Oops I forgot I had a blog! Not really just took a day off which stretched into … well a month. Blogging can be very all-consuming and you forget what life was like before you had the self-imposed daily deadline of writing for a blog. Taking a break was an interesting experiment. I realised that without the daily writing practice I don’t write anything. I realised I missed the interaction with readers. But I also realised I need to be more structured in my approach to the blog and I need to work out exactly what I wish to achieve with this great online experiment. So I will be working on that once these children head back to school.

Today is the last day of our holidays. I’m not sure my whole grand plan of unemployment giving me more time with the kids has panned out. This morning I found myself sitting alone in the lounge room while one child watched a DVD on the laptop in her bedroom and the other was Facebooking/Skyping friends in her room. So here I am bonding with myself!

Against my better judgement we did undertake one mini-road trip these holidays. It’s been 30 years since I completed Year 10 and some very dedicated school friends decided to put on a reunion. So we left the coastal breezes behind and took the seven hour drive into the Western Plains to Mudgee.

As usual the journey was not without its challenges.  As we were walking out the door at 5.15 am I realised the white bra I needed to wear under my white shirt to the reunion dinner was not only not in my suitcase it was not washed either. So a quick hand wash and then with what I thought was some ingenuity I carefully strung it under the dashboard to capture the best of the air conditioning breezes. OK around 9.00am the family started to complain the car was getting a little warm from that air conditioning but hell people pay good money for hot saunas I mumbled something about “releasing toxins” and the drive continued. There was some embarrassment later in the day when I forgot to remove said bra before my friend’s husband got in the car for a trip to the bottle shop. Oh well.

At the MacDonald’s stop we became aware that while the Toyota was holding up in terms of the engine was still going (just) the infrastructure was starting to fail. The boot refused to open. So access to our luggage was going to be slightly challenging, as in it involved everybody out of the car, pulling down the backseat and then some serious contortions as we pulled suitcases out backwards. Life wasn’t meant to be easy, at least not when this family travels.

It was an opportunity for Hippie Child to get some practice at country driving. Kangaroos adorned the highway, some living some deceased. After about the tenth siting of road kill even Princess Child was struggling to come up with the emotional intensity she had exhibited on the first sighting of a corpse. Country life girls, country life. The Hippie Child was amazed at having to slow down to allow a wombat to waddle across the highway. The Golden Highway is without many overtaking lanes so apologies to those who were stuck behind our learner driver for some time, we did ask her to pull off to the side to let people pass her, it was then that we discovered, learner drivers don’t automatically know where a safe spot to pull over is, and they struggle with the concept of allowing enough time to slow down from 90km to zero  in a confined space. But we all survived.

The reunion was fun, although I spent a great part of the evening feeling like dementia had set in as I struggled to remember names and faces. Note to anyone planning to go to a school reunion, STUDY YOUR OLD SCHOOL MAGAZINES AND PHOTOS.

We stayed on a farm that my friend’s family used to own, it’s now rented out as a holiday house so she got to enjoy a weekend in her childhood home.

While Hippie Child was practising driving backwards up a dirt road and parking between trees (God how easy would it be to teach them to drive if you had this much SPACE) her sister was discovering the joy of photography (watch out Uncle David).

 

 

 

 

 

We enjoyed a delicious lunch at the Mudgee Brewing Co.

The husband enjoyed Roo Pie with Creamy Herb Mash, Mushy Peas, Beetroot Relish & Greens and I loved the Stack Roast Vegetables, High Valley Feta, Olives, Gaufrette Chips, Rocket & Pancetta. The Tasting Plate was a great starter and the girls enjoyed Penne Chicken, Pumpkin, Pinenuts & Baby Spinach and Toasted Turkish With Roast Beef, Caramelised Onion, Horseradish Cream & Salad. This is a lot more glamorous than the eating out thirty years ago, when prawn cocktails and steak diane were all the rage!

The children spent a day taking cups of tea with the few remaining relatives I have in town – it’s character building I tell them. It’s also a little odd when your holiday includes a stopover at the cemetery. As we only buried Dad five years ago it wasn’t hard to remember where we had put him, but the kids tested me when asked where my grandparents were buried. We started wandering through the old section of the graveyard – where your last resting place was clearly defined by your religion – it took a moment to find the Roman Catholic section – although the husband was certain the ornate statues in the distance would belong to the Catholics – he was right. The girls were freaked out by finding a “weeping angel” just like in the Dr Who episode. We had to resort to googling the cemetery records to locate them but eventually Row N RC was found and Bill and Mary remembered.

There’s a weird nostalgia in returning to your home town, and a distinct sense of time passing. As we drove out of town on the final day I imagined that returning in 10 years for the 40 year reunion things will be different again. There will be no teenagers arguing in the backseat and possibly fewer cups of tea to be had. We move on but the place you grew up and the people who inhabited your childhood remain a part of who you are.