By Jeremy Lister
My Dad is away from home a lot because of his job and I miss him when he is away. I miss him when I play footy or when it is my turn at the Stanthorpe Eistedfodd. Usually when he is away he is staying in a motel in places like Killarney or Millmerran or Goondiwindi because he has meetings there. But he also goes to Brisbane a lot for parliament and meetings down there and usually he will go to Brisbane for a whole week starting from Sunday night.
When Dad is home I love to spend time with him and doing things like playing chess and kicking the football and talking a lot about things which interest me like history and politics. It is extra good when I can go along with dad when he goes out for work and that is what I got to do last week when I got to go along with Dad to Warwick, Allora, St George and Goondiwindi. William and Amelia stayed at home for some time with Mum.
On Friday dad picked me up from school and we went to his office in Warwick to pick up some paperwork he needed. Then we went to Allora where dad got to speak with some of the locals in shops and at the pub and also on the street. We had dinner at the Railway Hotel and we stayed there overnight too.
On Saturday we left for St George where dad had a party meeting to go to. It was a long drive but we had plenty of snacks to keep us happy because we went to the Allora IGA the night before. We had to stop for diesel at the Gore Roadhouse and we also had quick stops along the way for toilet breaks. We listened to podcasts and talked about all kinds of stuff.
When we got to St George at 12.30pm we had some lunch and then went into the meeting which was a South West Region meeting of the LNP. Dad let me sit with him and there was an election for the chair and discussions about policies and elections. One of the other MPs at the meeting had his son with him too so I wasn’t the only kid there. I know it sounds strange for an 11 year old to find that sort of meeting interesting but I do.
After the meeting we drove back on the way home. We got to Goondiwindi at about 6 o’clock and stayed in a motel for the night. We had a Chinese dinner which was delicious. Dad only had stir fried vegetables because he is trying to loose weight but I had honey chicken and deep fried ice cream. The next day we continued back to home at Kyoomba after having breakfast at McDonalds and we were home by 11.00am. While we were at McDonalds a lady came up to dad to speak about local crime and this sort of thing happens a lot to dad when he is out on the road.
Dad has a good job but it is sad when he is always away, so it was great to go on a road trip with him again. Next time it will be William’s turn to go on a road trip with Dad and I’ll stay with baby Amelia and mum.
