Never was there a tale of more woe, than Stacey and her frisbee-"O"

I'm sure Stacey will in the fullness of time give a detailed account of our trip down the great ocean road over Easter. The summary in case you can't wait is "fantastic". But I thought I'd recount a tale of great sadness, a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions if you will, that befell us on the trip. Just so you don't think that everything is sweetness and light down under.

Our tale begins with a birthday. A young lady who wanted for much, but got little. And whilst some of the birthday presents were tasty (chocolate), some were functional (a toothbrush to clean away the chocolate) just one present would be considered fun. A brightly coloured frisbee in the shape of a disc. You can just make out the excitable girl with her new toy in this picture. Given how few presents she received the Frisbee was a very important present.

The young lady was so excited about her present. But she knew she had to find the right place to use her new toy.  So imagine the joy when a young gentleman she knew found a wide expanse of flat, sandy beach, under a glorious blue sky and warm sun to test out her frisbee for the very first time. The picture shows an artists (very) accurate rendition of what the beach could have looked like.



At first, all went well. The frisbee was thrown. It wasn't caught, but that was because it flew so well. It whistled through the air and the young girl beamed from ear to ear. She truly loved that Frisbee.

Then  DISASTER STRIKES!

The third throw started like the first two. Arm back, frisbee gripped in sweaty fingers, arm jerked forward and release! We'll never know what really caused it, perhaps a freak gust of wind, perhaps a twinge in the back that caused the arm to twist slightly as the frisbee was let go, or perhaps a butterfly flapped its wings in China causing some sort of quantum fluctuation. All we do know is the frisbee's trajectory deviated from the straight and true and curved right towards the water. Higher and higher it went, out of the reach of the young gentleman acquaintance, who ran and ran and ran and ran but it was no use. The frisbee sailed off the edge of the beach and into a small inlet from the sea.

If your eyes are good enough you might spot it in the picture above.

Now the girl was most upset - her wonderful present only 5 throws old was floating out to sea, and she had no bathing costume to hand to rescue it and on closer inspection the small inlet was a deep channel of the sea that precluded wading out to get it. The good news however, was that the frisbee was light, and so it floated. And the tide was coming in so the young lady waited on the shore for the sea to deliver her most precious present back to her.

But would you believe it,   DISASTER STRUCK AGAIN!

Once again, defying the laws of physics and explanation the frisbee started moving out to sea, against both the waves and the tide. One can only assume that there was a whole kaleidoscope of butterflies (NB - that is one of four appropriate collectives for the butterfly, along with 'flight', 'rabble' and 'swarm) flapping their wings all over Asia to create such an unexpected event. 


The frisbee continued to move out to sea, somehow navigating it's way out of the channel, around a set of rocks and into the Bass Strait (which separates mainland Australia from Tasmania). 

Again - the frisbee is there if you look hard enough (like a very niche version of Where's Wally really). 














To this day, we don't know what happened to that frisbee. Perhaps a school of fish passed by it and now use it to perform Sea World type tricks for the amusement of fisherman (NB - only a school of fish if it applies to a butterfly fish or cod, for example it is a troop of dogfish, or a flotilla of swordfish). Perhaps some child on a beach in Tasmania has a wet, and slightly fishy smelling frisbee now?  
All we do know is that it is a cautionary tale for all of us. Donations are welcome to the frisbee replacement fund. Cash/cheques/gold bullion only please.

NB - if you have been interested by the clever use of collectives in this blog you can find out more about them here.