Sunday, Wellington was hammered by vile weather. Shops were quiet while Facebook and TradeMe hummed.<\/p>\n
Woodrow the Weta contractor, didn’t really notice \u00e2\u20ac\u201c he was working \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but he does take periodic breaks. Little does he know he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s messaging Willow.<\/p>\n
Wazzer the bar manager wishes to God she didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to work tonight. However, she is expecting half the staff to skive off \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the problem with being in charge is that she can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. Either it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to be dead in the bar, as people take shelter from the weather, or\u00c2\u00a0 it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to be insane as people run away from their cabin fever.<\/p>\n
Amongst the older, more sedate demographic, Wilhelmina is working on a quilt. Wilson is watching sports.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, in Lower Hutt, despite the spaciousness of her Hutt house, Wilhelmina’s daughter Helena is at the end of her rope. Her young boys have been learning about dinosaurs and are currently playing Mass Extinction in the living room. This involves shrieking, growling, and jumping off all available furniture. Helena\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s urgings that they need to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153play dead better\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t look really dead, darling\u00e2\u20ac\u009d are going unheeded.<\/p>\n
The time has come to plan The Escape. They’ve had enough of the Wellington winter. Two years ago, they went to Disneyworld in August; last year, they went to Fiji when a coup made it cheap. This year, with the recession and all, they are still not inclined to splash out so hugely.\u00c2\u00a0 “What about Melbourne? First weekend in September?” her husband Henry says.<\/p>\n
Helena gives him a knowing look.<\/p>\n
Henry grins, guiltily. “AFL finals. Good fun for the boys. If you come with me to one of the boxes, you’ll have to dress up like it’s the Melbourne Cup.”<\/p>\n
Helena is tempted, instantly picturing herself in a saucy hat and a pink dupioni silk sheath, flute of “bubbly” in hand. “But what about the boys?”<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Maybe your sister Win could come, too? If we get a flat in Melbourne for a week, easy enough to bring her along.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Helena approves of this. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I’m sure she won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mind looking after the kids a few evenings. And we could have a few girls’ days.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Just what I was thinking.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d They exchange a kiss and a squeeze.<\/p>\n
Then they realize they have had ten minutes of quiet uninterrupted conversation, and peer into the living room, warily.<\/p>\n
One sibling is smothering the other under every possible sofa cushion.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m fossilizing him, Mummy! Look!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
ADMIN NOTE: <\/strong>Bonus post to help catch up the plot! Another post in 1 hour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sunday, Wellington was hammered by vile weather. Shops were quiet while Facebook and TradeMe hummed. Woodrow the Weta contractor, didn’t really notice \u00e2\u20ac\u201c he was working \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but he does take periodic breaks. Little does he know he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s messaging Willow. Wazzer the bar manager wishes to God she didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to work tonight. However, she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17,39,35],"class_list":["post-104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shortfic","tag-helena","tag-weather","tag-wind"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}