bridge to brisbane

Awhile back, I posted this one about Greg Hall, my former high school maths teacher. And yesterdayday, I went and did the Bridge to Brisbane with him!
Last month, he came knocking on our door and said, “hey, Em, a bunch of maths teachers and I are doing the Bridge to Brisbane this year, and we want you to join us.”
I said to him sadly, “Sir, I’d love to, but with my current level of physical abilities, I doubt I can even walk 1km, let alone 10km.”
‘Bah!” he said, waving his hand, “you’d go in your manual wheelchair, of course. We’ll push you. Look on the bright side; you can finally attempt something you’ve never been able to before: boss your teachers around. Push faster! Push slower!” XD
That sounded fairly fun, so I agreed. But I soon regretted my decision, coz he said he’d come pick me up @ 4:30AM IN THE MORNING!!o_O XD
Meaning the night before, the parents gleefully forced poor Em off to bed at some ungodly hour of the night, like 8pm! But there was no point in complaining, coz I did need a good night’s rest for the big day ahead, so I obediently went. Actually, I awoke around 1:30am to use the pot :P once, then, suddenly … ‘twas 4am and dad was poking me with “fifteen more minutes.”!
Although, mother tried cheating, and came to order me up when I still had two minutes remaining! “Go away,” I mumbled, clutching tightly to Bear Bear, “I’ve still got two minutes.”
When I finally did get up, mother fed me one mug of warm Horlicks and I went to the bathroom once, before sitting in the garage and waited for Mr. Hall to arrive.
When he did, I groused at him, “Which insane teacher first came up with the hare-brained idea of dragging me along to some crazy race in the middle of the night? He just laughed and replied, “It’s 4:30am.”
“No it’s not.” I answered him. “The sun’s not up yet; therefore it’s still the middle of the night.” He laughed again. “Get in the car, you.”
The sky started lightening as he drew us to his place.
“Why are we going there?” I asked him.
“My sister Carmel’s kindly offered to drive us to the race start.”
Mr. Hall’s got three younger sisters; only Carmel isn’t a teacher. Think she works in the admin sector.
Lol, funny this was that originally, I thought her name was CARAMEL! XD
Anyways, when she entered the car, we shook hands and I introduced myself to her. Then I told her the story of how Mr. Hall had scared the living daylights out of me back in year ten, when he’d rung to tell me of my maths mark, and she laughed uproariously.
Anyways, Carmel drove us near the entrance; she and Mr. Hall got out Sparkless for me, then we said our thanks and byes to her. “Ring me once you’re done; I’ll come and pick you guys up.” She waved goodbye.
Mr. hall and I started pushing me to the entrance line, which was quite a distance in itself! We eventually stopped at a wall of people, and Mr. Hall got his mobile out and started ringing up the others that were joining us.
“Ah, found you!” a voice suddenly sounded behind us. ‘Twas Bill! I gave him a big hug; he shook hands with Mr. hall, then left to find and bring back Mrs. Perkins.
Suddenly, I heard over someone’s megaphone, “Wheelchair start up the front, please.”
“Umm … is that me?” I asked Mr. Hall, who laughed.
“Nope, you’re with us walkers.”
Suddenly, a couple greeted Mr. Hall, who turned to me and introduced, “Em, this is Mrs. Powell, she took over Mrs. Cook’s job when Mrs. Cook retired.”
I shook her hand and told her how Mrs. Cook had written in my graduation book, “Em, I loved getting your little comments on the maths paper, especially when all was not going well.” See, Mrs. Cook was my year twelve maths teacher, and me, being particularly stupid at maths, would draw poos and angry faces and more poos and crying faces all over my maths exam paper, with comments like, “how can you write any question THIS hard on our maths exam paper, Mrs. Cook? That’s IMPOSSIBLE for us to do!” Mrs. Powell had a good laugh at this, as did the man behind her. I held out my hand to him. “You’d be … Mr. Powell, right, sir? How should I call you?” the man laughed. “’Sir’ sounds great.” Alright, ‘sir’ he was. XD The race finally started, and Mr. Hall and I started wheeling me towards the starting line. As we passed the cameraman taking snaps of all the participants, I gave him a peace sign. XD
Mr. Hall and I started wheeling me up this bridge. Lol, stupid me thought that ‘Bridge to Brisbane’ meant STOREY bridge to Brisbane, but Mr. Hall explained to me, it’s actually the GATEWAY bridge to Brisbane! XD
Mrs. Perkins joined us mid-way, puffing slightly. “Two-thirds of my lungs don’t work when I’m going uphill,” she explained. Poor Perky. 
Then suddenly, a former classmate of mine appeared alongside us, Kate Rasmussen! I haven’t seen her since we graduated high school back in 2004; ‘twas great to see her! I told her what had befallen me, and she told me how she was currently doing some uni degree.
Mr. Powell came and took over pushing with me from Mr. Hall, and kindly stayed with me right till the very end. Basically, we just chatted away. He told me that him and his wife lives at Mt. Gravatt, and that he’s an industrial relations lecturer at Griffith University. The funny thing was that he just called me ‘Sonic’, coz I was wearing my Sonic the Hedgehog cap that I’d gotten from my Ekka showbag! Honestly, I have no idea if he knew my real name was Emily or not. XD
But I kept with calling him ‘sir’, like he’d first instructed me, until at some stage during the race, he laughed and said, “It’s just Ben. Cut the ‘sir’ crap” XD
I think some people entered the race just to dress up silly and stand out! I saw a Star Wars storm trooper, the Cookie Monster and his cookie and a few other silly costumes! Ben was awesome; he’d say, “hey, Sonic, wanna get your photo with (insert character)?” then he’d grab my mobile and take the pic for me! :D
There were also several stations along the way where hundreds of plastic cups were set out with water for us competitors to just take and drink. After swigging a cup, I asked the guy behind the table, “Where’s the bin?”
“Oh, just dump it on the ground,” he said. “Someone will pick them up.” Lol, that’s the first time I’ve ever deliberately just thrown my trash onto the ground! XD
One of the really cool things was that there were even official cheerleaders! We’d go past a stand, there’d be music blaring from a radio/CD player somewhere, and there’d be people clapping and cheering and going, “yeah, you’re doing a great job! Keep it up!” I wonder if they were all volunteers or actually specifically paid to do that?
Last thing to mention: the bathrooms. Lol, there were actually entire ROWS of porta loos dotted along the racecourse! I’d wheel myself up to one, hop out of sparkles, ask Ben/Bill/Mr. Hall to please close the door, then I’d carefully manoeuvre myself around to the toilet. Somehow, I couldn’t fine where they flushed? And, being portaloos, there obviously weren’t any taps to wash your hands in afterwards, but hey, I managed.
At the end of the race, there was an actual bathroom, and I made sure I gave era a good thorough cleaning with that.
And, after the race, you were given a free Bridge to Brisbane tee and a copy of the Sunday Mail! Nice~
And Kylie somehow managed to find me at the end of the race! ‘Twas great to see her, we had a bit of a yak, whilst waiting for Mr. Hall and the others.
When everyone had finally finished, we all posed for a few photos with my mobile. Afterwards, Ben tried finding them from my mobile, but in the end, ‘twas Mrs. Powell who came up to me and said, “Emily, could you please find the photos for us? Ben’s useless with mobiles.” XD
Before we left, I shook Ben’s hand and sincerely thanked him for accompanying me for most of the race. Then I added,” oh, if you’re really curious, my real name’s Emily. Sonic’s just a fictional blue hedgehog.” XD Ben just laughed.
Anyways, Mr. Hall and I wheeled me to this side street, where I handed him two pages of my Sunday Mail and read it myself until Carmel arrived to pick us up. She drove us back to her house, then before Mr. hall drove us away, brought her dog out to meet us! He’ll be a big one when he’s fully grown, but for now, the Rottweiler’s just a big, friendly, sniffily puppy mass. 
Mr. Hall tootled us, not back to his house, but to Maccas! “I remember you whining about how 4:30 was too early and that you wanted breakfast at Maccas.” He laughed. “Well, we’re past 10:30 now, but I’ll buy you Maccas for lunch instead, how’s that?” First, though, he stopped at the nearby Subway to buy us drinks first! Lol, I would’ve thought that buying a meal at Maccas (i.e. with the chips and drinks) would be cheaper than buying drinks at Subway, then buying the chips and burgers (well, wrap, in my case) at Maccas, but hey, no biggie. I just had the chicken Caesar wrap with medium chips, while Mr. Hall had six nuggets (without sauce) and medium chips.
Back at his place, I used his bathroom once first. But lol, him being a single man, no-one else would ever use his bathroom apart from him – there was no toilet paper in the rack! But hey, a well-prepared girl’s never without a packet of tissues; I just grabbed my own packet out from my bag. XD
Afterwards, we both sat down to eat, and he flicked his widescreen television on. Cool, he’s got Foxtel! We watched some tennis replays of the game Sam Stosur played for her semi-finals. “What’s an off forehand, sir?” I asked, after hearing the commentator mention one during the match.
Mr. Hall explained that a normal forehand, you’d swing the racquet across your body and the ball would head left (for right-handed people) but an off-forehand’s when you swing kinda awkwardly and the ball just goes straight.
And just curious, but do I eat super-slowly, or do all Australians just eat super-quickly? Coz I remember, every time mother and I have lunch with Mrs. Dent (my Australian godmother), she always finishes eating ages before we do; and on Sunday, Mr. Hall gobbled his meal in a jiffy then just sat and watched me eat. After I’d finally munched the last chip, he remarked, “Well, it took you thirty minutes longer to eat a medium meal than me.” XD
Another awesome thing’s that he’s got an armchair, and after rocking in it happily while watching Cartoon Network (back when we had Foxtel, Cartoon Network was channel twenty-one, but now it’s sth like 702!) I’ve decided that I now want a ROCKING ARMCHAIR for Christmas! :D hope you’re listening, Santa! XD
All too soon, ‘twas time to go. After visiting his bathroom once more (and this time, I asked for some toilet paper, please XD) I walked back to his car and Mr. Hall tootled me home.
The parents met us at the door, and I gave Mr. Hall a big hug and thanked him for taking me out to such an awesome event and even shouting me Maccas afterwards!
Epilogue: but the fun wasn’t over yet! In the arvo, Kwany and Letty both came to visit me, and we had heaps of fun playing this charades Wii game with the Umbilical Brothers. Then, at night, I went out to church for the mid-autumn festival celebration for JUST and SHINE fellowships combined! Meaning, by the time I got home and hit the sack, I was well and truly, absolutely, buggered. Thus I slept. And slept. Dad left for work and I slept some more. Mum came into my room to feed me two antibiotics (forgot to mention, I went to see the doctor in the arvo before Letty and Kwany came to visit me) then I continued sleeping. And I SLEPT! In fact, I didn’t feel well and truly well caught up on sleep until almost 3pm! XD
Huge thanks to dad who went and bought me the courier mail today, so I could check out my time for the race. Carol found my name for me, while I was munching half a pork salad roll for afternoon tea. Turns out I completed the course in 00:58:57. Lol, had I been slightly slower using the toilet, I’d have passed one hour! XD
Anyways, all in all, ‘twas an amazing experience. Huge thanks to Mr. Hall who invited me along, then to him, Ben and Bill, who all pushed Sparkless with me. This has been quite an adventure which I’ll treasure for a very, very long time!
Next post here … hopefully a movie review! See, the Smurfs movie’s due out soon, and also the Lion King in 3D! I HAVE to see that; the Lion King’s my favouritest movie ever! Anyways, thanks for reading this slightly longer post!
Cheers,
Em. ^^
P.S. I’ve got several photos from the race that I wanna upload onto Facebook; must wait for dad to please find me that cable that attaches the phone to the computer, first. XD