Hank & Petal : Adventures With Beebe, Part 1.

Welcome back!

At last, I have managed to store all 32 illustrations from Adventures With Beebe onto my laptop. No, I wasn't successful in getting the images off my hard drive from my dead previous desk top. Instead, after much searching, I found a complete copy (out of 2 incomplete copies) of the illustrations I had sent off to some publishers forever ago. These pictures are titled and numbered, though some have different header formats. That annoys me. I'm a details girl sometimes.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have fought hard to find the positive in many situations. Living in a bus was no exception. I don't want this to be a character assassination of my previous husband. We all have flaws and I am very aware of mine. I do however want to illuminate the very real challenges that we faced as a family, and hopefully help you see where the motivation for this little story came.

The prelude to Beebe begins. And yes, truth is stranger than fiction...

Here I was, in my late 20's, single, and a mother of 2 very beautiful, fatherless children. I had escaped my tormented past and was sharing a house with a lovely female friend and going to a very accepting and very controlling 'church group' that hated mainstream churches so developed their own. The leader of course claimed his 'power' and proven lineage to King David, and no one was to challenge him. Ok, they were definitely cultish, but it made sense at the time. His passion and mixing of truth with manipulation was very convincing, but being accepted was the strongest hold. No-one could cope with me prior to this. I was pretty angry and wild when I started, yet my dress (very, very Goth), my lifestyle choices and behaviour didn't scare them at all. Before I knew it, I had found my new family.

One night, the leader decided to bring a single, much older man over to dinner at my home. Little did I know that he had already been buttering him up about me. I had been single for years- no boyfriend or dates, so when we got talking, though I was very shy back then, I was excited at how much we seemed to have in common. The leader supported this 100% and before I knew it, we were dating. Six weeks later, we were married. Yes, you heard right. As I type, I'm wondering who this person actually was as it doesn't seem like me at all. Sadly, it was me then.

And here the trouble begins. I had married a man, who thought I was a good Christian girl who wouldn't hurt him. I had married a much older man who I thought would remove my shame, be a father to my girls and be gentle with us. We were both wrong. Very wrong. That is way to much pressure to put on another person.

We moved into his rented house with his 2 nearly adult sons briefly, left the group- my family of 4 years, violently. We had recently purchased a 1969 Bedford bus, downsized rapidly and crammed me, my 2 girls and my husband into our new home, with the purpose of travelling Australia. A lot of grief and major adjustment going on right there- family gifts, treasured items- all gone, not stored. Excommunicated from people I genuinely did love. Thrust into a new life I felt legally and morally bound to with a man who was, in essence, a complete stranger.

The plan was; leave Brisbane and slowly travel around Australia. A condition of Lizzy's distance schooling was we couldn't spend more than 6 weeks at any town. School work was sent to the nearest post office if we had no address. I was actually looking forward to the experience- I have always loved travel, especially after an amazing early childhood exploring much of this great country by caravan (my home) with my family.

So, off we set. We made it to Banora Point, just below the Qld/ NSW border. And there we stayed. We occasionally moved for a night or two as per park requirements then came back to our same sight. It was a very unsettling lifestyle, not family friendly. Sharing a study table come dining room table with a man who at that time wasn't working and just wanted to surf with his mates, then eat when Lizzy was studying wasn't easy. And surfing boys eat. A lot. I wasn't much of a cook before then, but I am now. In fact, I'm the budget cooking queen!

We finally managed to find a secure park to live in at Chinderah, one where we didn't have to move every few weeks. Lizzy started Cudgen Primary School in year 3. It was good to feel settled again. Then, to top it all off, it rained- nearly four months straight. No usable annex-it leaked like crazy. No space. Two adults, two children and an occasional surfing buddy, crammed in a bus. The cracks began to show.

So, after all of that, I decided to record our adventures. My ex had family on land way up past Brisbane's northside, Mt Mee way. Visiting them was fun for the girls, and I really, really wanted to leave them with positive memories of their experiences. So, Adventures With Beebe was born.

I'm a bit embarrassed by the quality of the rhyming. I simply love Graeme Base's work, and pale in comparison to him. But, at the time, it was where I was at, so, even though it's going to be humbling, here goes. Also, the pictures are not consistent. As you know, I love collage, but as this story has taken years to complete, partly due to depression and major lifestyle challenges stifling all creativity. Therefor, the illustrations aren't as consistent as I would like. But, you've got to start somewhere, and this is my somewhere.

This is by no means an accurate depiction of our travels, but is a snap shot of some real & some made up experiences to create a fun story. So, here goes! The first 8 pages...