A story about X marking a very dubious spot with Kate and Jol Temple

Kate and Jol Temple are our special guests on the podcast this week. To find out more about their amazing books check out ... https://katejoltemple.com/

Please review, rate, subscribe, follow and like the show. Your support will help us keep this podcast going.

To find out more about R.A. Spratt visit raspratt.com
To find out more about Jacqueline Harvey visit jacquelineharvey.com.au
To find out more about Tim Harris visit timharrisbooks.com

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to real stories with random writers. I'm Ra. Spratt, and I'm here with Jacqueline Harvey, and today's special guests are Kate and Joel Temple. Thank you so much for coming on.

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Jacqueline Harvey: M.

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Kate Temple: Hello! Thanks for having us good to meet you.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah, Kate and Joel, I'm deeply impressed by this. They write together. It's amazing. And they've written so many books, including the Bin Chicken series, the Underdog Series, that yours truly, Alice


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Rachel Spratt: The yours truly, Alice Tooley. Books. The Jimmy Cook discovers books room on a rock, and their most recent book is Frog Squad. Oh, and I forgot to say, Kate has also written without Joel the dangerous business of being Trilby Moffat books, so many books. Well, welcome to the show. It's so good to have you.

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Kate Temple: Oh, it's great to be here! Thanks for having us.

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Rachel Spratt: Oh, well, we're.

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Jacqueline Harvey: So.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah, we're yeah. We're very excited. The theme for today's show is surprises, the good and the bad. Okay. And Jackie is going to kick off for.

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Jacqueline Harvey: I will kick it off. I I'm I'm actually, you know, very surprised that you 2 are still married. Given that you work together every day.

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Kate Temple: Surprise, too, my.

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Jacqueline Harvey: No, every time I hang out with you, Kate, it does you? You do kind of give me that vibe, that it is a surprise to you as well.

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Kate Temple: Every day.

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Jacqueline Harvey: I was just.

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Rachel Spratt: Listeners before we started, because my husband's a writer, too, and we once tried to write together. And it was so. It was so damaging to our relationship like we still to this day like it would have been 25 years ago. And we're like, Remember that time we tried to write with each other.

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Kate Temple: I think we set the bar very low. So that's how that works.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Well, I you know I sit next to my husband in my study, like we have office. We we have matching desks next to each other, but he does a completely different stuff to me. So that probably is why.

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Rachel Spratt: Your heart.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Wednesday.

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Rachel Spratt: Nice.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Well, Joel's very nice. What do you.

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Rachel Spratt: I know I'm saying my husband is special.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Oh, I think your husband's very nice, too, and he yes, he's a very interesting man to talk to, but I'm going to tell you a surprising story, and actually it has got everything to do with my husband. So so a surprise. So I was one of those teachers who always ended up going to school camp on my birthday.

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Jacqueline Harvey: So it just ended up every single year. My birthday is in March every year. It didn't matter, you know, like that. It was a week, 3 or week, 4 or week 5 of term. It was always going to be that I was away on my birthday.

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Jacqueline Harvey: So on this particular birthday I'm off to the Colo River, which for those of you who live in Sydney or the Sydney surrounds your kids, may have gone to this camp. It's on the edge of the Colo River. It takes, you know, probably about an hour and a half, 2 h to get out there.

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Jacqueline Harvey: and one of the joys of this camp is that you get to sleep in tents for the camp. Now I, when I briefed the parents on this activity. I would, you know, do a camp night briefing? And I would say, I love sleeping under the stars, all 5 of them, so, as you can imagine. Sleeping in a tent is not my number one kind of thing to do. So, anyway.

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Jacqueline Harvey: it's my birthday. I'm going to camp. It's 6 o'clock in the morning. My husband well, he wasn't my husband at the time. He was my boyfriend at the time, drops me off

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Jacqueline Harvey: at at school, and says to me.

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Jacqueline Harvey: there's something in your bag, but don't open it until you go to bed tonight.

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Rachel Spratt: Oh no!

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Jacqueline Harvey: And I'm like, Oh, okay, thanks, honey. You know it might be a present for my birthday, or something that's really sweet, lovely thanks for that, you know. I'll just go and wrestle and wrangle a hundred girls to get them. Get them on to a couple of buses.

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Jacqueline Harvey: So, anyway, go to camp. It's all you know pretty going pretty well, you know. Do the usual activities. We've been doing, some abseiling and some ropes, courses, and that sort of thing. We get the kids to bed that night, and then, of course, I've got a kid who starts vomiting.

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Jacqueline Harvey: and I'm like awesome love love a good campbometer, and then I've got another one who's crying, cause they're so homesick they just can't cope with being away, you know, from mum for one night.

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Jacqueline Harvey: So, anyway, by the time I deal with the vomited kid, the the kid who's homesick.

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Jacqueline Harvey: I get to bed. It's about I'm going to bed. It's about 1130

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Jacqueline Harvey: I turn on my torch. My torch batteries are flat, and so then I have to go and steal a torch out of a kid's tent next to me. I'm running around in the kids tent, pulling a torch out of their tent.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Anyway, I look in my bag and I think, oh, yeah, Ian said there was something in my bag. I better open it. I better find it. So I dig around in my bag, and at the bottom of my bag I find an envelope, and so I open it up, and there's a card in it, and I thought, Oh, that's nice. He's written me a card for my birthday, and when I open the card, or I look at the front of the card, it says love is not in the falling.

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Jacqueline Harvey: it's in the stain there, and when I open it up it said, Will you marry me? Oh.

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Rachel Spratt: I know.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Like.

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Rachel Spratt: Oh!

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Jacqueline Harvey: Anyway. Then it said, at the bottom, conditionally, see conditions attached, and out of the center of my card falls this one page document, with all the conditions of our.

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Rachel Spratt: Gorgeous.

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Jacqueline Harvey: So anyway, I'm like, Oh, my God! Like he's asked me to marry me. I'm on camp. I've got no mobile phone coverage. I'm like nowhere to, anyway. So

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Jacqueline Harvey: I'm very happy that he's asked me to marry him. But I cannot get to a phone until about oh, I don't know. 11 o'clock the next morning, when I can walk to where the the landline is.

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Rachel Spratt: Just like pee in his pants. Nonstop.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Well, I call him, and I said, Hello.

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Jacqueline Harvey: and you guys, Hello!

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Jacqueline Harvey: I thought I might have heard from you last night.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Well, I couldn't call you because I was in the middle of the bush with these kids, and there's no mobile phone coverage and blah blah, anyway, as per, the conditions of the attached, you know. Contract. I just said to him, yes.

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Jacqueline Harvey: and that's all I have to say about that.

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Rachel Spratt: Anyway.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Anyway, later in the day I was so stressed about the fact that, you know I'm engaged. I'm not allowed to, by the terms of the contract. Tell anybody that we're engaged. This is all a big secret, anyway. My best friend Donna, who was on the camp with me. She's like, are you? Okay? I was like, Yeah, I'm fine. I think I'm just getting really bad headache. And so by by 3 o'clock that afternoon I'm literally lying by the edge of the river Golo River with a throbbing migraine.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Good thing!

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Jacqueline Harvey: This is like.

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Rachel Spratt: Assault. This engagement is an assault. He has made you physically ill with the nature of the engagement.

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Jacqueline Harvey: He made me physically ill, but anyway,

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Kate Temple: The.

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Jacqueline Harvey: The upshot of it.

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Kate Temple: Yeah.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Sorry John.

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Kate Temple: Been the kid who was vomiting. I think you may have caught what they had.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Well, fortunately I wasn't vomiting by this stage, but I anyway. The the sort of upshot to all of this was that he organized our wedding.

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Jacqueline Harvey: and again the the second.

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Rachel Spratt: You got home. No.

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Jacqueline Harvey: So it was we were he. He told me that we were going to go somewhere, and I I kind of guessed that, you know. Maybe we were going to go somewhere, and maybe he was doing something exciting. But I didn't know until we got to Hayman Island that we were getting married.

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Jacqueline Harvey: and so he organized he'd organized everything. My, my! What I wear is my engagement ring. He gave that to me at the wedding. He'd organized my hair and makeup and the whole 9 yards. And anyway, we got married, and it was just us which is exactly what I wanted, because I had been married before, and I'd had the Princess catastrophe before, and I didn't want that again.

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Jacqueline Harvey: and I'd always said to my parents if ever I get married again I'll call you after the event, anyway. My mother I called her after we got married, and

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Jacqueline Harvey: the only person who knew was my stepdaughter Olivia. She knew that it was all happening, and she, Ian, had let her in on the whole thing. She helped pick my wedding dress and like the whole 9 yards, and she was with her grandparents Ian's mom and dad. And so after the wedding, I rang my parents first, st and I said to them, Mum says, Where are you? I said, oh, just away! And she said.

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Jacqueline Harvey: But we are. And I said, Oh, just away on a holiday, and I said, Is Dad home? She's like, yeah. And I said, Can you just go on speaker, anyway? I said to them, you know how I told you that if ever I got married again I'd call you after the event, and my dad goes. Oh, my God, it's after the event!

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Jacqueline Harvey: And then Dad said to, and he said, you didn't ask me and dad. And then Ian said, Well, you would have had to pay. He goes. No good job. Good job, mate. Good job

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Jacqueline Harvey: the best one, though, was when we rang Ian's parents.

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Jacqueline Harvey: And Ian said to Olivia, she was about. She was probably about 10, I think, or 11 at the time. And he said to her, you can tell Nana that we're married now, and she said to him, no way, Dad, she said, I want to see the look on her face when you tell her.

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Rachel Spratt: The look on your face when he got engaged.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Exactly so, anyway, but it was a very good surprise. It was the best surprise of my life. So there you go.

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Kate Temple: That's fine!

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Jacqueline Harvey: It's a broad story.

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Kate Temple: A very nice surprise. Yes, yeah, much, much better than the surprise that was in store for me. Yes.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Kay, tell us about your.

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Rachel Spratt: Surprise.

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Kate Temple: Not a good surprise. This was a this was a very bad surprise. Now this story's probably set about, do you think? 8 years ago, probably about our kids were much younger. We probably had a like a 3 year old, and maybe like a 6 year old. Yeah. So we had sort of a big toy.

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Rachel Spratt: Oh, that's the maximum difficulty. Age.

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Kate Temple: Yes.

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Rachel Spratt: 6 year olds getting into everything, and the 3 year olds too big to like pick up so much. I always think that's the most exhausting age combination.

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Kate Temple: It is an exhausting age combination. But 3 is also this age where they have agency, and they've started doing stuff and having a lot of opinions, and we live in Sydney, and we live. One of the things that's really nice to do in Sydney when it's hot is, you know. Go to the beach, of course take advantage of our beautiful beaches.

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Rachel Spratt: That's what I was just doing on the weekend. I came out to Bondi and Malabar, and we had the best days. I fell asleep on the beach both times.

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Kate Temple: So nice.

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Kate Temple: There's some really beautiful harbor beaches as well that are in the national parks. And

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Kate Temple: you know, they could be really special. Yeah. So we thought we'd go to visit one of our favourite little places.

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Kate Temple: It's on the north side, and it's the sort of place you

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Kate Temple: you park in sort of a back street, and you have to walk through National Park to to get down there. There's some stairs and all this. It's a bit of a bush track.

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Kate Temple: It's hard to get to. It's a bit of a palaver, particularly with the 3 year old and the 6 year old. So you have to sort of.

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Kate Temple: You've got to take your food. You've got to take your water and all that. There's nothing there there when you get there, except this most magical little beach, and you can't see any houses. It's National Park. You can't. You almost can't believe you're in Sydney, you know. It's so lovely.

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Rachel Spratt: Is it one of those things like as a parent, where you imagine yourself doing this with your family?

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Kate Temple: Thank you.

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Rachel Spratt: Oh, that'll be great, you know. It's like going to Taronga Zoo you've got like all these images of the kids looking at the elephants, but when you actually get there they're just whingy, and it's baking hot, and they just want to snack, snack, snack.

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Kate Temple: Well, you get. You're on the right track there. You know.

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Kate Temple: we did used to go there before we had kids, and it is different after, because.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah.

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Kate Temple: No facilities, and, you know, to get back to the car is a hundred steps up through a dirt track, and we get there, and we sort of divide and conquer the kids. So Joel gets in, goes for a swim with the older child, and I'm on the beach on the sand with the 3 year old, who looks at me as soon as Joel walks out into the ocean and says immediately, Mummy, I need to do a poo.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Of course he does.

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Kate Temple: Straight away, right.

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Rachel Spratt: Does he always do? A voice when he announces this like, it's like I'm.

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Kate Temple: He does today

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Kate Temple: reasonably accurate for the purpose of this story. This is the voice. So he says this, and I'm like what this is what you're meant to do before we go, like we had to talk about that. Everyone had to go to the toilet before we go. There's nothing here. This is not. This is not something we can do here. And he said, Mummy, I need to do a poo.

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Kate Temple: And kids.

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Rachel Spratt: Ever let you know with like 20 min. Notice, it's like this is happening in the.

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Kate Temple: Now.

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Rachel Spratt: Seconds. Yeah.

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Kate Temple: This is a hot thing like this has to happen now, and you can sense that agent like this is.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah.

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Kate Temple: That urgency that's going on so, and Joel is out in the water with the others, though this is just on me.

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Rachel Spratt: Very convenient job, very.

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Kate Temple: So I've got to solve this problem, and there's no one around, there's nowhere to go. So the only solution is, dig a hole. That's it. Dig a hole. So

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Kate Temple: I dig this. Really, I dig this hole. And I say, right, this is what we have to do, and he's looking at me like, what's wrong with you like, you put us in this situation.

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Kate Temple: This is what's happening. So I said, that's what we're going to do. You're gonna you have to poo in this hole. So it's like, Okay, fine. He does that. And then we together we fill the hole in.

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Kate Temple: And I said, look, we don't want to have any accidents here. So what we're going to do is we're going to put an X on top of the sand. So we know.

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Rachel Spratt: Oh! Do not!

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Kate Temple: Big here. This will be the one spot we know. So we're going to put the big X there, and I'm talking to him like that. Under no circumstances, under no circumstances.

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Rachel Spratt: My mind is leaping ahead.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah, me, too, Rachel. I'm going ahead, too. It's not good.

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Kate Temple: This is not a good surprise story. So anyway, we're all settled now, and and I think by this stage you probably could benefit from a swim definitely. You haven't been in the water yet. You've had this added stress. You're at the bench to relax. So we swap roles. I come in. I look after the 3 year old on the sand. Kate has a swim with the 6 year old

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Kate Temple: the 3 year olds you're making sandcastles and stuff. Yeah, three-year-olds with me, and we're, you know, making a bit of a sandcastle and having a great old time.

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Kate Temple: And then, right, I'm in the water, and I look up, and for some reason Joel is digging, and he's digging exactly where he shouldn't be digging. And I'm like, and I sort of just had this feeling of like, why are you doing this to me, you know, like, why is this happening? You know I was just sort of like

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Kate Temple: in the one spot I've told you, know I that no one is to dig. Joel is digging there, and

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Kate Temple: and I thought, I'm in the in the water, so I had to yell from There, I'm like, Well, stop! What are you doing?

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Kate Temple: And Joel must have just seen this kind of flailing, angry person in the water just. And he's thinking, I'm looking after the kids. What's the problem? So we're both kind of exasperated at each other. I'm walking up the beach. He's saying, What's wrong? I'm

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Kate Temple: and we get to the sand, and the toddler is just looking up at us with this look of like this. This is good this is.

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Kate Temple: And I said, Joel, why are you digging here? And he said, Well, Clancy said, we'll dig for treasure, and X marks the spot.

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Rachel Spratt: Oh, no! That's so bad!

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Kate Temple: It was a flow school. It was so bad. They're like, that's just.

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Jacqueline Harvey: He's a seriously cunning young 3 year old

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Jacqueline Harvey: time

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Jacqueline Harvey: like.

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Jacqueline Harvey: did you realize the psychopathic tendencies of your 3 year old.

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Kate Temple: He still thinks it's funny, too. I'm like, did you? Did you think that through? And he's like, yeah, but it's funny. It's a funny thing to do.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Did you? Actually? What I want to know is, did you actually unearth the poo? And did you touch the poo.

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Kate Temple: A close call. Close call.

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Rachel Spratt: When you're a parent, you touch poo so much.

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Kate Temple: What's in there.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Another! Poo!

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Kate Temple: We're gonna.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Oh dear! Oh, that that story reminds me, Rachel. Just. I'll digress quickly because you talked about Taronga Zoo. And you guys talking about Poo, my one of my sisters and I took our nephews, who were about 3, maybe maybe 3, and 4, to Taronga Zoo one day.

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Jacqueline Harvey: and let my other sister and and her husband take the new baby and do something else, and when we're at Taronga, one of my nephews he had this real thing about. He hated getting dirty like he's, and they had ice creams, and he's like the ice cream's dripping down his arm, and he's like, Get me.

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Jacqueline Harvey: and I'm there with the wet wipes. I'm trying to get it off him, and I said, We'll have a bath when we get back to back home, so we go back to our place, and

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Jacqueline Harvey: I put the pair of them in the bath, anyway. Then

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Jacqueline Harvey: I I drive the younger, and they're only about 18 months apart, these 2 kids and I drive the younger one off, and he disappears to do a nudie run out to the lounge room, and then I drive the second one off, and as he does his nudie run to the lounge room. He comes back and he goes.

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Jacqueline Harvey: I won't say my nephew's name, but

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Jacqueline Harvey: oh, so it's done a poo in the bouncer.

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Jacqueline Harvey: He just, you know. He just relaxed a bit and decided that he had to let it all go in the bouncer, which was really unpleasant.

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Rachel Spratt: Oh.

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Rachel Spratt: my.

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Rachel Spratt: okay.

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Jacqueline Harvey: So yeah, Taronga, zoo andapu. There you go.

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Rachel Spratt: Know. You know how I lie to my children, you know. Like for me, it's storytelling. But then, later on, when they denounce me like when they go to therapy, are they? Gonna have so much to tell? But I like. But I told my daughter, because, you know, when they get hiccups, and they get upset that they get hiccups.

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Rachel Spratt: But my daughter got hiccups, and I said, Oh, you know what the cure for hiccups is, don't you?

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Rachel Spratt: She's like what I'll do anything. And I said you had to take all your clothes off and run around the garden 3 times.

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Rachel Spratt: and it was at that age, you know, when they're about 3 or 4, when they just any, you know, they want to take their clothes off and run around

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Rachel Spratt: all the time, anyway, wearing clothes is just a hindrance to them, and she's like, yes, so she just strips all her clothes off, and she goes running, and our garden's like a forest. It's very beautiful. There's this little girl happy, you know, running around 3 times, and I'm like, that's only 2 laps another one, and she comes, and because they get all puffed, they do. Actually, it does actually cure the hiccups. And she thought that that was legitimately the cure for hiccups for years before. One day I was laughing at her, and she realized, no, and she's like.

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Jacqueline Harvey: So when she did it.

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Rachel Spratt: Eyes when she.

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Jacqueline Harvey: She did it when she was 12,

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Jacqueline Harvey: and the neighbors are like, why is she running around the garden in the nutty.

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Rachel Spratt: Oh!

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Kate Temple: But it works right.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah, exactly. I mean, sometimes you get hiccups so badly. You think I would give that a go.

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Kate Temple: You couldn't.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Kept that going till she was like 18, and then she would have been the most popular girl in town.

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Rachel Spratt: Oh, no! There's so many lies that I've embedded in their minds that they said they're like little time bombs where they're like. That's not true that they told us.

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Jacqueline Harvey: You know. Sorry. Go on, Rachel.

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Rachel Spratt: I was just gonna but then there's things that I have told them like that

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Rachel Spratt: that they don't believe that are true, like when I told them about Pancake Day, and they thought I just made it up that that was a religious holiday about.

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Kate Temple: Yeah, yeah.

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Rachel Spratt: Anyway. Did you have something before I go, Jackie?

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Jacqueline Harvey: Oh, no, no! You you.

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Rachel Spratt: Okay. Well, okay, I'll tell a story.

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Rachel Spratt: This is a story about my kids. I'll veer it back. I could tell poo stories, but I'm not going to go there as anybody's eating while they listen to this.

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Rachel Spratt: So

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Rachel Spratt: I'm gonna tell a story about when my kids were that age 3 and 6. So, as I say, it's the most exhausting age, in my opinion, because when they're younger than 3, they sleep a lot, and at 3 they're not napping anymore. And they're so curious. And they want to talk to you all the time, which is just exhausting. Because when you're a writer, you're trying to think. I used to sit there and go, you know. Sometimes mommy thinks just for herself. You know, mommy's using her brain for her own purposes.

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Rachel Spratt: and they just don't understand. It's like, look at me. Look at me. I love you, mommy, and it's like, Yeah, that's very nice. But I'm trying to work inside my head. So anyway, it was just exhausting. The 3 and 6, and me and my husband were both working from home and when when they were that age. I did so much work. I was writing 2 books a year, and I was also writing like 2 or 3 television shows at the same time.

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Rachel Spratt: And yeah, with this I was just exhausted. So I go to my husband one day and I say I'm very tired. I need a holiday and also in barrel. It's freezing cold in winter, like, after about a month or 2, you just you start to crack psychologically. So I'm like we need a holiday, and my husband's like, yes, I do, too.

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Rachel Spratt: So like we'll go to Queensland. So I like. Yes, so we book flights up to Port Douglas and I go to the to the girls, and I say, girls, we go to Queensland, pack your bags and like

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Rachel Spratt: it's on.

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Rachel Spratt: and they get their suitcases, and they flip them open, and they just tip all their toys in, flip them shut and say, Let's go, mommy, and I'm like, No, no, no, no, we're going to Queensland. You can't just take toys. Well, you, what about clothes and underwear? And they're like, we don't need those. It's hot in Queensland. Yeah.

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Rachel Spratt: And I'm like you need clothes, underwear and swimsuits. I'm going to pack them for you. So I empty out half their toys. I put in clothes and underwear and swimsuits. And I was like, Okay, now we can go. So you take them to the airport, and when you're a mother, you think, oh, holiday Queensland, lying in the sun! It's like it's nothing is like that. When you're a mother taking small children on holiday. Every element is distressing and exhausting. So they're getting them to the airport.

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Rachel Spratt: you know. It's all like the suitcase, and they're just like they're difficult. They can't handle their own luggage, and they're sort of. They're scared of flying, and that, you know, there's just the the drive to the airport hour and a half, you know. You're traumatized by the time you get there. So finally we get to the airport

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Rachel Spratt: and

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Rachel Spratt: you know, they've never been on a flight before, and so we're going to go through security. And you're like, Okay, you have to put your, you know. You checked in your luggage. But now your little day packs, we got to put them through the security scanner. And so you put it on the convey. But you explain it to the kids, and they're like, Oh, okay, what are they checking, for I'm like bombs bombs because they think you are a terrorist, and you might blow up the plane so they want to X-ray your bag, and they're like what?

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Rachel Spratt: And they're like. So nothing metal in my back. And they get obsessed with this, I'm like, yes, just a nothing. All right. Okay.

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Rachel Spratt: So we're going through. And you just. I'm so exhausted I just want to get on the plane because I know there's free alcohol on there.

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Rachel Spratt: and I'm like, oh, God, I need this holiday so much! And so the the bags are there, and you know, like my bag goes through fine, and my oldest daughter's bag goes through, and it's fine. It's like, Oh, thank you, Violet.

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Rachel Spratt: And then the youngest one, the 3 year old, her little Hello, Kitty Backpack, is headed towards the X-ray machine, and just as it's about to go in, I realized I didn't check it before, you know, like she I packed her suitcase, but I let her pack. You know her day pack to amuse herself on the plane herself, and just as it's about to go in, I say, Sammy, you didn't put anything in there that you shouldn't have put in there, should you? She's like mommy. Of course not. I'm a good girl.

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Rachel Spratt: and it goes in, and, like my bag was fine, just went through, and Bag went through, but her bag, as soon as it goes into the X-ray machine, is like dude, and you know how it goes off. There's like a separate shoot. If there's something in your bag shouldn't be there. So it goes down the side shoot, and I'm like, Oh, Sammy, what did you put in? I said you didn't pack your ninja stars, did you? And she's like, No, mommy, I'm a good girl, because my daughter literally did have ninja stars that my brother had sent her from Japan. I'm like you didn't pack a knife, did you? And she's like.

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Rachel Spratt: maybe I'm a good girl, because once we stayed in a motel and we had to share a bed, me and the younger one and I go into bed, and there was a knife in the bed, and I'm like, What's this for? And she's.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Later. That was what that was for later.

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Rachel Spratt: So anyway, we're at the airport. I'm like, what are you putting your bag? It's like nothing, mommy, I swear nothing. I'm a good girl.

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Rachel Spratt: So they take a bag, this little cute little plastic. Hello, Kitty bag! And they take it over to the searching table. You know where, if you break any of the rules they like. Snap at you like you have to stand back, and you can't touch the counter. You can't touch your own stuff, so we're standing there, and I'm like, Oh.

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Rachel Spratt: and the guy he unzips. Hello! Kitty's head and he looks in and he opens it out, and he reached. And he's this big meaty security guy, the big beard and big meaty hands. Really Buff, Guy, and he reaches in and he pulls out this tiny pair of Hello, Kitty! Scissors! And he's like.

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Rachel Spratt: What have you got here? And my daughter looks up, and she said, What were you going to do with these? And she said I was going to use them to stab the pilot in the eye.

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Kate Temple: Oh!

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Rachel Spratt: And she's just like laughing. And then she started telling the guy everything she had ever done wrong in her life. Like when I go to school. I sharpen sticks, and I dip them in poison, and I chase the boys so I can kill them. And and I'm like, do this, I swear, and he's like this is my favorite passenger ever.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Hang on, hang on! What's the theme with authors having psycho kids.

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Rachel Spratt: So anyway, they confiscated the scissors we got on the plane. We went to Queensland. It was fine, but so in the next year we decide we're going on holiday, same thing. We're going to Queensland. But this time I'm super strict with the kids. It's like, I pack your suitcases. I'm going to pack your day packs. No sneaking anything in there, and we get security. And I'm just like I've got my eye on. Sammy's like

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Rachel Spratt: you better not have snuck anything in your bag because I need that holiday. I am this close to breaking. Mama needs to write creative books that delight children. You can't wear me down like this. She's like no worries. Mommy's put. I swear there's nothing, no scissors. I was like, no craft supplies, no, nothing nothing. Okay, fine.

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Rachel Spratt: and then we get there and like, so my older daughter's bag goes through. I was like, Well done, Violet, and then Sammy's bag. I'm like Sammy there better not be anything. I swear there's nothing in there, I swear, and it goes through, and there's nothing in there I'm like. Oh, thank you, Sammy, I'm sorry I doubted you. Yeah, we're going to go. Get on the plane. Now come on, let's go get a snack in. But then my bag went through, and then, and my girls thought this was so funny. My bag goes down the chute of shame to the side, and then, like Sammy's telling, everyone go past.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah, that'll get you turfed out of the airport straight away.

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Kate Temple: Yeah.

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Rachel Spratt: And she's like I do not have a bomb in my bag, and she said, she's got a big knife.

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Rachel Spratt: so we go over to the the the search desk, and my girls are standing either side of me, and they're just pissing themselves, laughing, and as I'm so just like exhausted and embarrassed, and you know, like also, that the humiliation of me nagging them, and then me being having something in my bag, so they bring my bag over and the guy unzips it, and he's all like really surly. It's like, what have we got?

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Rachel Spratt: And he opens it up, and inside he pulls out a Chobani yogurt

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Rachel Spratt: back when you weren't allowed to take fluids on planes.

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Kate Temple: And a chip.

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Rachel Spratt: Barney Yogurt was a hundred and

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Rachel Spratt: 50 milliliters, was like 10 No. 170 milliliters like 20 milliliters more than you were allowed to take on a plane.

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Rachel Spratt: so I had to stand there and ate my ciabana.

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Kate Temple: Before I was allowed to.

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Rachel Spratt: Just the 20.

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Kate Temple: 20 mils, just 20 mils of the.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah, no, they wouldn't let.

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Jacqueline Harvey: You put the yeah screw the lid back on it. After that.

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Rachel Spratt: No, you can take a screw one on. It's the it's the the. It was like a pot. One was too big. I think a screw. One is just.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Whatever the container size is, they'll they'll make you throw it away because it's you know, if you have hand cream that's like 10 grams over.

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Rachel Spratt: I don't think they do it anymore. I mean, it was all.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah, they do.

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Rachel Spratt: A shoe bomber, do they.

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Jacqueline Harvey: There's still certain international. There's

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Rachel Spratt: Oh, in America. Yeah, yeah.

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Kate Temple: Yeah, particularly if you're coming through New Zealand to get to Australia. But I think they're just trying to take your wine.

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Rachel Spratt: There!

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Kate Temple: Scattered and.

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Jacqueline Harvey: I don't know. We have enough wine here. As it is, we don't really need any more wine here.

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Rachel Spratt: Do you have a lot of wine in your carry-on luggage?

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Kate Temple: Doesn't everyone.

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Jacqueline Harvey: But especially on our way to book festival.

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Kate Temple: Yeah, yeah.

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Rachel Spratt: I like those handbags. You can get where you can fit like like the whole bladder out of a cask into it, and then it's got a hole at the bottom. I got my mother-in-law one of those for Christmas.

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Kate Temple: What a word of confidence that gift is.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Exactly.

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Rachel Spratt: She's got 10 grandchildren. She needs it.

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Kate Temple: Yeah.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Was. I was thinking about your story, though, Rachel, about lying to children, and my husband's got an awesome.

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Rachel Spratt: I don't lie to them. I tell them stories.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Well, this was a story.

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Rachel Spratt: I see.

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Jacqueline Harvey: This was a story. So we were I was driving with Olivia, who was probably about 10 at the time, and we were going to trade in. We had 2 cars that we were trading in.

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Jacqueline Harvey: and Ian's driving the other car, which had been stolen, mind you, about 8 weeks beforehand, and we thought no, by some bad dudes, when we'd gone to Byron Bay and had been used in a robbery in Sydney, and we thought, yay, we're going to get the insurance money. This car's gone, and the day before the insurance is meant to pay out. The cops called and said, Oh, Mr. Harvey. We found your car. He's like no, anyway, that was, that was a disappointing part of the story.

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Jacqueline Harvey: But I'm driving the other car, which was like a jeep Cherokee, and he's driving the the hit! The other car that had been stolen, and we're on our way to the dealership, and there was loads and loads of traffic, and I'm saying to Olivia, oh, we're going to be late. And she said, Well, just press the magic flying button.

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Jacqueline Harvey: And I said, what she goes. Yeah, that button there on the dashboard. That's the Magic Flying button, and seeing as though we're taking the car to trade the car in, and Dad always said, you can only ever use it. Once use it now

429
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Jacqueline Harvey: she's telling me.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Use it right now. It's it's it's exactly

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Jacqueline Harvey: perfect time like this. There's so much traffic, and I'm looking. I'm going. Tell me about this magic flying button. And so she's going on a lot about it. Anyway, we got to the dealership, and I said to Ian, You've got to tell her the truth about the magic Flying Button.

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Kate Temple: Look. I think it's a great feature by jeep, I think.

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Kate Temple: Well, clearly, I still didn't.

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Jacqueline Harvey: It so you know I didn't. I missed that, but.

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Rachel Spratt: Sandra Bullock's husband, her 1st husband, the one that was a bad man. But anyway, he got a car, and he converted it into so that it could become a flying car. So maybe Ian could do this as his retirement project.

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00:41:19.060 --> 00:41:19.719
Kate Temple: Just text them.

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Rachel Spratt: Wings on the Aston Martin, and off you go.

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Jacqueline Harvey: He couldn't.

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Kate Temple: Busy.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Keeping very busy. Yes.

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Rachel Spratt: I've got a question for you 2 before you go. I'm so fascinated about the way you write together. Can you just tell me a little bit about that.

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Rachel Spratt: How about you? Would.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Your process. Okay, tell us your process. How does it work, Joel?

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Kate Temple: Lots of walks. I think lots of walks. We walk and we talk, and that's.

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Rachel Spratt: So you talk to each other when you walk.

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Kate Temple: Yeah, yeah, what?

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Rachel Spratt: This is what me and my husband are like. We would go on holiday to the beach, and we would walk to the beach together, and then when we got there, we'd like see you in an hour and a half, and we would walk in opposite directions. One goes north, one goes south.

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Kate Temple: Yeah, right? Well, what would be great for ideas, though? Do you find.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Yep.

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Kate Temple: Lot of I.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah.

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Kate Temple: Yeah, right? Yeah. So I think that's yeah, we do a lot of if we go away, we do a lot of walking and talking. Most of the books are sorted out.

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Kate Temple: you know, in terms of concept, and plots and stuff are sorted out through that process. And if we're stuck. That's, you know, that's kind of how we get out of it. But because it's different kinds of books, you know, like the picture books are

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Kate Temple: very real concept based books. So I mean it. I don't. It doesn't matter who. Someone might write the 1st draft of that, and then the other person's come back to it.

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Kate Temple: But they're really what's the most important thing with that is the concept. You know, things like, you know, those are.

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Kate Temple: That's kind of the king of the of the of the book idea. It's different for longer books. It's different for graphic novels, a lot of the jokes, though, and things like that we'll talk out, and we'll talk through scenes and kind of try and gather all of the jokes along the way, and then kind of take notes and and then

457
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Kate Temple: create a series of documents that have got all those jokes in them, and the plot lines and kind of put it together like that. And then a lot of.

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Rachel Spratt: Do similar stuff to that with my husband, but we don't do it in quite so much detail. We have like meetings every day where we get together. We talk about stuff and like he'll talk through what's problems he's having. And I'll you know. Say, oh, you could do this. You could do that because I'm

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Rachel Spratt: I've had more experience with structural things than him, and then I'll pitch ideas to him, and he'll pitch ideas to me, and I'll go. Hmm, not going to do that. But okay.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Say, Joel, about your how it happens. Then.

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Kate Temple: Well, then, I think it's sort of like getting into practice and just just having the, you know, having the document open and and you know you you

462
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Kate Temple: in in the actual writing process. That's when a lot of the gags come to, you know, once you start moving. Yeah, the.

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Jacqueline Harvey: And do you do you actually do it like on a Google document or something.

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Kate Temple: No hiking.

465
00:43:52.930 --> 00:43:54.960
Jacqueline Harvey: Share it, though. No, I would hate that too.

466
00:43:54.960 --> 00:43:59.779
Kate Temple: We, we just we just email or air drop files back and forth.

467
00:44:00.600 --> 00:44:02.380
Kate Temple: and it's it's sort of.

468
00:44:02.430 --> 00:44:07.140
Kate Temple: But by the end of the there's a lot of this character wouldn't talk like that. This character.

469
00:44:07.140 --> 00:44:07.870
Rachel Spratt: Oh, yeah.

470
00:44:07.870 --> 00:44:17.709
Kate Temple: You get a lot of that? Yeah, by the end of the, you know, when when we've got the draft that we end up submitting to to our publishers. There's

471
00:44:18.340 --> 00:44:23.569
Kate Temple: the lines are very blurred. You really can't tell, and or even remember who's

472
00:44:23.820 --> 00:44:29.390
Kate Temple: put what in. Yeah, it's it's it's sort of it really is a kind of yeah.

473
00:44:29.390 --> 00:44:34.889
Rachel Spratt: I do a song in my Christmas show that my husband wrote the lyrics for, and he has no memory of writing them.

474
00:44:34.890 --> 00:44:35.540
Kate Temple: Yeah, it's like.

475
00:44:35.540 --> 00:44:39.449
Rachel Spratt: I know he wrote them because it does. It doesn't. It's not the type of thing I would write.

476
00:44:39.650 --> 00:44:45.810
Rachel Spratt: and I always credit him with it, but he's like I have absolutely no memory of writing that for you. But he did.

477
00:44:46.090 --> 00:44:55.019
Kate Temple: Yeah, I mean, I think, if you know, like, you've had that background in TV writing. And Joel and I met right as staff writers in advertising.

478
00:44:55.020 --> 00:44:55.340
Rachel Spratt: That's true.

479
00:44:55.340 --> 00:45:21.689
Kate Temple: If you've worked in an environment where you work creatively in a group, it's just it actually feels quite normal to bounce ideas around like that, and it's it's the only way to get unstuck, you know. The only time I feel any sense of writer's block is when I'm by myself, you know. That's you know, conversations are how you get out of it. Yeah.

480
00:45:21.690 --> 00:45:22.830
Rachel Spratt: May like.

481
00:45:23.100 --> 00:45:26.579
Rachel Spratt: because comedy writing is so competitive.

482
00:45:26.640 --> 00:45:34.760
Rachel Spratt: Part of what I like about what I do now is that it is just all about what's in my head. I'm not trying to compete with with someone.

483
00:45:34.810 --> 00:45:43.930
Rachel Spratt: compete with other writers to get a producer's attention. And they're all men, and I'm trying to like, get into what you know, like their headspace to win a competition.

484
00:45:43.930 --> 00:45:49.059
Kate Temple: Unfortunately, it's a lot of. There's a lot of men in my in my writers room as well. Yeah.

485
00:45:49.640 --> 00:45:50.105
Rachel Spratt: Yeah.

486
00:45:50.570 --> 00:45:51.050
Kate Temple: Young.

487
00:45:51.050 --> 00:45:52.660
Jacqueline Harvey: Surrounded by men. You've got.

488
00:45:52.660 --> 00:45:53.070
Kate Temple: I.

489
00:45:53.070 --> 00:45:57.650
Jacqueline Harvey: You've got boys. You've got a you know, husband, you've got no, no girls in your family.

490
00:45:57.650 --> 00:45:58.745
Kate Temple: No, no, that's

491
00:45:59.110 --> 00:46:02.730
Rachel Spratt: We find boys baffling in our house. We're just like boys.

492
00:46:03.240 --> 00:46:04.260
Kate Temple: Yeah, well.

493
00:46:04.260 --> 00:46:05.210
Rachel Spratt: Aliens.

494
00:46:05.210 --> 00:46:08.380
Kate Temple: Yeah, that's you. That's I said, how I feel. So.

495
00:46:08.380 --> 00:46:09.090
Rachel Spratt: Yeah.

496
00:46:09.090 --> 00:46:15.380
Jacqueline Harvey: But you may. You may get to a point soon. Kate, where you might have like girlfriends of boys that come, and you know.

497
00:46:15.380 --> 00:46:15.930
Kate Temple: That'd be great.

498
00:46:15.930 --> 00:46:17.409
Jacqueline Harvey: Be on your team. So.

499
00:46:17.410 --> 00:46:19.623
Kate Temple: Yeah, yes, Kate, I'm getting a girlfriend.

500
00:46:21.115 --> 00:46:24.890
Jacqueline Harvey: I didn't mean you, Joel.

501
00:46:25.420 --> 00:46:25.950
Kate Temple: Right.

502
00:46:25.950 --> 00:46:27.040
Jacqueline Harvey: No, no.

503
00:46:27.040 --> 00:46:44.140
Kate Temple: Yeah, it's a i think, you know. Look, the the collaboration part of it is that's it's good because it you get a lot out of before you get started. You know there's a lot that you get get done before you even open a document and start writing so.

504
00:46:44.140 --> 00:46:44.710
Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah, yeah.

505
00:46:44.710 --> 00:46:50.726
Kate Temple: And we've we've tried. We've tried different things, like with the Jimmy Cook and the Alice Tooley.

506
00:46:51.180 --> 00:47:05.169
Kate Temple: books, which were, you know, it's more or less the same series with a different skin. It took a more female skew. Yeah, but they're written as letters. They were written as letters between 2. What do you call them? An epistolary novel? Yeah.

507
00:47:05.170 --> 00:47:05.990
Rachel Spratt: That's correct.

508
00:47:05.990 --> 00:47:07.210
Kate Temple: Thank you. Thank you.

509
00:47:07.210 --> 00:47:08.939
Rachel Spratt: Think you say it with more confidence, though.

510
00:47:08.940 --> 00:47:09.265
Kate Temple: Yeah.

511
00:47:10.020 --> 00:47:11.379
Kate Temple: it's hilarious. It's hard to.

512
00:47:11.380 --> 00:47:13.819
Rachel Spratt: Say, isn't it? If you had a speech impediment that would be a tongue twister.

513
00:47:13.820 --> 00:47:14.370
Jacqueline Harvey: History.

514
00:47:14.920 --> 00:47:15.319
Rachel Spratt: Well, that's.

515
00:47:15.320 --> 00:47:15.979
Kate Temple: Did you see?

516
00:47:15.980 --> 00:47:18.320
Rachel Spratt: Written down, but you don't actually say very often.

517
00:47:18.320 --> 00:47:19.839
Kate Temple: You never said you never sat.

518
00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:32.820
Kate Temple: but because there are letters written back and forth. We we did try writing a character each, and we thought maybe that would be the way to go, and because I'm a male I will write Jimmy, and you're female. You'll write, Alice.

519
00:47:32.910 --> 00:47:40.870
Kate Temple: But then it was. We had more fun, kind of, you know, like I would write some great Alice and Kate would write Great Jimmy, and and then we

520
00:47:41.120 --> 00:47:57.699
Kate Temple: we sort of just picked up where the other had left off, and just just moved it forward that way. Yeah. And then you know the the drafting process. You know you go back and you do it again, and any of the really good jokes they're always mine, so you can see

521
00:47:58.250 --> 00:47:58.819
Kate Temple: I knew.

522
00:47:58.820 --> 00:48:04.969
Jacqueline Harvey: That I already knew that honestly, just knowing you 2. I knew that about you, Kate, that all the good jokes are yours.

523
00:48:06.980 --> 00:48:09.470
Kate Temple: Good good punchline.

524
00:48:09.530 --> 00:48:10.240
Rachel Spratt: Well.

525
00:48:10.240 --> 00:48:12.170
Jacqueline Harvey: That note, we should probably wrap it up.

526
00:48:12.170 --> 00:48:21.320
Rachel Spratt: It up all right. Well, you've been listening to real stories with random writers. My name's Ra. Spratt. If you want to find out more about me. You can check out my website, which is raspratt.com.

527
00:48:21.510 --> 00:48:23.710
Rachel Spratt: Jacqueline Harvey. Where can we find out about you?

528
00:48:23.710 --> 00:48:27.530
Jacqueline Harvey: www.jacquelineharvey.com.au.

529
00:48:27.530 --> 00:48:30.829
Rachel Spratt: And Kate and Joel. It's been lovely to have you, and thank you for sharing.

530
00:48:31.121 --> 00:48:32.579
Jacqueline Harvey: Where do we find them?

531
00:48:32.580 --> 00:48:34.519
Rachel Spratt: No, I just want to say thank you first, st Jackie.

532
00:48:34.520 --> 00:48:35.430
Jacqueline Harvey: Oh, sorry!

533
00:48:35.430 --> 00:48:36.350
Rachel Spratt: Are you sharing your.

534
00:48:36.350 --> 00:48:36.950
Jacqueline Harvey: Button.

535
00:48:36.950 --> 00:48:43.949
Rachel Spratt: No, no, no, I wasn't going to forget. I do have a terrible short term, memory. I was just going to say thank you for sharing your delightful poo related story.

536
00:48:43.950 --> 00:48:46.839
Kate Temple: A pleasure pleasure. Thank you for having it.

537
00:48:47.095 --> 00:48:56.020
Rachel Spratt: Where can we find out more about you? You've actually got a really good website. By the way, I look at everyone's websites over the last 30 weeks, and yours is really good. Well done.

538
00:48:56.020 --> 00:49:01.579
Kate Temple: Well, that's all. You, that's all. You. It's katejoultemple.com, isn't it?

539
00:49:01.580 --> 00:49:02.080
Rachel Spratt: Yeah.

540
00:49:02.080 --> 00:49:03.180
Kate Temple: Yeah, that's it.

541
00:49:03.180 --> 00:49:08.609
Rachel Spratt: Yes, no. You've inspired me because my website needs overhauling. I look at yours and think, oh, this is so much better.

542
00:49:10.040 --> 00:49:13.319
Rachel Spratt: anyway. Thank you all for listening until next time. Goodbye.

543
00:49:13.320 --> 00:49:14.040
Jacqueline Harvey: Bye.

544
00:49:14.040 --> 00:49:15.320
Kate Temple: Bye. See you later.