? Do you want some help?” a familiar voice came from behind.
“Oh no, not you” I turned and saw Reidy’s face beaming at me.
“Charming” he said “We just saw you were struggling and thought we could help a damsel in distress” he laughed. There was another lifeguard driving.
“Hey, look Beard she’s using BondiZinc” he said turning to the other lifeguard who smiled but didn’t say anything. He was a little harder to read than Reidy (again no pun intended).
I knew from the TV show that Beardy – the other lifeguard was the co-owner of BondiZinc. Well maybe that was a better first impression than yesterday.
Reidy had jumped out and was putting some zinc on his hand and rubbed it all over my back. Now this sounds way more erotic than it was. Beardy (it was quite obvious why he was called this – they really needed more imagination with these nicknames) was watching the water and got out of the rhino. He had eyes fixed on the water. Reidy looked up just as Beardy said “Mate I’m going in” and grabbed a board and ran off towards the water.
Reidy stood up and watched, looking at where Beardy was heading. He wiped his hands on my towel and pulled his shirt off in one very quick manoeuvre (wonder if they practise that?). He radioed the Tower but it looked like Beardy had the situation under control. Beardy came back to shore and replaced the rescue board.
“Sorry about that” he said “I was just watching that guy and saw he was in trouble. I’m Dan, they call me Beardy” he stuck his hand out to me and I shook it.
“Nice to meet you Dan” It felt weird calling him that but I didn’t feel comfortable enough to call people by their nicknames yet.
We chatted for a while and Reidy quizzed me on how my meeting went and what I was doing in Australia or Straya as he pronounced it. He took great amusement in sharing with Beardy my first encounter. I got the impression Reidy was going to be a handful, fun but a handful nonetheless. Was I ever going to live this down?
