One day, Margaret rebuked Sam and Karen for staring at John, who was seated directly opposite. Karen exclaimed wonderingly "There’s a spider!" "What?" she asked. "A spider, climbing out of John’s hair". Poor fellow; he probably picked it up when he arrived, but the younger kids were fascinated that someone could actually have a spider, even though it was a tiny one, in their hair! They helped him remove it.

Because of their ages, the family reduced by attrition. Karen’s middle brother, Jimmy went off to the Air Force at the beginning of 1972. First to Wagga Wagga for the recruit training, then to the Williamstown air base near Newcastle. Sandra left for Riverina CAE at Wagga Wagga at the beginning of 1974 to do Medical Technology.

Margaret and Richard decided to go off on an extended holiday/lapidary field trip to Queensland for two weeks, including the Easter break. Sam and Karen were old enough to be left at home without a guardian, so Margaret was reassured.

They had been requesting a change of colour scheme for their bedrooms for some time, and now that they had a room each to themselves, the time seemed appropriate. Sam had picked lime green with burnt orange contrasts, but Margaret toned down the colours several shades. It still was a striking combination. Karen had picked lilac and deep purple; predictable for a teenager.

So Margaret struck a deal. She would buy the paint, and Sam and Karen would paint their bedroom walls while she and Richard were away.

Alex rang up on the Thursday afternoon. "Was Jimmy home?" The kids weren’t expecting him to be home, although he sometimes did come home for breaks, such as long weekends. They explained to Alex about the painting they were planning to do over Easter. "Oh, OK" said Alex, and hung up.

Sam and Karen were a bit puzzled, but never-the-less, ignored Alex as being usually inexplicable and went to bed. They thought they’d start preparing for the painting the next day.

At 2am, they were woken by knocking on the front door. "Open up. Police." There was also banging on the back door. Sam rushed to the back door and Karen to the front. She was worried that something had happened to Margaret and Richard, and the police had come to tell her the bad news.

It was Alex and Jimmy. Alex had driven down to Williamstown from Armidale, picked up Jimmy and brought him home. He must have driven fast!

At breakfast, Alex had a plan. Alex and his friends were planning to go over to the coast on Saturday. If all of the painting could be done on Friday, then all of them could go away on Saturday. So the family divided into teams. They had to push the furniture into the centre of the rooms and cover them with a cloth. Then wash the walls down with sugar soap. One person would do the edges of the walls, and the other push the roller. They had a bucket of water and smaller cloths to clean up spillages straight away. They set to work.

The kids were pleased with the job they had done, and finished about 9pm.

Because they were going away and Karen didn’t know what food to take, she made an apple pie before she went to bed.