This post is for you Mosey!
AKA that annoying awesome sister of mine – Justine, who had a big birthday recently! I’ve been AWOL from here for over a month because I’m making her a rather large photo brag book. It should come in handy as her memory is no doubt starting to go.
(Mosey this is your abbreviated bonus digital version as a multi- kilo hardcover book will no doubt hamper your nomadic lifestyle.)
(Plus I haven’t finished the book yet.)
(And it’s also for Mum but **WARNING MUM** certain sections may not be entirely suitable for parental supervision.)
So: Where Did Mosey Come From?
I first knew her as “Din”.
… I was only 13 months old when we were introduced and the whole “Justine” thing was too damn hard. Still is! I have a whole bunch of other names I prefer to call her.
She has operated under several pseudonyms, including “Oddjob”, which Dad always called her (after the Bond villain who decapitated people with a bowler hat), “Dusty” (in the 1980s this term hadn’t yet come into popular use as a slang term for hung over – at least, not that I was aware, since I didn’t get hung over much in the eighties. I was in primary school after all) and “Poobum” (general description).
And she’s always been known to my boys as “Mosey”, thanks to my codename-bestowing husband. I don’t think they even realised that wasn’t her real name until Finn was nearly four.
Carnarvon’s a little desert oasis at the end of the Gascoyne River on the West Australian coast. Has a main street so wide you need a packed lunch to cross it. When the pub closed at midnight the whole pub could walk down the middle of the road and the local taxi service would hardly notice. Unless it was a really busy night and both the taxis were on.
… who after a year or so of undivided parental adoration was shown a small red person and informed it was her “little sister”.
She was much more fun when I could sit on her, kick her dolly up and down the passageway to make her cry, have tea parties, fight, build cubbies, play dress-ups, that sort of thing.
Mosey’s always looked up to me, and it’s obvious why – she’s short.
But she also obviously adored and worshipped me. I tolerated her quite easily, cos she’s pretty cool.
Our little ol’ house. There’s the window of the tiny bedroom we shared for nearly twenty years. The big unfenced lawn out the back for our DIY tarp tents for sleepovers. Big tamarisk trees for climbing and swinging in, and on three sides lots of dirt roads for hooning on with our bikes. The Indian Ocean a mere three minute sand dune dash away.
(Over to the right is where I dropped that metal manhole cover on your foot that time and your big toe went a funny shape and colour and eventually the nail came off.) (Still sorry!!)
The Sargent Family – The Early Years.
(*I went through these photos with the boys and Finn says to me, “Mummy, why does your hair look like that?” … Dunno… I think I must’ve just given up on it.)
Do you remember…?
The famous treehouse!
The famous causeway*!
(*for non-fambly ie the only road to town from Babbage Island, crossing the – usually -dry bed of the Gascoyne River. On the odd occasion the river came down we were stranded. No school!!)
“Our” jetty! (ie the prawning jetty).
Early adventures…
All those Saturday mornings at Naval Cadets! Pissfarting around in sailboats and tinnies. (Hey were you there when Brownie was hooning too close to the beach that time and the prop hit the bottom and the outboard motor fell off? We had to fish it out of the water then tow the tinny all the way back from Pelican Point! It was funny AF but Brownie didn’t think so. And neither did Sir.)
…plus we had the occasional big adventure like canoeing forest rivers south of Perth or bushbashing through impenetrable forest and getting lost and nearly having to sleep rough, or being deckhands for a day on the Leeuwin II…
Don’t you miss those sexless, shapeless work uniforms and clunky shoes?
(By the way, did you hear the one about the gay whale? He went down on a submarine and sucked out all the seamen.)
And then we had skool too…
(Note how photo is damaged, almost like it is trying to spontaneously combust…)
And just so you know, Mosey, I have dispatched a search team to find that photo of you and Mim as little old ladies for Arsenic & Old Lace. One day…
… Update Christmas 2016!!
That’s better.
Continuing for your entertainment:
Shenanigans!
As we got older we moved away from dollies and dressups, and entertained ourselves in a manner far more in keeping with our maturing tastes.
Like… girly makeup parties.
Annnd… manufacturing handmade chocolates for consumption by discerning friends and family.
And… remember that time we were so far ahead with the wellness trends we even trialled full body treatments with mud imported from the shores of the Dead Sea?
After school: MORE SCHOOL??
(…Bakayaro-! Ahotare-!)
Mosey’s Travels Through Space & Time…
New Year’s 2007 – Brisbane!
Then Mosey Pisses Off Again, to Europe!
2008: We Meet Again, in Canadia!
Later that year: Mosey is promoted to Auntie!
I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t been there to help when Finn arrived; probably managed okay most of the time. Since it wasn’t actually practical to stay curled up in a puddle of hormones to bawl and swear to myself until Finn started school.
Update 2011: Mosey becomes Auntie to a second bobble-head.
2012
2013
2014
2016
You’ve been away for (c/- Roars whinge:”It’s gonna be AAAGES!”) bloody ages and we all miss you heaps. Well you were here just over a week ago but I don’t have photographic proof because you insisted the ones I took were horrible and you looked like an evil witch trying to eat Rory. So since I’m such a good sister I haven’t put up that one. But you better hurry yo ass up and get back here!
Luv ya Poobum. Sort of. You know. Idiot.
– Poo Head.
Still Not A Journal. 
Um. I’m your sista too and I also has a berfday coming up. Your presents rock.
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Huffy! Happy berfdy! For… whenever your berfdy is. You’d think I’d know that, being your sis and all. 🙂
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Ha. It’s not til October. I just want some of your fab preeesents.
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NAAAAW THIS IS THE とってもすばらしいなPRESENTO EVERRRR!!!!
I did laugh and cry in it. There was scoffing. And a bit of resolution-making (take more photos, be more present…I’ll break those).
I can’t think of a better way to celebrate 40 years with my poo head of a sister though, than reading back through them. See, that’s why I keep you on…
Luvs ya (just a bit) x (kick) Din
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I know exactly where you scoffed, laughed and cried because that was my evil plaaaannn!! Mwah ha ha. Glad you like it. I’m spewing a bit though because there are photos I want to put in there BUT I CANNOT FIND THEM AND I’VE LOOKED BLOODY EVERYWHERE. I guess we’ll just have to use our ever- reliable memories…
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There’s where I’m totally RELYING ON YOU here. Hellooo – early onset altheimers. Maybe they’ll turn up though. You never knoooooow
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doesn’t look like you like your sister very much 😀 I laughed really hard at “the main street was so wide you need a packed lunch to cross it.” the rest was added tears and belly spasms hahahaha such a lovely, lovely thing to do for your sister!
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Yeah we totally hate each other’s guts! It’s pretty obvious isn’t it? 🙂
(And you should SEE that main street! It’s literally wide enough for a camel train to turn around in, which is why they were made so wide; so the camel trains back in the early days had room to turn around. All the old towns up north are like that I think.)
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At first I was envious of you for having an amazing sister, for having so many amazing adventures, and for the amazing place where you grew up…but you’ve shared it all with the rest of us.
And that’s just amazing.
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What a lovely comment.! And even though I am her sister and fortunate to have experienced everything she’s writing about, relving it in the way that she tells it is like having it all over again. Which is the best birthday present ever.
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Plus she has a much better memory than me so 1 day I will need her journal to remember what I’m all about..
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:D… Also *choh* – I don’t have a better memory than you, I just have written evidence, more than half of which is no doubt exaggerated. And I seem to have not written about the stuff that I remember best, but in talking to you about it it seems that I actually remember it all totally wrong. D’oh!
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Thanks for the fuzzies, Christopher! I always knew we were lucky that we got along so well and had such carefree childhoods but I didn’t realise just *how* lucky until I grew up a bit and found out what it was like for many other people. So many lovely memories that I’ll always be so thankful for, and try to pass on to my boys.
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Naaaaw yeah I don’t mind her…
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What a frickin’ awesome Berfdy Bonus Brag Book! You make me wanna have a sister :). This being an only child really sucks sometimes because I have no one to make me a berfdy book so ………..
I am just going to pretend that you and Mosey are my sisters and that we call each other names and fight and have make up parties and kick each other’s dollies up and down the hall and make each other cry/laugh and all that other sisterly stuff you two have done over the years. I think I’ll pass on the perm though.
By the way, you were in Canadia and you didn’t stop in for a visit? Now I really am pissed. But you can make it up to me when my berfdy rolls around next June.
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Hahaaaa! I’m not surprised you’re passing on the perm – out of all the fashion crimes I’ve committed and continue to commit perms are the one thing I’m reformed over. Mind you, I was a *three* time offender. Two short and one long. I just refused to see that my fine, dead straight hair would not curl in an attractive manner.
As to inserting yourself into our fambly, welcome! There’s plenty of room. Mosey’s away from me a lot of the time these days so I’m adopting new sisters all the time. You don’t need to forward a resume, I can tell from your blog you’re ONE-OF-US.
And hey, I am SOOOO sorry about not visiting you while I was in Canadia! In my pathetic defence it was before I’d met you or even knew blogs existed. Forgive me? 🙂
And when is your berfdy? Mine is June too! We are totally twins.
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Now it all makes sense; we’re Gemini twins! My berfdy is June 1st. Yours?
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The 7th! We totally have the best star sign. Are you a typical dualistic Gemini? I am. So much so that I confuse myself sometimes. I also love trying and learning new stuff, am socially outgoing (when necessity/the mood takes me), a bit of a smart arse, creative, and “emotionally unreachable and difficult to pin down” – though I’m working on that. It’s funny, I put absolutely zero stock in horoscopes but for some reason believe a bunch of stars millions of miles away somehow influenced my personality. Duality right there.
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read this again at 4.30 this morning and was SO happy – laughed so much. You really are such a good writer!
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