The June long-weekend for the Crockerie Open Day was the wettest and coldest on record. We should know, cos Janie and I had to stand at the open door, handing out stupid programmes and greeting feral people. We hoped that everyone would stay at home, because of the weather, but they all seemed to want to come and kept arriving in large groups. Janie and I rolled our eyes at each other every time the visitors shoved their horrible smelly wet coats at us to hang up. They had the nerve to grumble about how freezing they were. Well, what about us? We had to stand for hours, our hands blue with the cold and our faces so frozen that we could hardly smile at anyone. Not that there was anyone worth smiling at. The wind and rain blowing into the porch area seemed to come straight from the Antarctic.

Lots of the Crockerie residents were sitting around looking glum, with their arms folded tightly over their daggy, pilled cardigans. Some were bumbling around, offering trays of sandwiches to new arrivals, saying:

    'Give us a kiss and we'll give you a Fritz sandwich.' There weren't any takers.

We heard Komik Kal reply, on being offered one of these:

    'When hell freezes over, luv,' and then he and Erik (from Erik's Emporium) sniggered and moved away. The woman dropped the whole tray shortly afterwards, but picked up all the sandwiches from the floor and went around offering them again. There were no takers, so she ate most of them herself, licking her fingers and slurping. The oldies seem to love Fritz sandwiches. At one of the Crockerie Christmas parties, a resident ate a whole plateful by herself too. Maybe it was the same person, but they all look the same to us; wrinkly and ugly.

Janie and I then decided that we'd suffered enough and tried to take a break for a cigarette in Janie's car, but the old dragon, Matron Melanie, caught us and dragged us back inside.

    'Where did you little tarts think you were going?' she snapped at us.

    'We were freezing', complained Janie, 'and we needed a break.'

    'You'll take a break when I bloody well say so', Matron Melanie replied. 'Aren't you two supposed to be ambassadors for Scrubber-Town? Well, what sort of ambassadors desert their post for a cigarette break?' Then she relented a bit and said: 'I'll have one of the Dark Park Detention girls bring you both a cup of tea; inside.'

    'We hate tea,' we called out in unison, but she didn't hear and was off, fawning over Councillor Rob Hobbs and his wife Hayley, who had just arrived. Hayley is well known for her lack of make-up skills and we're always talking about her at 'War Paint as  an example of how not to apply make-up. Today was no exception and her eye shadow was bright blue and purple lipstick was plastered on her thin mouth, so much so that it had smeared on her teeth. We think she should just put a bag over her head; they both should.

After a while, we decided to go on strike and left our post at the door.

   'Matron Melanie can find someone else', grumbled Janie. 'One of those Dark Park Detention skanks can take over. After all, they're the ones supposed to be doing community service, not us.'

Everyone was bitchy and cross and bumping into each other and the heaters weren't working properly, either. We noticed that in one corner Rob Hobbs had started his boring talk about wills. On moving closer, though, we saw that he was stammering and even blushing. Janie and I looked at one another in surprise; after all, Rob is usually full of self-confidence and bluster. Then we discovered the reason for his discomfort. Tatiana was seated in the front row, large as life and openly flirting with him. She was posing provocatively and pouting and winking. How obvious can you be? We wished that Kal would come along at that moment. You might have guessed that we don't like Tatiana very much.  We think she's an ageing (she's over thirty), try-hard gold-digging Russian slag. Janie reckoned she looked like a Licorice Allsort in her hot pink outfit and black patent over the knee boots. We took a photo of her on our  mobile when Tatiana wasn't looking. You never know when some blackmail photos might come in handy.

Janie and I then decided to sit down at the Crockerie Café, which had to be set up inside, instead of out in the gardens, because of the weather. Not that anyone was missing out. We think the Crockerie gardens are crap and of course, being winter, there aren't even any flowers, just weeds. A few weeks ago, their gardener dropped dead on the job and they haven't bothered to find a new one.

'Did youse two want a hot drink?' said a sulky Goth-looking girl as she approached us. We recognized her as one of the Dark Park detentionees.

   Above: Lainie and Janie were in desperate need of hot, strong coffee.

'Yeah, like two hours ago', said Janie abruptly.

The girl, whose name-tag read Cassie, plonked down two cups in front of us.

    'That's tea,' we protested. 'We hate tea and we're not drinking it. No bleeping way.'

    'Matron Melanie told me to bring youse tea.'

    'Matron Melanie's an idiot', I snapped. 'We only drink coffee, a cappuccino for me and a flat white for Janie.'

    'Whatever', replied Cassie,' but I can only give it to youse how it comes out of the  urns.'

    'Then just do it', we shouted.

While we waited, we watched the lame fashion parade that Kara-lynn had tried to put together. Everything was going wrong and Kara-Lynn was nearly in tears, which is unusual for her, cos she's always in charge and bossing people around. The demented old women were wandering out aimlessly in their petticoats, or only half the outfit they were supposed to have. One oldie came out saying:

    'I can't seem to find my undies. Have you seen my undies anywhere?'

    'They're on your head, luv', called out Nick; of Nick's Nirvana and Komik Kal's arch enemy.

Everyone laughed raucously. Janie and I tried not to giggle, cos we sort of felt sorry for Kara-lynn.

When Cassie brought back our coffees, she was laughing so much that the liquid spilled onto the table.

    'What's so funny?' we demanded, but Cassie was doubled up with laughter and couldn't answer.

By now we didn't want our afternoon tea anyway, as the coffee was pissy and the scones like bullets, so we moved off. We heard later that the Dark Park girls, who were supposed to be helping behind the scenes, deliberately sabotaged the parade by hiding the clothes and -pushing the oldies out onto the make-shift catwalk in their undies. Kind of hilarious, but of course they're in heaps of trouble. We're glad we're not them. As punishment for their bad behavior, they weren't allowed to perform their planned song as part of the entertainment programme and they were all bussed back to Dark Park Detention Centre, quick smart. On our way to the pool to watch the Crockerie Cuties in action, we saw a man shouting at Jacinta, who'd come from the Around the World resort to do Psychic Readings. He was yelling:

    'You shonky old whore, you tell everyone the same thing. I'm going to sue you and Around the World for employing a dodgy old bat like you. You're trouble, you are! '

We hear Kylie from Security at Scrubber-Town had to be called in to remove him. We then made our way to the new swimming pool. Janie and I know now why someone, who we're pretty sure is Komik Kal, calls the residents Leather Jackets. The pool was full of oldies, little wizened ones and gross fat ones. Janie and I made a gagging gesture to one another. The Crockerie Cuties had had special bathing suits made, which were pink with white spots and frilly skirts. They wore matching bathing caps with, wait for it, bows tied under their chins. They all looked like a bunch of ugly wrinkly old babies with no teeth. When we walked in they were doing a routine to The Little Old Lady from Pasadena.  Olga was waving her arms frantically,  screaming out in her strong Russian accent:

    'Wrong, Wrong! We rehearse it so many times, so why you don't remember?'

The Cuties had clearly forgotten any routine and were either bumping into each other or just jumping up and down. Olga was trying to ignore Kal and Erik, who were singing:

Go granny, go granny, go Granny go and mimicking the oldies'movements.

Below: just like Kal said, the pool was full of old leather jackets, presided over by a shark called Olga.

Everyone poolside was laughing hysterically. Olga screamed:

    'We do it again properly, or I come in and duck you under water. You all so stupid.' Olga had a melt-down and Dr Daisy had to be called in. Olga was taken away in an ambulance, begging for Vodka.

The oldies all clambered out after that.

    'Move yer fat bum', called someone.

    'Put a bag over it, luv,' yelled someone else in the crowd.

Janie and I dread getting old and if we looked like these people we certainly wouldn't wear bathing suits and draw attention to ourselves, inviting all manner of insults. We just hope there's an anti-disgusting pill or something long before we get old.

We then wandered through to the kitchens, where a group tour was being taken through. We weren't very interested in that and planned to make our escape back to the Bogun Bar for a couple of stiff 'Raving Lunatic' cocktails. On the way however, we were accosted by one of the old 'Crockerie 'men who said to us:

    'They give us grilled tadpoles for tea. How about that?'

    'Lucky you!' we replied, and burst out laughing.

    'It's not funny, young ladies. How would you like grilled tadpoles everyday?'

We left him rambling on to whoever would listen about the grilled tadpoles and were just about to leave the Crockerie, when Janie grabbed my arm to stop me and hissed:

    'Don't move. Get behind this partition and don't make any noise. Look over there.'

    'What is it?' I hissed.

    'Shut-up,'  whispered Janie 'and just look.'

There, in a corner of a small sun-room (when there was a sun), Rob Hobbs had cornered Tatiana and she didn't seem to be making any attempt to get away. In fact she had her arms draped around his neck. They were close enough for us to hear what they were saying, which sounded like a script from a very bad soapie.

Rob: 'You make me go weak at the knees, Tatiana.'

Tatiana: 'Do I really, Rob?'

Rob: 'You know very well you do. Perhaps we should get together for some fun sometime.'

Tatiana: 'Kal can't find out or he kill us both.'

Rob: 'Over my dead body, Tatiana.'

Tatiana: 'Don't say that, Rob. It might actually happen. I just don't think I can.'

Rob: 'Please, Tatiana, you're all I want in a woman.'

Janie and I were just about wetting ourselves with silent laughter and we had to go, but not before Janie had snapped another photo on her mobile. Like I said before, you never know when a blackmail photo will be useful.

We went straight to the Bogun Bar after that and spent the rest of the afternoon getting wasted on Raving Lunatics, talking about what we'd seen and heard. We can't wait to see if Rob Hobbs and Tatiana hook up again and whether Komik Kal finds out. We have the photos, so watch this space.

Luv and Air-kisses to all;  except Rob and Tatiana and Matron Melanie.

xxxx

P.S.One more thing we must tell you. At 'Little Buggers' child-care centre, Queen Custard Tart, the Channel One personality, led the kids into plenty of mischief. She made up a phone-scam and got the older kids to ring random numbers from the phone book, and say that they were collecting money for the  child- care centre, or it might have to close. Surprisingly, lots of people fell for this, and offered money and personal details, after which the kid on the other end of the phone yelled:

'Sucked in!'

Of course, there was a complaint about it, but Channel One (the one and only One) have decided not to sack Queen Custard Tart, as the ratings have soared and the kids adore her. So do Janie and I. She's such a legend.

Above: Kids love Queen Custard Tart. They think her whirly-gig wand is cool, but especially they love her sense of fun and permission to break the rules. You'll notice a glass of champagne is always within  her reach.

PS: Things youse might want to look up on Google: Fritz, Flat white coffees, Licorice Allsorts and the song, 'Little Old Lady from Pasadena.'