Wow!

Suddenly the end of the year is here.

It seemed to take so long while it was happening, yet surely it was just yesterday that Mr Three as he was then, told me about the fireworks "last night".   It's a happy accident I think, that as we began the year with the youngest of the clan, we close it with the oldest staying with us, if not on the mattress on our bedroom floor.

She will be eighty-five next year, all being well and by then, the great-grandmother of six.  For her, it seems like yesterday that I was Mr Three.

None of us will be up at midnight, we'd rather see the new year in properly, in the daylight, without being tired and hung over, and in any case we've wrung all we can out of the old one without having to worry about wasting the last few hours of it.

It's been a wonderful ride really, this year and I've been grateful for having the opportunity to document it in a medium that my mother can't hope to understand and that my grandchildren will take for granted.

A few days ago I wasn't sure if I would continue into the next, after a year amid all our other distractions it had become too hard, but I've caught up now, and there are things that will happen in the future that we'll need to remember I'm sure.

The fireworks in the photo are not from tonight, but from July, Bastille Day in Lagarde, posted as a reminder of all of the places we've been this year, and that we do indeed live on both sides of the world now.

Sunlight!

When we woke this morning there was something strangely unfamiliar about the place, we couldn't put our finger on it at first and then we realised that it was sunlight shining through the windows for the first time this month.

It wasn't the bright, yellow burning light that we are accustomed to, just a warm sort of glow. Strong enough to cast a shadow, although not to illuminate the house, but sunlight none the less.

It didn't last long either, but with most of the state flooded, every major highway impassable and many towns completely inundated we are glad to have seen it.

The rain will apparently remain for a week or so, but in more moderate amounts at last, perhaps just enough to keep the grass wet enough so that it can't be mowed till next year at the earliest.

Home

The cloud lifted briefly this evening and we saw the sun set for the second time this month. Half an hour later the rain returned, but we had seen enough to know that the sky is still there, right where it is supposed to be, and it doesn't appear to be quite as full of water as it has been of late.

Just as the sun has been struggling to make its presence felt in the time that we have been "back" and while much has happened in those two months, we have been struggling in our efforts to stumble across the merest hint of a germ of an idea as to just where it is we might want to live when we are between our bouts of peregrination.

"Struggling", because we are too comfortable right here in the Home of the Biting Midge to apply ourselves to the problem, and we use our busyness of recent days as an excuse for having failed thus far to address it.   I suspect we were both deliberately denying that there is a need to do so.

Today on the drive home we made some progress.

We have been asked on many occasions on our travels if we are retired, and to that our response is succinctly negative. We reason that since we do not technically qualify for any sort of retirement income, we must actually be doing what we do for a living. With that thought in mind, it logically follows that when we are not doing that, that is, when we are at "home", we must be on holiday.

So we have decided that we need to find a holiday house.

One that is near the beach, and from which we can see sunsets, and mountains, and pine trees, and will make us want to come back to it from time to time. That's it.  It took a hundred kilometres to work out that we need a house just like the one we live in now.  Perhaps in another hundred we'll have figured our where it should be.

As we looked down from Anne and Jaap's holiday digs we saw a dozen houses that could suit. They were not for sale of course, or if they were it would be for a figure far in excess of our budget, but it is a beginning.

Perhaps it would be fair to ask just why it has taken a year to arrive at this rather simple conclusion, and while the answer is not entirely clear, I suspect it has a little to do with some sunlight shining through a break in the clouds.

Afraid

It's nice to be staying with Sam the long suffering wonder dog even if he does bear more than a passing resemblance to the mythical chupacabra in his current closely cropped livery.

He has the most even tempered demeanour of any small animal we've every met, and is tolerating the new round of lack of attention somewhat manfully, just as he did when his first "sibling" arrived. After a particularly tortuous time involving Mr Four and a one-sided wrestling match, we were surprised to see him somewhat manfully lifted onto the hip of his master, and "disappeared" into the depths of the other side of the house. There was the sound of a door closing, shortly followed by the return of just one of them.

After a round of enquiry which in a short flurry of questions escalated to the heights of a mini inquisition, Mr Four admitted that yes indeed, Sam was locked in Mummy's bedroom, and after initially refusing to rectify the matter, when pressed he offered that it might not be a good idea, because he explained unable to keep his face straight, "He's afraid of Papa and Jojo."

Look at that face, and ask yourself whether that is the face of an animal that is afraid of anything. In a week or two when the fluff grows back, perhaps, but for now, I don't think so.

The Big Wet

As the rain increased in direct proportion to our lack of desire to drive anywhere, we dragged ourselves into the car and headed south for the day. Roger had travelled a few thousand kilometres so it was the least we could do, although every inch of the way we wished we were in a submarine, or perhaps curled up somewhere with a book.

Being there was fantastic of course, looking across the ocean or where we knew it used to be before the sky fell on us, but we had to repeat the journey at the end of the day, tip toeing up the highway, studiously avoiding trouble, while listening to the endless flood reports on the radio.

Amazingly in the ninety minutes we were on the road, the only time the announcer drew breath between reading flood conditions on rivers various and evacuation notices for towns across the state, was to apologise for not reading the lists of road closures as they comprised some twenty-five pages and it would be, she thought, impossible to do anything meaningful with them.

Then came the hysterical calls from listeners for the Premier to return from her holiday to do something about the floods. Exactly what she could do, no one was prepared to explain, but I did wonder if thought perhaps they'd carry her to the water's edge in a gilded chair so she could simply tell the water to go back.

Perhaps it will, if we wait long enough.

Herding Cats

Anyone who has been asleep under a rock, or has not read anything of these pages of late, may have escaped the news that it's been raining for a while.

Boxing Day is typically the busiest day of the year on our highways, and sadly for us there is nothing but highway for the hundred kilometres between where we live and where we wanted to be. Even more sadly the rain in buckets combined with a few other factors to cause an accident which was sufficiently serious to stop sixty kilometres of traffic.

Serious and sobering enough to have caused the loss of a life.

Perhaps the thousands who were delayed in the course of the day will, like us, reflect on their mortality and drive just a little more cautiously in the conditions.

When we did arrive, the sobriety of the journey was forgotten in a flash (although tucked away for future reference), we ate pizzas and gathered round the Christmas tree and gave each other presents and refused steadfastly to sit still for photographs. A dog, three grandchildren and their parents in one place, surely that can't be too much to ask.

SMILE!!!

It was like herding cats.

But it didn't feel like Christmas!

Let me hasten to point out that my harsh headline is not a reflection on Mic and Mat's prowess has hostess and host, not at all, indeed the company, the food, and the event itself were indeed sublime, even from all reports the bits of it from which I were absent didn't appear to suffer. It's just that my personal take on the event involved a sudden-onset illness of strange and ridiculously discomforting effect before I could partake of much of the food or any of the drink.

Between the hours of lunch and well after dinner my view of the world was mostly through closed and unconscious eyes. When they opened at all it was to view the Christmas tree, apparently on it's side, from my recumbent position on the couch.

I did wake once, late afternoon, in a lather of sweat and shivers, and made my way unsteadily and cautiously to a discreet corner of the garden intent on emptying the contents of my stomach as quietly as I could. Unaccustomed as I am to this sort of malady, I was until that time unaware that my definition of "quiet" does not correspond with another more popular view, nor that doing so over a plant with large and springy grass like leaves would not provide the discrete outcome I had been seeking.

Alas, what I now know that I did not then, was that large and springy grass like leaves when loaded with a syrup of yesterday's breakfast, actually fight to overcome their load by springing it in a fine mist in all directions bar the one from which it had arrived.

Fortunately when facing circumstances like this, the "we'll probably laugh about this later gene" kicks in, and so it was that I was able to return to my repose, leaving the rain to tidy up.

On our arrival at home that night, after finally waking in time to see the dinner plates being cleared and feeling well enough for nothing but a sliver of Christmas Pud with a trickle of custard, to pack and drive home into the night (because I was the one who hadn't had a drink after all), it was difficult to believe I hadn't just made it all up.