From an image of #fadedglory here is your story Paul. This tale has now been recorded. Let me read it to you at Insta TV @erinmccuskey or scroll to the bottom to watch.
My little brother was mad for matchbox cars. They were in every room. In doorways, stuck under carpet edges, in kitchen cupboards and down the cellar stairs. In the boy’s room cars formed a carpet while others fell from overstuffed cupboards.
We lived in a country pub where the guest lounge and dining room became the family rooms. The pub had a short bar and a long hallway. The hallway had six guest bedrooms. With seven children in the family the rooms held us all, in various combinations. Each had a single bed, a wardrobe and a basin. A bunk bed in one room became the boy’s room.
The small metal cars were stacked in a long line through the bar, up the hallway and into the hotel bathroom. Anyone coming back from the bathroom, in bare feet, would scream ‘Paullll!’ as the metal cars failed to bend under their tender feet.
On Paul’s 8th birthday I decided to make him a cake from the now infamous Australian Women’s Weekly Cake Cookbook. A vanilla sponge from a circle tin, cut in half through the middle with centres cut out. Iced together with green icing and a cardboard ramp, they formed a figure eight racing track. Some of his cars sat atop the cake track, completing the look.
I was so proud of my first cake without (much) supervision.
He burst into tears when he saw it.
He cried not because he loved such an amazing cake. He cried not because he was grateful. He cried not because his cars were ‘dirty’ with icing on the wheels. He cried because the cake had no candles for him to blow out.
And then he cried, not because we were laughing at him, but because I threw the cake into the backyard for the birds.
Big sisters can be loving and cruel in equal measures.
LUXVILLE TALES story by Erin McCuskey | image by Paul on bike adventure.
The #LuxvilleTales are generated from reader contributed images. Submissions have now closed.
Will you come and play?
