It is mum's birthday on 31 March and I headed off to Sydney for a few days. Garth was on his way to the Gold Coast so he dropped me off at the airport. As I was on leave I rewarded myself with my favourite treat and purchased 'The Other Boleyn Girl' - a historical novel which was the source for the recent movie of the same name. However if you see the movie you have not heard the complete story and the movie actually leaves out more than it says - so do yourself a favour and buy or borrow the book - it is a really good read and I highly recommend it. 

I flew in on Wed and courtesy of Commonwealth Award points picked up a great little Toyota Corolla from Thrifty and went straight to  Ruth & Phil's at Stanwell Park - Ruth was my team leader in Wollongong in 2000 and is now retired - they have a lovely house in Stanwell Park and let us use their apartment in Brisbane city when we want to. Their son Will is at the end of his studies as a lawyer (solicitor?) and they are looking forward to becoming one of the many families who are moving to Qld to live - a quick overnight stay and off to Danielle's place, at Kembla Grange to visit her new baby, Piper. I worked with Danielle in Wollongong office and we had a lovely time catching up and gossiping. I also met Victoria who is from the same office and is due to have her baby soon.

Then on Thursday I went to meet my friend Chris for dinner at Macarthur Square. I had a bit of fun with the Napolean Perdis counter and pleaded ignorance of their products so they would do my makeup before dinner as I had left my makeup bag on the bed at home and didn't even have a bit of lippy to make me look decent for dinner. The young girl on the counter made me look halfway decent and I promptly went into DJ's and purchased some reasonably priced makeup that was on special.

I have known Chris since 5th form (year 11) at school and we have remained firm friends over the years. Along with Ann, who I met in 1st form (year 7), he is one of the two oldest and dearest friends I have. I make it a habit of catching up with both of them as often as I can.

I stayed overnight at Chris & his partner Kerrie's place at Campbelltown and then on to visit Auntie Barb at Bradbury. Barb is John's father's sister. Auntie Barb caught me up with all the family gossip and we had a lovely couple of hours chat on the verandah overlooking the park - no wonder she doesn't want to move - she has such a lovely view. I had arrived a bit early and caught her short so didn't ask for a photo.

On Friday afternoon I arrived at mum's we had some lunch and headed off to the movies and saw 'The Other Boleyn Girl' before we headed home and unpacked the new computer Cheryl had bought for her. I am a real fan of movies about Henry VIII, Elizabeth I & Ann Boleyn - there was a whole crop of them around when I was in my late teens and I have always enjoyed them - this movie had a different tack on the life of Ann Boleyn and she was apparently not as nice as she was painted in 'Ann of a thousand days..'. I really liked this movie.

Of course new computers don't take old printers so off to Kmart for a new printer and scanner. Luckily Kmart had a sale on and I got a HP on clearance for $70. It was about this time mum told me her microwave had also given up the ghost!!! A trip to Aldi solved that on Saturday morning.

This now meant mum had a whole lot of boxes, an old computer, microwave etc - Luckily Jo said she would take the old 'puter for Matthew and so mum and I piled into the car with all the boxes and the microwave and did a dumpster run thru Penrith. The number of people who lock their dumpster is a real pain when you are looking to get rid of rubbish. Eventually we were able to dispose of all the boxes and the microwave and then took the car for a run looking for the new road to Castlereagh - mum's car is not travelling too well these days and by the time we finished the dumpster run and drove out to the rowing centre it had good strong simmer going in the radiator. We pulled up and let the bubbling noises die. A young fellow and his girlfriend even stopped and offered assistance which was a pleasing suprise. However we were expecting the worst when we set out and mum had water in the car - we just waited till it cooled down and headed home.

The boiling radiator confirmed I could not drive it to Katoomba for our day out on Sunday.  I had been going to ask Mike to get his friend Ron to fire up the Jag and take us but mum pointed out the traffic on Sundays up the  mountains is horrendous so we decided to go on the train.

Sunday was a lovely day - not a cloud in the sky so we headed off to the station and met Mike on the train to Katoomba.  Apart from the trip on the Indian Pacific when we were still living in Shellharbour, I have not been on a train up the  mountains since I left boarding school in Lawson in 1967. It was lovely to be in the mountains and having experienced travelling in many places, I now know why we think the Blue Mountains are so beautiful. The bush was green and fresh and there was no bushfire damage as this year there had been no fires in the summer.

We had a one hour trip to Katoomba which I enjoyed immensely - I love travelling by train and have never not enjoyed a train trip for pleasure. John is still spitting chips that we have Gold Passes for NSW railways and live in Qld. In case you are wondering his 30 years on NSW railways entitles us both to free train, bus and ferry travel in NSW forever - 1st class if available. We do get 1/2 price in Qld on country services run by Qld rail - however most of the really good country trains are now privately owned and we usually join the YHA (Youth Hostels Australia) to get backpacker rates if we are travelling on them. We are planning to take Kermit to Cairns by train and travel back slowly - either this winter or next.

We arrived at the Carrington Hotel for high tea at 2.30 and were shown to a beautifully set table which was a bit close to the piano and after a quick table change we settled in to have afternoon tea. The dining room was quite grand and the service was good. We were given a 3 tier tray of small bits and pieces which were very appetising - sandwiches, mini quiches, cheese, crackers, dried fruit. Just the sort of thing that mum likes as you can have a little bit of everything. You had unlimited teas or coffees and a wide choice so we did have a good time of it. An old fellow tinkled away on the piano and played quite well - he did come around at one stage and ask us if we were enjoying ourselves?

We had a quick walk around town to fill in some time before returning on the train to Penrith - I can highly recommend this as an outing as we thoroughly enjoyed it. While at Katoomba station I had a play with the timer on the new camera I had recently purchased and took a photo of us using the rubbish bin - it was fine. 

Joanne had asked us for lunch on Monday and then kindly volunteered to drive me to the airport on Tuesday - she is such a trooper as last time she took mum with her for a ride and they got hopelessly lost around Ingleburn as they missed the turn off for the M7. However we took careful notice of where to turn and hopefully she got home OK -well she has not rung me for directions and so I presume she did.

The flight home was uneventful and for once the Qantas Club Lounge was not 2 miles from the Jetstar departure gate.

Kermit had been in with Ian at Narangba Autos getting his handbrake done and was all ready for me to pick up when I got off the train. I am off to the 4wd club meeting tonite so I can find out when our next adventure will be.