It didn’t look much from the outside – just your usual one thousand and three hundred square feet edifice built on a commercial scale (without any twiddly bits or ornamentation) – but inside it was a footballer’s or pop-star’s dream residence. The house (coming up for auction soon) was full of light and glass, and water and space… and spectacular views over the range at Toowoomba, around one hundred and thirty kilometres west of Brisbane. We just happened to be driving by on a sight-seeing tour with Terry and Val when we saw that the house was having an “open day”.

“Want to go in for a look around?” asked Terry.

Dressed casually in our shorts, we wondered if we looked like genuine potential buyers as we made our way to the front steps to be greeted by a beautiful girl in an elegant black dress and high-heels.

“Millionaires, too, wear shorts,” someone suggested and the rest of us agreed.

Indeed, we were greeted and treated with the deference usually reserved for the very rich. However, before leaving I admitted to the agent that Chris and I would have to win the lottery in order to even consider buying the property.

“But our friends are rich,” I smiled.

“Perhaps you’d like to enjoy a glass of champagne with us here on Monday night?” the agent asked Terry and Val as they were departing a few minutes later.

“Thank you, we might just do that,” answered Terry.

I’m not sure if they went. As for Chris and I, the next day we drove back to Brisbane – to Roland’s place – and would you believe it? Roland asked us if wanted to visit the house that a friend of his is in the process of building not far from here. The house is a massive edifice, built on a commercial scale with lots of concrete and steel, and big windows, and an inside pool (of course), and fantastic views of Belivah and beyond; and, oh yes, it will be about thirteen hundred square feet, possibly more if you count the bedroom patio. Is Roland the friend of a film star or celebrity? No, his friend is a bricklayer.

Incidentally, I came across the kind of property to suit my pocket – note the tree-house in the last photograph!

Well, actually, it wasn’t quite the last straw (though it sounds good) but who knows how many are left in the world? Perhaps I should explain…

At the time – last Saturday afternoon – Chris and I were at a wonderful place called “The Barn”. We had been enchanted by the setting and the authentic atmosphere of old Australia when our friends Val and Terry had taken us there on a previous visit to Toowoomba four years ago. This time there were some new additions – Scotty’s Garage, Texaco petrol pumps and a nineteen forties Ford in the forecourt – and I was transported back to my childhood (not that I was around in the forties!).

Inside The Barn the others ordered modern coffee – cappuccinos (unheard of in bush towns in the sixties) – whilst I plumped for a diet Coke in a can (in my childhood “The real thing” came in curvy little glass bottles that, when empty, also doubled up as fishing lines).

“Would you have any straws please?” I asked the waitress.

“Oh, aren’t there some in the holder?” she responded.

“No,” I answered, “don’t worry, I can manage without one.”

“Oh that’s alright,” she smiled, “I’ll find you one from out back and bring it over to you.”

A minute or two later the pretty blonde was as good as her word and brought out a single straw. She seemed very pleased with herself and I was happy to receive such hospitality The straw felt rather strange to my fingertips, not smooth – even a little knobbly – and quite unlike straws to which I have grown accustomed. During the course of our conversation, and many sips through the straw, I found that the end of straw was getting wet and soft, so much so that I had to turn it upside down and resume sucking from the other end. I chuckled to myself. I hadn’t enjoyed a Coke so well in a long time. Before leaving I took my empty can, complete with the wet straw, to the counter.

“Thank you for the nostalgic experience of drinking through a paper straw,” I beamed.

“It’s the last straw,” the lady’s husband turned to me from behind the bar, “at least, I bought two and a half thousand of them sixteen years ago and there are about two thousand left, but then that could well be the last of them. Here, have a couple more.”

I gave one to Val and kept one to give my brother Bill. I wonder if he will recognise the waxy coating when I hand it to him…. Will he say, “Well that’s the last straw?”