The blog silence should give you a good indication of how busy things have been. Today is the first day in the past couple of weeks I’ve a) felt like I’ve had time to post and b) felt like sitting down and posting! We had a lovely day on Christmas Day, spending it out at my cousin’s place in the Perth hills. Lovely lunch and lots of laughs – kids were great and we all enjoyed it!
Boxing Day saw us really get underway with packing – we started at about 7ish and worked til 2pm (me packing boxes, husband loading the container). At 2, the Battersby’s came around for a last visit, and also an old friend from high school, Cain Bennett, who has lived up on the far northside of Perth for many years but we’d never actually got around to catching up before! He brought his two boys with him, and the kids all had a swim while we chatted – you’d never know it has been over 15 years since we caught up!
Tuesday Miss Six went for a final visit to her friend C’s house, while Master Nine was mostly occupied with our friends for the day, leaving only Master One to “help” finish the packing. We nearly had a disaster when I arrived back from dropping bits and pieces off to people and collecting Miss Six, when husband announced that we couldn’t fit a bunch of stuff (including framed wedding photos and the new TV!). I calmly insisted we would (yes, I WAS calm!) and we figured out how to do it. A few bits and pieces did have to be left behind but luckily they were all pretty easy to find homes for (including some quick sales on Gumtree). The container was considered locked and loaded.
Wednesday I spent the first couple of hours distributing things to buyers/recipients, as well as cleaning – our wonderful cleaner did the inside and windows, while I did the outside, including shed and carport etc. Took longer than I expected, as usual, but the cleaner is worth her weight in gold! I finished the day with a trip to the tip, and dropped the final things that were worth keeping to the Salvos. Then husband and I had our final Gold Class cinema date, enjoying a bit of relaxation watching Tintin.
Thursday we spent a couple of hours fixing the reticulation at the house, then I had a couple more errands to run (including a third farewell to Alisa, because I found yet more things to drop to her, and a cuppa with Cheryl and Jen) and I dropped the keys at the real estate. Done! Then had just enough time to cram everything into our suitcases and head up to Perth, where we checked in to our motel and dumped our bags, picked up a hire car, dropped the bus at the transport depot, and came back to the hotel – a precision series of events! I left husband and big kids at the hotel and took Master One for a drive to say goodbye to my friend Christine at Education World, and my aunt and uncle. M1 slept the whole trip! Marty and Charlie came to hang out with us for a couple of hours while they waited for their flights, and everyone was in bed pretty early in anticipation of a big travel day Friday!
4am start on Friday – I’d packed everything properly on Thursday evening so was just a matter of showers/teeth/clothes and stacking everything in the hire car. We dropped husband at his work airport first, then drove the hire car back to the domestic airport, wrangled all our gear in, checked in (and discovered that QANTAS has changed the rules about checked baggage, which made me a bit cross – however, the experience was otherwise excellent) and grabbed a bit of brekkie before our flight. Had the lovely airbus plane, with in-seat entertainment which kept the big kids very occupied (and I even managed to watch almost two full movies, in between M1 wrangling, which was lovely – Rise of the Planet of the Apes - enjoyed this a LOT – and almost all of Captain America). Arrived at the other end to find my dad waiting for us, and the first taxi off the rank was the maxi-taxi we needed. Yay! Dropped our gear off at the apartment then walked next door to the hospital where Mum is ensconced – she looks, sounds (and says she feels, mostly) great, which was a big relief! Spent a couple of hours there before heading back for Dad to make us dinner (spoilt).
Saturday we bummed around mostly – spent a bit of time with Mum, and went back there after dinner to enjoy the fireworks from her corner room overlooking South Bank! Sunday she got a leave pass for a few hours so we wandered down to South Bank and the kids had a bit of a swim and a play. Monday was VERY quiet indeed – I think the past few weeks really caught up with me and we didn’t actually get out of bed until 10am (unHEARD of!). Well, I was up earlier, but M1 eventually snuggled back into bed with me and we dozed off again. We didn’t end up leaving the apartment except to walk Mum back to the hospital after she had a visit with us for a few hours!
Today though, our energy has finally returned. Got the kids up and ready by 9am (yes, I started much earlier than that!) with the plan to walk into the city and watch a movie. Mum couldn’t have the procedure she was supposed to though, so she and Dad kept M1 which was great – big kids and I did a LOT of walking and enjoyed an uninterrupted viewing of Chipmunks 3 (surprisingly entertaining). Got a bit turned about in the city, but eventually found our way back – walking through South Bank home we discovered much CLOSER cinema, which we’ll not doubt make use of! And the kids (ahem, and Dad and I maybe…) have been immersed in the Monopoly app on the iPad (best purchase yet – 99cents and getting LOADS of use!) a bit – keeps us all entertained. Still managed to watch the Doctor Who Christmas special at last, and finished a box of CBCA judging – fair bit to catch up on though, so trying to keep up with the reading! Among other things (ie: dealing with the windup of Aurealis Awards entries and so on). Never stops, but at least I feel like I’m actually getting some relaxing time as well! Will enjoy it while I can – the wheel with start again when we get to Tassie on the 21st!
