Liina Flynn
26 August 2021, 8:36 PM
What do you do during lockdown when one week turns into two, then four - and you are not confident that it may be even more?
You paint a car and turn your lounge room into a TAB bar!
Instead of getting down about lockdown, a bored Donna Louise (Spottygirl) Walker decided to paint her car to make people smile.
“I normally do face painting and I miss doing it – and my car had a crappy paint job anyway,” Donna said.
“Face painting is my therapy, my connection to the community and my creative outlet and I can’t do it at the moment, so I painted on my car instead.”
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So, one week into lockdown, Donna started painting designs on the car that she normally would paint on faces – and that meant rainbows.
She didn’t stop there - she got the children involved too.
“I asked my seven year old nephew, Alexander, what he wanted to see on the car and he wanted a skull on the bonnet,” she said.
“Now I have a skull painted on the bonnet of an airy fairy rainbow car. On the other side, he painted a Minecraft creeper. Then my 15 year old daughter wanted to write swag on the side of the car.”
“When I started freehand painting, the birds were singing and it was peaceful – it was good art therapy for me.
“I’m calling it the lockdown car.
“Like with tattoos, one will never be enough tattoo and I intends to keep painting designs on it.
“It’s a noticeable car and it ill stand out. People in Lismore will be able to play ‘spotto’ with Spottygirl’s car.
Meanwhile, in Port Macquarie, two housemates decided to live their best lockdown life and install their own TAB bar in their loungeroom.
Alex Strachan (31) and Aaron Jarman (21) have been housemates for only a month, however, in that time have found they have the same mutual love for ‘the punt’.
Strachan, former radio personality and recent meat tray winner, says having his own TAB bar in the lounge has been a dream of his since he was six years old.
“I’m going through a divorce at the moment,” Alex said.
“What divorced man doesn’t want a TAB in his lounge room.”
Housemate Aaron, like many others around the Mid North Coast, has spent lockdown at home, looking for further ways to live his best life. He said the idea of the in-house TAB came from boredom and missing the pub.
“We were sitting at home, punting all day and drinking beers,” Aaron said.
“So, we came up with the idea of making our own TAB bar.”
The new in-house facility, comprising of three small screens, a 50” television and two laptops is named after the late Norm Morgan, who was well respected around Port Macquarie.
“Norm Morgan was my dad’s best mate,” Alex said.
“He was a solicitor, an avid member of the surf club here at Flynn’s and an all-round great guy. He would only go to pubs for a Saturday punt, that had a nice TAB.”
A spokesperson from TABCORP got in touch via Instagram, to congratulate the boys on their setup, before asking permission to share the setup on all of the official TAB social media pages.
“Mate, how good is this. You guys are killing it.” The spokesperson said.
Due to Covid restrictions, the boys say they are not accepting visiting punters to the house, opting instead to run a closed-book policy.
Alex doesn’t want people to think the boys are not responsible adults, and so released this statement to the Port App before publication.
“We always gamble responsibly, and Aaron DOES pay his rent.”