A story about a wallaby and a doona cover with Candice Fox

Candice Fox joins us to talk about "rescues". To find out more about Candice and her books visit https://www.candicefox.org

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Transcript

0:04

Hello and welcome to real stories with random writers. I'm Ra Sprat, and I'm here with Jacqueline Harvey and Tim Harris. And today's special guest is Candice Fox. Candice is the author of the Crimson Lake series, the detective Harriet Blue series, co written with James Patterson and the Archer and Bennett series. And her most recent books are the Murder Inn and Devil's Kitchen. Welcome to the show, Candice. Woo. It's lovely to see you. This is a pre story story. Candice and I last met at a charity function, and Candice is still traumatised because the men in our debate teams were just ignoring us. They just had a lot of time. For us because they were so enamoured with themselves. But we're here and I'm feeling guilty because I brought them together to that event. So, you know, anyway, we shall move on. Less traumatised by this event. They don't eat it. Yeah. We'll find out next time we talk to Candice how traumatised she is by this. Okay, we're all authors, which means we're storytellers. Normally we write our stories down, but for this podcast, we're going to tell them out loud instead. And today we're going to be telling tales about rescues. Okay, so I'm going to preface this with saying we set this theme up because we know Candice is a friggin legend and she goes around rescuing things. And there's so super cool videos on the Internet of her rescuing things like animals. Not like they'll get the wrong idea, but I am a writer and I've been a writer since I was 22. I have lived a very staid life and I rarely leave the house. I mean, not even to go into my own garden. So I don't often get to rescue things. But a few years ago, I was fortunate. I'm fortunate enough to get to be a hero. And this is many years ago. This is like 20 years ago in the halcyon days, before I had children. You know how it is when you don't have children. Focus on your career and speak to your husband and things like that. You can leave the house in under 15 minutes at the door or in the car. Two or three minutes, maybe. Yeah. Or also, you can not leave the. House because you don't have to go forever. So anyway, at this time, I was a full time writer working on about three different tv shows, but I was also a taekwondo and hypkido instructor. So I worked Saturday mornings as well as working in the weekend. So Sunday was my only day off. So I got up one Sunday morning and it was a beautiful day, and I sort of slept in a bit. And I thought, I'm gonna have a nice hot bath to start the day. So I go out to the bathroom, I run a hot bath, and I get in, and you know that beautiful moment when you soak in and you're just like, ah. You know, I've probably literally been beaten up by a bunch of, like, preschoolers the day before at taekwondo. So it was just like a real, oh, this is so good. I just, like, sink into the deep relaxation. And thinking of it now, it's probably like 16 years. Cause I've got a 16 year old since I've felt that level of relaxation. But it was really that beautiful, sweet moment. And I sink into the bath, and then there's a knock at the door, you know, knock, knock, knock. And it's my husband. And he's like, rachel? And I'm like, what? And he's like, rachel, what is it? And he's like, there's smoke coming from the neighbor's garden. I'm like, ah, so. And he's like, I think there's something on fire over there. Now, just so you understand. We were living in my parents house at the time because my parents, when my dad retired, moved back to England for a couple of years. So we moved into their house because it's much nicer than anything we could afford. And I'm the youngest of my generation in our family, so all my cousins are older, and I will permanently. Even though I'm nearly 50 now, I am permanently in my family. The young, stupid one. No matter what I do, I'm the idiot. You never asked to do anything. So when I moved into my parents house, I'm like, gonna. I'm gonna live in this house better than anyone has ever lived in this house before. And I was determined to impress all the neighbours, so I was their best neighbour. And when my parents came back, they'd be like, oh, you're back. Where's Rachel? So anyway, so I'd be really good to the neighbours. Like, one neighbour, they got broken into, and I'd gone over when their alarm went off and scared off the burglars and called the cops, and I got all these brownie points. So now my other neighbour, something's on fire at their house. And I'm like, oh, I suppose we better deal with this. We can't just ignore this. Like when we, you know, in the city and you would do so, I'm like, well, just go get the hose and put the fire out. And my husband's like, oh, where's the hose? Because Angus has zero practical skills. He's a lot like you, Tim. I remember the time you broke your banner and you didn't even know how to use a power drill. I was horrified. And you said that you get people from air Tasker to do things like that for you. So my husband didn't even know where the hose was. Okay? So I'm like, go get the hose. And he's like, oh, where's the hose? And I'm like, ah. So I get out of the bath, I dry off, I put my clothes on. I'm like, you know, cursing his name. I go out into the garden, I go and I plug in the hose, I grab it and I run down to the far fence and WHOOP it. Just like it's not long enough. It's like seven metres too short and you can see the smoke coming up. And I'm like, oh. So I go and look over the fence at this point and it's like the compost bin is on fire. And it's more serious than it sounds because there's all this ivy that, you know, she was. Her husband was in the navy, he was never there. They've got four kids. She's not spending a lot of time in the garden. It's really overgrown and about, like three metres in all direction around this compost heap. All the undergrowth is on fire and their shed is right next to it. And I'm thinking if they put. If they store their petrol for the lawnmower in that shed, we're in a lot of trouble, you know, in about five minutes. So I'm like, I'm not going to say a word, but, you know, shoot. I'm thinking, shoot. I've got to do something quickly. So I run back into the house because we have a fire extinguisher because I used to barbecue fire escape when we lived in a flat. And I once had a two metre high fire coming off my little weber barbecue because I'd accidentally put too much fire starter in it. So anyway, ever since then, my husband, he bought me a fire extinguisher. So we had one in the kitchen. So I run in and I pick it up and it's not that big. It's like the size of a one and a half litre coke bottle. Although they don't come in one and a half litres, do they come in 1.25 litres. So it's a size of a coke bottle, I run out, I leap over the fence like a superhero. Is like, very athletic. I was quite impressed with myself. I was a bit thinner and younger then. And I run over, I bust it out and of course, it's actually much harder to get a fire extinguisher going than you think. But I finally rip it out. I go, shh. I put it all out and I put all. I find their hose and I put everything out and get all the undergrowth done. And I was so pleased with myself because I knew I now had maximum ever brownie points with this family. I went around and put on a note on the door because they'd been at church, too, so, you know, like, they were connected to God. Like God would see me doing this because they were at church. So I was not just getting brownie points from them. It was like I was helping someone who's a veteran in the navy. God was involved because they were a church. And it's like I could not get more brownie points. And so I was super pleased. So that was my humble domestic rescue mission. Were they pleased? Were they pleased? Oh, yes. I got a box of roses chocolates out of that. Thank you very much. Once. Remember the old roses chocolates ads that. Thank you very much. Thank you very, very much. I still sing that. Thank you very much for doing the dishes. Whoever came up with that was very, very good. Yeah. And there's no songs like that anymore that tell a narrative. My favourite one was, got a call from Mister Fryer. He's ringing up the vibe the kitchen looked at from the little dinner last night. Although it looked quite sickly, I had to clean it quickly with spray and wipe all purpose. It cleans up every day. Oh, my gosh. Well done. They can fly back. Yes. Everyone knows it. It's great marketing. They don't have those anymore. They don't have. And kids don't know about it. They don't understand. So if you just suddenly start singing a jingle, they're just like, what was that? Because they just don't have them anymore. And they were powerful marketing tools. Remember that? McDonald's did that. We will give you a discount or a free something if you can say what's in the recipe or the ingredients in a big bag. Yeah, that's the one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all know it. Amazing. Yes. Oh, see, I know a theme song that I've never even heard the ad because it was in England before I was born, but my mum used to sing it all the time, which was nuts. Oh, hairs or nuts, cabbage. Take them and they cover them with chocolate. And now I say that, I realise it's racist. Oh, yeah, that's probably the original as well. Like, you hear the original go, what? Because it's come all the way down. That's the ao. Yeah. But 50 years ago, that was all the thing on british radio. Yes, yes. So, Candace, you are renowned for your rescue rescues of animals of late. What have you got for us? What's your most recent exciting rescue? Look, I'm addicted to animal rescue and I've rescued everything from duck eggs to a bandicoot. I did a bandicoot and I generally bring my four and a half year old daughter with me to these rescues. There's a lot of possums, there's a lot of birds. So when you get something unusual like a bandicoot, I remember that when she was in the bath and I saw it come up because it's just an app and it comes up and it said bandicoot, and I snatched that child out of the bath like an eagle, and I threw her in the car stark naked and I was like, oh, it's a bandicoot. Um, so I was here at home, uh, and, uh, and she'd gone to bed and I was sitting there with Tim, trying to have quality time with Tim, and the alert came up and it said, a wallaby. And usually a Wallaby rescue is just. It's been hit by a car. Can someone go cheque his pouch, see if there's a baby in there? So it's not terribly exciting. But this one said, fully functional wallaby trapped in someone's backyard for three days, you know, and it's got to be, like, physically removed. And I was like, yes. Except, yeah, I'm going. And I drove out into the dark of the night with only a Doona cover. Because the literature says, if you're going to rescue a wallaby, stick it in a Doona cover. Right. But it doesn't like. Because the rescues are never a fully functioning wallaby, they're always a very sick wallaby or one that's been hit by a car and it's not moving a lot. This would bode very badly for me, this advice about the Doona cover. Anyway, armed with my Doona cover, I drove there. Can I just ask about the Doona cover? Like, it. Was it your Doona cover? Was it your Doona cover? I just picked it. I just picked. It wasn't, like, just a spare random selection of Doona covers. If you've now got in your cover? No, it's just I've got girls, too. And I know most of my Doona covers are, like, Elsa Doona covers and, you know, frozen. Yeah, they're all, you know, fun doona covers. Yeah. No, this was. I think it had birds all over it. It was my Doona covers. And I took it out of the. Just took it out of the linen cupboard. And so I'm driving, and I'm looking at other cars and thinking, how many other people are going to Wallaby rescue? Probably done. Going to one. And I got there, and this woman's got. So she's got out the front of her house a 15 foot brass statue of a giraffe. And I was like, well, that's something. And then I rang the doorbell, and it played the song happy birthday. So at this point, I'm thinking to myself, is this an imaginary wallaby that happens sometimes? Like, particularly elderly people, they go, oh, there was a lizard in my backyard, and now I don't know where it is, but would you like to have a cup of tea? Really? Um, so I rang the door. Happy doorbell. And this woman comes out in this pink satin robe with a fluffy trim. An older lady with her hair fully blown up, like, you know, in a bouffant. Yeah, yeah. In that light bulb shape that elderly kind of do sometimes. And the first thing she says, she goes, stupid. Doorbell. And I said, no, actually, I love it. It's the first ding dong, happy birthday doorbell that I've ever come across, actually. And I said, do I. Have you got a wallaby in your. Backyard and a giraffe in your front yard? And she said, yes, like it was her fault. And I said, I can help you with one of those. So I went out the back, and she's got this massive property, and it's a huge sloping backyard, and it's pitch black out there. And I said, well, where is it? And she said, it's out there somewhere. And I just heard, thump, thump, thump. This thing has been startled by me opening the back door, and it's come thumping down, and it was like dinosaur feet stomping. The glass of water was shaking, and. Trees are, like, crashing because it's crashing through the undergrowth grain from one top of the garden to the bottom. And I was like, okay, well. And I really had no plan because there is no. There's no, how do you do it? Because you don't usually have to do it. So I was just. I was literally just winging it. How big was the wallaby? Candace, have you seen at this point? Well, when I got near it, it was up to my waist, and we're talking 30 or 40 kilos. Cause it's all muscle. This is muscle. And just so you can visualise this listeners, Candice is not a large woman. She's a normal sized person. No, I do work out, though. I work out. Yeah, you do. But, you know. Yeah. Um, so, yeah, then I saw it. I saw it and, um, you know, I'd forgotten my proper torch, so I only had my phone torch and I lit it up and I went, okay, there you are. And it was trying to, it was trying to hop over a fence and it couldn't get, couldn't get out, and it just came into her yard somehow and then couldn't find its way out. And she said, well, what, what are you going to do? And I said, well, I'm going to put this creature under arrest. All right, well, I'm going to stay here. And I said, yeah, you stay there. And so I just kind of. It doesn't matter what you're trying to corral, like, whether it's like a little baby bird or something. My, my own strategy, which I've come up with, that you can use for any of these animals, is you squat down low and put your hands out, and then you just walk it into a corner. And then it's right in the corner. You just say to yourself, three, two, one, snap. And that's it. That you just like a snake. And I do that. I count myself into a lot of things in life. Like, if I have to go up on a big stage or whatever, I go, three, two, one, go. In the crouching position. Yeah, in the crouching position. She crouches onto my crouch, my way up to the stage. I do key ups because I used to be a martial artist. And the thing you do in martial arts, if you're going to do something that you don't want to do because you know it's dangerous and you know it's going to hurt, you just go, huh? And then you do it. And as soon as you hear it come out of your mouth, you gotta go. Yeah, yeah, you gotta go. But if you don't do it, you don't go. Something takes over and it becomes like white noise. And so I just backed this thing all the way into a corner and it had no choice but to come at me. And so it was hopping down the fence towards me and it tried to get in between the fence and my body, and I just went like that, and I just grabbed it. I grabbed it by the shoulders. Sometimes I do this to Violet because Violet and I have WrestleMania, and one of us will just go, WrestleMania. Ah. And then we just run and we wrestle for as long as we wait until Tim says, careful, guys, and you. Hear him, the mum will get hurt. I broke my toe once putting my daughter to bed, because part of the bedtime routine was wrestling, wrestling. And she wanted me to come up with a new wrestling move every night because she does jiu jitsu. So I'd read her a story, sing her a song, and then we'd wrestle, and I had to come up with a new one. And it was always like the leaping flamingo or something, and there always had to be a run up, and then I'd sort of, like, jump in the air, spin, do some sort of, like, thing, and then land on top of her. And one night, I did the run up, and I ran into a piece of furniture and broke my toe. Ouch. Yeah, well, we do it until we hear Tim in the other room. Go, careful, guys, and wait, wait. So anyway, yeah, so I just shove this thing onto the ground, but then I'm. I've got my whole body on it, and I'm trying to, you know, and it's. It's kicking and making terrible grunty noises. And so at this time, I'd forgotten the Doona cover, though. So I'm saying to the little odd lady, give me the Doona cover. Break it out of here. She was like. So I managed to wrestle it into the Doona cover, though, by pulling the Doona cover over its head and getting it halfway down its body and then all the way in. And then it was like the alien, you know, when the alien burst? Yes. It just went like. It just came straight out of the doona cover like that. So I just kind of wrapped the doona cover around its head and the top half, and I grabbed the back ankles. I pinned them together, and I had to get my whole body under it, and I lifted it up like this, you know, and it's lying in my arms with one, with its tail going over my arm, but the rest of it was swaddled in a way that very much looked like a child. Like the head and the arms and the belly all wrapped in a doona cover, looking very much like your child. So I took it all away, and it's like this, like that. I took it all the way out to my car, and I'm trying to open the boot of my car, and these people are across the road in the dark, walking their dog. I couldn't think of anything else to say except I went, it's not a child. Then I lifted the boot and I shoved it in and I just sort of whack the tail in like that and then slam the boot. Anyway, so I. Because that's how we get our kids into the car. Yeah, you pin them by the crutch. I was saying this to some new parents the other day. I said, you're gonna get to the stage where you can't get her in a car seat. Here's my tip. Pin them by the crutch and then you can do everything else. Anyway. Anyway, yeah. So I took it to the vet, and on my way to the vet, I called my boss at the rescue organisation, animal rescue organisation, and I said, I've got that wallaby. But, you know, I got a little. Bit of a look at it at. This scene, and it's got some things about it that are concerning me, so I'm taking it to the vet. And she said, well, how did you do that? And I said, well, I just put it in the back of my car. And she said, but how? I said, well, I just placed it. Under arrest and I put it in. The back of the car as one would with a, an unruly drunk man, I suppose. She said, well, okay, but Wallaby rescues are supposed to be a two person rescue. And I went, oh. She said, ideally three people. And I was like, okay, well, I guess, I guess I didn't read that bit in the 19 book, so. And then I took it to the. Vet, and the vet was like, oh, it's been hit by a car, has it? And I said, no, no, it's been hit by. Whacked by Candace. It whacked Candace. It's been hit by a fox. They got taken down by a fox. Yeah. They were all like, oh, God. Oh, God, what do we do? You know, because they weren't used to that either. So it, um, so, yeah, it was, it was so much fun. It was so cool, you know, I. Want to know, how far do you travel for these rescues, Candice? So, you know, you see this alert come up and you go, I will just drive from one end of Sydney to the other, or I'll, I will. Drive from one end of Sydney to the other, depending on what it is. If it's something really interesting that I haven't rescued before, like, that was about, it was about 25 minutes drive, but it's in my zone of my region. Yeah. So. But I'm trying to collect, like, the whole bingo card of Australia. And I'd like to know how many injuries have you acquired since you've been involved in this rescue missions? While I was holding the wallaby down for the lady so that she could give it an injection, knock it out, my hand sort of slid up towards its throat and it bit me. And. And then the vet was like, oh, my God. Oh, no. And I said, no, it's okay. I've never been bitten by a wallaby before, but I've been bitten by everything else. I've been bitten by a spoon, Bill. And somebody said, what's it like to be bitten by a spoon, Bill? And I said, well, it'd be exactly like if somebody got two spoons. And they went, I got bitten by. A crimson Rosella on my fingertip once. And I have never known pain like it. It is seriously worse than. Worse than childbirth because it's all your nerve endings and those beaks are designed to crack nuts. Yeah. And I was trying to save it out of it. It got caught in some netting. So I was. I picked it up and it just, like, latched on my fingertip. And I'm like, I could just squeeze my hand and kill you and you're trying to hurt me. Yeah. I've been bitten several times by possums because I just couldn't be bothered. I'm a little bit of a lazy rescuer, and sometimes I just couldn't be bothered with the gloves because half of these things can bite you through the gloves anyway. And I just feel I'm trying to cultivate that skill of being able to grab these things without getting bitten. And it's. It's funny because I go to these rescues a lot of the time and. And there's a. There's a man there and he's called in the rescue and he's there with his wife, and they get a bit huffy, you know, because I turn up and I'm like, hi, it's me. Awesome that you weren't man enough to grab your. And then, you know, and then to do it with my bare hands is extra insulting, I suppose. And so, yeah, one of them said to me the other day, can I ask you a question? How did you pick it up? I said, I just went like this. Okay, all right. Okay. You know, in barrel one day we had a kangaroo come down main street, and I don't know if you know barrel, but the main street of barrel is called Bong Bong Street. Bong Bong street, yeah. Could be boing Boing Street. I tell this story when I'm in America. The kids love hearing about australian animals. So I always say. So the kangaroo was going, boing boing, down Bong Bong street. That the person who caught it was Tony Lockett. Oh, wow. Yeah. Because he lives locally. He's like, got greyhounds and he was in Corbett Plaza. So you go down Bong Bong street and there's like a bit of a plaza where, you know, there's no traffic. The kangaroo turned in there. Tony Lockett just happened to be walking past. And for people who don't know who Tony Lockett is, he was an AFL player who had the most goals ever in AFL. He's a really big bloke and really, really good at AFL. So anyway, he's walking along, but he doesn't like anybody to realise that he's Tony Lockett. So everyone just pretends, oh, I don't realise that this massive guy is Tony Lockett. But, yeah, and anyway, he was walking along. The kangaroo just hopped towards him. He just reached down, caught its tail and he just held it like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he just held it. Something's going along the fence and I go, I gotta move now. Like, you know, because it's seen me and it's get on the move. I gotta move now. And I just grab the tail and then I hold the tail and then I go, all right, can you pass me that thing over there? Because if you've got the base of their tail, they can't do anything. They're stuffed, you know? Well, that's what Tony Locker did. He just hung onto it for like ten minutes. They went and got someone from the vet to come down and they gave it something to make it sleepy and then they took it off to the vet, but it was right outside the newspaper office. So the photo journalist came out, took a photo and said, tony Lockett, kev, you got a comment? And he's like, he's really shy. And he was like, I don't do media. And he just walked off. Where was the Wallaby? Where was the wallaby? Slung around his shoulders? No, no, the vet took it away recently, right. So the local media didn't show the picture and didn't run the story, but it was in the Sydney Morning Herald because they didn't care about Tony Lockett's privacy. Oh, well, yeah, it's. Yeah, a fun feeling, though, you know, to be that because everyone looks, you know, and I feel like a bit of a hero. I get the. The one that I get a lot of the time is it's an elderly person and they've got a blue tongue under their fridge. Blue tongue listed under their fridge or behind a big cabinet. And they're like, I can't even get down on my knees to look to see. I can just see the tail sticking out. And so Violet and I have come up with a strategy. We use what's called the coat hanger of destiny. It worked for us once and we kept it forever. And I said, we're going to put this in the back of the car. This will be the coat hanger of destiny. And we always use the same coat hanger and we just bent it all the way around and then, but back on itself right at the tip so that it hasn't got a sharp tip and you just come around behind the lizard and you just go under its tail. Oh, God, something's touching me, you know, and then comes out and the lizard tickler. Yeah, exactly. Awesome. Oh, very good. Well, okay, Jackie, you're story. Well, I've been thinking about rescue stories. I've got a very funny story about an uncle of mine who thought that he was rescuing a snake in the national park one day. Really? He wasn't rescuing it, he was stealing it because my cousin, he used to collect reptiles and he had like a tank of reptiles and he thought, you know, I'll take this home for my. Cousin to have a look at and. Then we'll release it back into the bush again. But, you know, it's an interesting little set snake. And anyway, so my uncle was also an ultra marathon runner who used to like to run really vast distances for no good reason, you know, just because he could. And so he's running through the bush and he sees this little snake and he thinks, ah, Stuart really loved this snake. I'm going to just pick him up and I'm going to take him home and give him a look and then we'll release it back again. This is so irresponsible on so many levels. Completely flags here. He likes to run thousands of kilometres and he likes to just pick up snakes for random snakes. So he's got the snake, he's got the snake, basically the head under his thumb. I mean, it's a little like, it's not a big snake, it's a little baby snake, right? So he's got the head under his thumb and he's running through the bush and he's going like, you know, chun chun chug, pound, pound, pound through the bush and his hand gets a cramp. So he decides he needs to change hands. And as he changes hands, this snake bites him in the wedding between his thumb and his forefinger. Oh, no. He's now being envenomated by the snake between his thumb and his. Envenomated is a word. Envenomated is. He then goes like this, and he, like, shakes his hand, and the snake flies off into the bush. So he now does know, not know exactly what type of snake has bitten him. I just want to say he totally deserved that. And good for the snake. Well, his heart would have been pumping because of the running. Like, cut to snake news that night. And there's this. And he tried to abduct me, but. I fought my way back. The snake's parents are like, we're so. Glad to have her home. Keep your kids safe. It gets worse because he goes home and he. He sort of feels like, I need to have a bath. So after you've been bitten by a snake, the last thing you would do is get into a warm bath. And my auntie comes home and he's like. And she's like, are you okay? And he's like, oh, I'm not feeling so well. But he neglects to tell her the reason he's not feeling well is because he's been bitten by a snake. Anyway, like, what are you gonna say? I tried to bring a snake home and a booty. Sorry, mom. Well, it gets to the point where he is now, like, sweating and feeling like he's going to die. So he has to confess that he got bitten by a snake trying to bring a snake home. So anyway, my auntie takes him to the hospital, and they're pretty sure that the snake that he had picked up was a brown snake. Oh, so he has the antivenom. He lives to tell the story. It is kind of legendary. Hilariously dumb things to do, dumb ways to almost die. This is like Darwin award stuff. This person should be removed from the gene pool. So anyway, so that's one rescue story which was not really rescue, but he needed rescuing after he thought that he was, you know, going to do something nice for his son. But my other story that I had. Was just imagine how that could have played out. He brings home the brown snake, gives it to his son, and the son gets bitten by the brown snake. Exactly. So, yeah, so anyway, that's, you know, he's. He's only an uncle by marriage. It's not. I'm not blood related to this guy. So anyway, the other story is about my my mum, who actually did rescue. So it's about a rescued dog that my dad bought home from. He'd been working on a job somewhere. My dad is a cabinet maker and he would often be working all over the place. And there was this old english sheepdog called Winston. And the people said, oh, no, we can't keep Winston anymore. And I think they were older and they couldn't really handle him, whatever. And dad thought, oh, I'll take him home, because we always had dogs and cats and what have you. Anyway, so Winston just turned out to be fairly difficult. He was a very difficult rescue dog and he would kind of, you know, you'd go to groom him and he would try and bite you and, you know, he was just not an easy dog to be around. So anyway, one day he decides, obviously, that it's time to have swim and he jumps into our swimming pool and he, for whatever reason, he was not a dog who'd ever learned to dog paddle. And so this dog is now drowning in the swimming pool and he's a full sized old english sheepdog, right, massive dog. So my mother gets in the pool to try and push the dog out and the dog almost killed her. And so seriously, like, pushed my mother under the water and only that I happened to be home and saw her, like, struggling with the dog on top of her. So anyway, we dragged the dog out of the, out of the water and anyway, Winston ended up being rescued by somebody else after that because dad was not going to have him. Had like four rescues. Rescued Winston and then you rescued. I rescued my mum. Mum tried to rescue the dog. She almost died. It was, it was a bad, bad story. When I worked at Good Newsweek and we would go through the newspapers and find all the silly stories. We used to have a collection of stories which is people who die trying to rescue dogs that then don't die because they rescue themselves. Yes. Well, that probably would have been how this played out, I'm sure. Fortunately. Yeah, fortunately, mum. I just remember him, like, pushing on her because he was so big and he's like, pushing on her and she's trying to lift him up and my mum is. My mum's about half the size of you, Candace, and you're not a large person at all. And so my poor mother's like, yeah. And those english sheepdogs with all that hair, it would be like in romance novels when women fall into water and they're wearing the ridiculous dresses and the dresses, like, suck them down. Yeah. So anyway, so there you go. It's such a Hollywood plot device, isn't it? Where you have, you know, the characters are escaping from something and it's always the pet dog that makes them turn. Go the other way. Yeah. Yeah. So I used to live back in 2001 and 2002 and three, my first three years of primary school teaching, I moved out to a very, very little country, I'll call it a country town out past North Richmond called Tennyson. Have any of you guys heard of. I know where that is. I think Sydney actually has two Tennysons. Yeah. There's one in the suburb somewhere, and there's one out there. Yeah. And it was, and it was. It's a big, large property. Absolutely beautiful.

You know, we'd spend from 04: 34:18

00 p.m. Every afternoon, my auntie, who I was living with, and my uncle, they would finish work pretty early. We'd get home and.

And from about 04: 34:27

00 p.m., onwards, you just sit facing the blue mountains and watch the sun set behind the blue mountains. And have you seen cheese and wine? It was this beautiful place to live, but there are a lot of native animals when you're living on property in the styx. And sometimes my uncle and auntie would sort of, they'd pop out for dinner on a weeknight. They were really good neighbours, and they had this lovely network of neighbours that they would just sort of dictate turns, you know, hosting each other for dinners. And whenever they went out, it would leave. My cousin and I, she was in high school at the time, and we just sort of, you know, stay back and, you know, watch television or whatever, and they're out. One evening, all the doors are open, beautiful breeze is blowing through, and we're sort of just, you know, chilling out the couch, watching home and away or something. And the cat, ragamuffin sort of strolls through the door and drops something with a long tail onto the rug. And Tegan and I look at it, and then we look at each other and we're thinking, is it a bushrat? Is it a mouse? It's something with a long tail. And we're sort of starting to ask each other, what should we do? Is it dead? And Ragamuffin's just sort of, you know, just there proudly. And we decide, well, we better go and investigate. We better try and pick up this thing and see what it actually is and if it's alive and yada, yada. So we both go to the kitchen, and then we come back and the cat's still there, but then there's no animal on the rug. No creature. No creature. And so the next question was, like, we think maybe it's. Has it been eaten? Is it possible for a cat just to eat something like that that quickly does wrap him up and have this history of eating, you know, poor native wildlife. And we're just trying to work out what on earth has gone on. But upon closer investigation, there was absolutely no sign that this thing had been eaten. So we're now thinking, well, it was alive, and it's just disappeared somewhere. Where could it be? Has it gone outside? So we start turning the house upside down, looking for this thing with a long tail. We go all through the living room where the rug was, all through, you know, through the lower parts of the house. We eventually get to my cousin's bedroom. All these. Yeah, she's got all these soft toys and pillows. And we hear a noise under it, under. Under this big collection of. So. And we're like, this is it. We found it. How good are we? We're going to rescue this poor bushrat or mouse or whatever it is with a long tail. And so we start. There were so many pillows and soft toys. We're literally just tossing them, tossing them out behind. And eventually we get down to the last two pillows, and it is so obvious that this rat slash mouse, whatever it is, is there. And we take a pillow each, and we pull it off. And there was a rabbit. Oh, I'm looking for one animal. We've actually discovered another. Now, the mission was on this rabbit. And so we bounded away, and you were like. And threw that. Have you seen that? Unless it was like a children. And then you go to the next. Room and there's, like, a badger. Because then the rabbit wouldn't have had a long tail. I mean, this rabbit would have had a little tail. So did you find the other thing? That's right. So, well, then the focus completely shifted because the other little first thing was so small, and this rabbit is so big, and it's causing carnage. And so then we're running around the house trying to get this rabbit out. And eventually we did, because the focus was so much on the rabbit. We did get it out, but we never found out what happened to the other one. It was just the bizarre thing about that stories is it just took such a twist that we didn't expect, like, so you're looking, you know, when you're looking for something, all you can picture is that. And so when the pillows were removed and it was actually a rabbit, it was such a big moment of, oh, my goodness. And we still talk about that story today. My cat bought in a. My cat was quite good at. Our cat is a rescue cat, which I think I've talked about before, but. It is not a rescue cat, Jackie. He rescued us. No, no, no, it's, it's like a moocher. Our cat chose us, Candace. So our cat. Our cat belongs to somebody else. And then was our visitor cat for four years. And anyway, when he got very comfortable with us, he did used to bring us the odd gift. And, you know, it would be kind of like he would turn up at the back door and he would have a giant rat in his mouth and he'd like, on the back doorstep, like, here, I have a present. I bought you a rat. He brought home. I could. He came in the back door and he would always announce his gift giving and it was always with a, you know, this sort of weird meowing. Anyway, he's meowing, but he's not really opening his mouth. And then I see this tiny tail flicking in the corner of his mouth and this tail is like really going for it. And so I'm like, it's alive. It's alive in his mouth. And so I somehow managed to get him to spit out baby mouse. And then of course, it's on for. Young and old in the house because I was, don't go under the fridge. Don't go under the dishwasher. I'll never find you ever again. So here I am, like leaping all over the house trying to get this, this tiny baby mouse. Anyway, I was very pleased with myself because I rescued that baby mouse and returned it to the garden. Well done. Reminds me of, I used to teach, I used to be a supply teacher when I lived in Queensland. And so I'd go to different schools and I always clean up the teacher's desk because then I figured I would get more work, they'd come and they'd go, oh, my God, what a great person. I'm going to put her on the list as my go to. I was cleaning up this desk once and it was three foot high with papers, kindergarten teacher. And it was all artwork and stuff. And as I was going through, I started finding pieces of unpopped popcorn. I was like, oh, there'd be more and more popcorn. And then I was going down and down and down and down and down. And I got to the last sheet of paper over the packet of popcorn and I lifted it up and six mice all went and one of them ran straight, straight at me and onto my belly. And down my legs, but the others just split. But I think about the mice that are in there, and they can, they're like, something's coming. We're going to wait. And they're all, should we go? No, no, no, don't go. Don't go. Not yet. I think this is the last page already. Go. And then they all go. They're like. They're like you with the three, two, one, go. I taught my kindergarten class how to do tallies one year because we had a massive mouse plague. It was when I was living down in barrel Rachel, and we had a terrible mouse plague at the school where I was working. And so we used to set traps in the classroom. I mean, kindergarten, I think. Oh, and s there would be a big issue with this now because I used to just have traps set all around the classroom, and the kids would hear that, and they'd go, we got one. And then the kids would run into the locker room, whatever, and they'd bring it out. They'd be like, they ended up. They learned how to tally. I had 16 in one day. That was my best effort. Whoa. When we first moved to barrel, we got chooks. I've always wanted to keep chooks, and we've been here, like, nine months, and a fox got the chooks, which is. It just happens when you have chooks. Every couple of years, a fox gets them. But my kids had never had it happen before, and the feathers just everywhere, and I thought they'd be upset, and I was worried about it, so I went out and I picked up every single feather in the garden, and I put it all away, and then I gave them a talk. Oh, so sad. The chickens died last night, and they're like, okay, mommy. Anyway, she went into school, and another kid in her class, same thing had happened. A fox had got their chooks that night, but he was a country kid, so he brought all the feathers in for craft. They did this sort of collage of Christmas trees made out of black chicken feathers, and violet brought it home. It's like someone else lost their chooks too. And look at my beautiful craft. Oh, well, it's recycling, isn't it? Exactly. Yeah, and exactly. You know, you say the chickens get eaten by foxes. You know. You know, in New Zealand, there are no foxes, so the chickens here do not get eaten by foxes at all. What do they die of? Do they get taken by hawks? They get taken by great big hawks that sit above their coops, because there's no. There's no real predators for them. We have weasels and stoats, which are really interesting. And the other thing that you would love, Candace, there are. We have hedgehogs and I have a hedgehog that lives in my garden. I just recently that there are hedgehogs in New Zealand. No, no, they're not native and you don't want to see them in the daytime because that generally means they're not very well. But we have this really sweet little one that lives in our garden that usually you'll just see him at nighttime. He comes across the driveway. He's very, very cute. But, yeah, it's fascinating to think how. Close you want a mission. They're gonna lead you somewhere down at. The mission, Candice, you really need to write picture books. Oh, no, no, Rachel. No, she doesn't, because she's good at every single thing that she does. And so she'll knock all of our books out of the shops and she'll be the number one. Jackie, Jackie, Jackie. Children's writing is not a competitive sport. We will rise up together. Rising tide. Oh, that's nice. No, it will. It's true. Like, JK Rowling was good for all of us in terms of encouraging literacy. So I would love to see you. Right. That is true, Rachel, I was kidding. Yeah, yeah. But I'm not kidding that she's good at everything because she totally is. Violet and I come up with children's book ideas every now and then. And the one that I loved, which I reckon this is what I'd do if I was going to write a children's book. She came up with this guy named Doublebeard and pirate and he has two beards and he has to have two of everything. And one day he realises that he doesn't need two of everything. Oh, that's. That's a great story. I love it. Noah's ark. Yeah, yeah. And you just. Yeah, I should do that one time. No, don't steal her idea. She'll. I also think you should do a book, Candace, called Snake News. Yes. We get ants here and every now and then we give them the ant poison and the poison goes in and kills them all. And you have this big massacre when Violet's not around. I do ant. I sometimes do ant news to Tim. And I'll go horror today at the backyard where 7000 people have been killed. I just do the whole headlight. Bodies everywhere. And on a cheerful note, we got to wrap things up so we will end it now. So thank you so much, so much, Candace Fox for joining us. That was really awesome. If you want to find out more about any of us, Candice, what's your website? Oh, I can tell you if you don't know. Candacefoxauthor.org, I think. No, it's Candacefox. Oh, it's candacefox.org. Dot is it? Yeah. Candicefox.org. Dot thank you. And you can find me@rasprat.com. And Jackie, where are you@jacquelineharvey.com? Dot au and Tim timharrisbooks.com. Okay. Thank you very much for listening. Until next time, goodbye.