After our trip away I came home to pick up mum from the airport and we had a week at home. Got lots of jobs done and spent a good few hours washing dirt out of every crack and crevice in Kermit.

We all went to Kim's 50th birthday at Ashmore Steakhouse - which was a lovely surprise for her as I had convinced her we would be away for her birthday. Leo and the kids came up from Kiama, Alana was off in Europe, Tracey and Cesare (Chesay) came up from Sydney and Robyn and Alan came along too. It was a good nite and the meals are massive - great place to visit.

The day we arrived home I got a call from a friend at work to say my friend Max had come off his motorbike and was in hospital - a quick call to his partner Carol established he was in a pretty bad way but not life threatening. Carol and I were planning to go to Hervey Bay for a few days after mum went home.

Well mum and I ended up going to Hervey Bay and it was raining and miserable. Max was in hospital and wouldn't be out for a while. We met up with Cheryl and Ron, Garth was there from Mackay and Diane, Ron's sister and her husband Stan arrived. We had a nice couple of days, I went for a couple of bike rides and then we headed home. Mum flew back to Sydney and I had a week off work.

I went to Alan and Robyn's at the Gold Coast for a day to finalise their website www.aknightonthetiles.com.au and then Robyn and I met Kim at Robina for a morning's shopping. Then back to work.

Winter this year has been very cold - or we have become acclimatised - in the past years we have only pulled out a light doona for our bed and a cotton blanket - this year it was a polar fleece blanket and our old pure wool quilt from Shellharbour. I had relegated the gas heater to the shed last year in disgust as we rarely used it. How I rue that day as it refused to play this year and kept going out. Garth dropped in for a while and he took to wearing beanies and John's Freightcorp wool jumper he was so cold. He also took on the gas heater and was determined to make it heat the house - a frustrating effort.

As a present for Evan's birthday Evan and I went to a 4wd driver training course with the 4wd club - we have decided that we probably wont stay in Caboolture as there is one person who is so unpleasant that we don't want to waste our spare time in dealing with him - he is one of the club officials and is so rude and arrogant that we just do not want to have anything to do with him. It's a shame as we have had some good outings with the club and on the whole the people are really welcoming and pleasant. He turned up at the driver training and that made up our minds. However we have met some of the people from Kallangur club and it is much closer and more convenient for Evan to attend. For me it is 6 of one and half a dozen of the other - but with summer coming up Kermit will sit in the driveway for a few months as it will get too hot to be comfortable.

For my birthday I had hinted to John I wanted to see the Mikado but it had finished before I got it sorted. John told me I had to be ready at noon on Saturday to go out and we had a lovely day - he had organised to be at the art gallery for the Sydney Nolan exhibition and a tour of the art gallery with 2 volunteers. We went onto the museum and saw the VC exhibition and then over to the casino for a while, a casual tea of turkish bread, ham and cheese at QPAC and then onto My Fair Lady - it was a great day and I really appreciated his efforts.

On Fathers' Day (my birthday) Evan and Sarah came for lunch and I had a nana nap as I was beat from the day before - we had done a lot of walking and I was feeling it.

Then it was off to Newcastle to see Deb, who happened to be moving to a new house and then onto Sydney for lunch with the girls from school.

Deb has been living with her parents since her son Karl went to WA to live with his father and had located a small terrace house close to work in Newcastle. It was a bit off-putting as it was not in a very good state but once the landlord saw it and a couple of friends dropped in it was spruced up and ready for occupation.

I picked up a hire car and went to meet John at Joanne's. His uncle Reg had died and he had unexpectedly flown to Sydney for the funeral. On the way to pick up John I got to the M4 and the hire car started beeping at me - flashing a picture of a coffee cup on the dash - I got Jo to bring John to Macca's on Mamre Road and then we headed off to Campbelltown to meet Chris and Kerrie for tea. We stayed the night with them and then I had to pick up Sue Beashel from Sydney Airport to go to the class reunion.

Arriving at Birkenhead Sue and I struggled through scaffolding and stuff and got to the restaurant. What a great time we had!!!

44 of us met for lunch and it was wonderful to see everyone. The photographer Kaylene had organised was a bit of a pain and he was late and people wanted to leave but the photo got done and we all had a great time - some of us retired to Ann's house at Annandale and I finally folded into bed at midnite. John had gone onto his school reunion that he hadn't planned to go to and he turned up at 7.30 after having no sleep at all. We had breakfast with Ann and David and then John and I headed off to mum's.

I had asked Alan and Sue could we come for tea on Sunday nite as mum doesn't get out much at nite and so it was great to have John with me and we all went for tea.

I dropped John off at the airport and then back to mums - heading off to the airport again on Monday morning.

Back to work again!!!

Joanne came up for a few days and so her and I went to the movies on Thursday and then off to see The Carpenters from Kempsey on Friday. We stayed at the apartment on Friday and Jo headed home on Saturday - John and I went out with Max and Carol on Saturday to a Ulysses Club Trivia Nite where Max's team won silver medals for coming second.

Max has ended up with a broken leg in a metal frame and his hand suffered a bit of damage - he will be off work for a few months and is restricted to a wheelchair but otherwise he is ok.

I wrote this for the 4wd newsletter as I was nominated to do the run report.

Have a look at Night Nav Run – 17 May 2008 in my Google maps.

This is our first ‘run’ with the club – we knew some people because of our trip to Janowen Hills on Australia Day weekend and I had been to the meetings but this was a club run that John could actually do.

Not really knowing exactly what was happening I went looking for my trusty newsletter to check – bad idea – can’t find it. Oh well they said to be at Centenary Lakes to have tea and leave by dark – so picnic packed, off we go.

John’s first question was at the roundabout at Morayfield – did we have raincoats? “Of course we do – they’re in the back.”. (Knowing full well there were no raincoats but I wasn’t going to let him turn around and go home)

“We even have an umbrella!” (shame it was the cotton sunshade he got second hand when I wanted some shade for the pool) There was no way I was going to let him get out of this one.

Got to the lakes, had a nice tea – shame about the downpour just as we sat down to eat but John hates salad and loves stew – at a pinch steak, salad and rainwater looks like stew. Slowly people turned up – Darrel, Jodie and Talia, Ian and Lenore and kids, and the place slowly filled up.

After dinner Brian announces we aren’t leaving from here we are leaving from the Big Fish – all around knowingly nod – I begin to ask my 500 mandatory questions when I am going anywhere – Big Fish? What big fish? Were we supposed to bring fishing gear? Are we going fishing? Where?

All’s cool, my 500 questions have now been answered and we head off to the Humble Pie – never found out what happened to the big fish – must have got away.

After some preliminary niceties we sign the sheet and go to head off – only I realise we have to use our odometer – shame about that, only the far right number turns – the rest have sat on 42599 for the past 12 months we have had the car. Fiddle with the GPS and then decide to chance it and see how we go. John’s first comment in the car was that if it didn’t work out we could just give up and go home. There was no way I was going home – I would make this work or die trying.

Out of the carpark and down the road towards Donnybrook – first question, what’s the sign on the left? Which one? There’s 10 signs on the left – how far down the road? The one as we came out? The one at the corner? The one for the highway? The one after? Oh well write ‘em all down. What’s the next question?

So off we go, flying down the road and John says “I think we have gone 5k’s”

“What do you mean? You think? Didn’t you check, read the odometer, keep an eye on it?”

“No, I can’t see the odometer cos the light is too bad and I need my glasses”

“You can’t drive in reading glasses!!”

We put the miner’s light I am using to read the destructions on the steering column and shine it on the odometer – that works!!! We can see it turn now. Find another light for the destructions and we are off again. Ok let’s turn around and work this out – I really don’t know where to measure the 4.6k’s from.

Head back to Humble Pie and start again – we work out it’s 4.6k’s from the corner we were at to Humble Pie so we have found the first corner. We head back to where we were and fill in the rest of the questions we found answers to. This isn’t so bad – write down the odometer reading as we get to the corner and then count from there – we’ll be fine (or so we thought).

Ok down the dirt road we go, I see a little break in the bush but John won’t turn there – he goes 500 metres down the next turn and I convince him to go back as the corner wasn’t the same as the diagram in the destructions. So back we go, reversing in the dark – god only know how much native flora, fauna and cane toads we are destroying as we go crashing along in the dark – we get occasional glimpses of headlights and some radio calls so we know we won’t die at this point.

Head off down the track that emerges from the break in the bush and suddenly we can hear lots of people. Ian is stuck fast in the mud – Michael is helping and Dan is banked up behind. Apparently Ian was into his second winching and was despairing when Michael turned up. They told us to take the high road which didn’t seem any less muddy than what Ian was in but at least we got through.

John asks what the next question was – question? What question? Bugger the questions lets just drive we could die in here. So off we go. Not before finding a required Banksia leaf. Somewhere around here I lost the pen.

We were doing really well navigating till just after we found the pile of stumps – who the hell is Muzz? Maybe the stumps on the road mean we are not supposed to go down this road? No – there’s has been cars down here – look, all the trees across the road have been recently broken let’s keep going. Ok we’ve done that one. Now turn right and go .06k and turn right.

This is where we became completely lost and disorientated and John started having the first of many kittens – however we found Michael, Ian, Dan and Mr Pajero man who took us under their wing and lead us a merry chase for the rest of the evening – we even found the greeny/orange dome – but how you could tell there was a well for a bore in it is beyond me.

The directions seemed to be for a completely different area than we were in. Then suddenly the questions were linking up to the places we were going – we must be back on the right track. Someone mentioned Steve Irwin Way – but isn’t that the other side of the Bruce Highway?

We started looking for the &^%$!! carpark where Brian said “you have to go through the place where it says no through road and then past some machinery and find the rough track”.

John says this is where they are building the pipeline and we can’t go in there – Michael says “Yes we can” – so off we go in convoy – no one is giving much away but we are having a good time and it’s a nice night.

At some stage I saw what I thought were tobacco plants and some tall things that turned out to be happy plants but the rest of the night was just some serious reassuring to John that we weren’t going to die after all and it was a much better night than staying at home and watching The Bill. John – who hasn’t been to a pub in 20 years – said he was going to the pub for a drink when we finished.

We heard Sandi’s plaintiff cries over the radio and told her not to go up that track on the right near the arrow (that we later found out Brian had put there as he didn’t want us to go up the track). Michael Ian and Dan had headed up it but came down as quickly as they could – However Sandi, Damo and Bec went up and Damo swears that he had the 2 front wheels in the air as he reversed back down – Bec volunteered that while she found rock scrambling boring sometimes – this was quite scary. Apparently at this stage they decided to set the GPS for Old Gympie road and get out of there.

We all ended up at the rest stop and prizes were handed out – Darrel and Jodie who finished last came up with the goods and scored top score – John and I lost our pen about question 10 and were more concerned about getting out alive so we got the booby prize.

The final count for the night was 10 starters, Dave (?) dropped out and 9 cars made the Matthew Flinders rest stop. We got a bit concerned about Darrel and Jodie but they turned up in the end. Sandi mentioned at one stage she had caught them canoodling in the car so there was nothing to worry about.

At 11.15pm 2 very weary and exhausted travellers headed home – what a good night! I would love to go back in the daytime and see just where we went. John went to football early before I could get the chance to ask.

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.

The other week when the rain was pretty bad - the day before they predicted destructive winds and flash floods - Evan asked could he take Kermit for a drive.

He went with a friend up to the forests at Beerburrum - ever since Kermit broke down on Bribie Island I told him has to go with someone - anyway they were on their way home and Evan took a wrong turn and ended up being stranded - after about 4 hours he rang me and to make a long story short we had to get a recovery vehicle in. As you can tell from the pictures it was absolutely miserable. The car is on a track in the forest and when he got stuck the water was not so high - it was 4 hours before he was able to get hold of me and the water rose quite quickly. The reason why the truck is on an angle is because Evan was trying to go around a puddle he didn't think he should drive thru.

Evan had no sense of humour about it for quite a while but I am sure now he can see the funny side of it.   There was no damage but a lot of mud - Evan had to get the Gerni and wash out the cab - there was even mud on the passenger window sills - it was everywere.

When I was talking to the mechanic the other day he said a friend's son had done the same thing and it took an excavator and 16 hours to get him out so it looks like Evan got off lightly.

Not long after that we had a day of 40 degrees and we spent the day in the pool. Deb was up from Newcastle, Max and Carol and Bill from work came and we had a good day. About 4-5pm the temperature suddenly dropped to 25 degrees. The weather since has been warm but nothing like the 40 degree day again.

John has a new job at Brisbane Hospital as a patient support officer - he comes home exhausted but is really enjoying it. He has a lot to learn and some modules to do to finalise his course he did to do the job - he is casual and on call so it's a bit of a bugger but so much better than being out with the heat, rain, flies, mud, fumes of being a traffic controller. 

We are off to the Gold Coast on Thursday as we have enough FlyBuys to go to Zingara at Jupiter's Casino and then we have tickets for the Titans game on Friday. We will stay with Kim at Palm Beach.

Kim came up from the Gold Coast and I met her at Alexandra Headland for a couple of days away - Kermit was supposed to come but there is no beach left up the Sunshine Coast to drive on and any that is there is a 3ft drop from the road - so sadly Kermit had to stay home.

Kim was happy as we had been upgraded to a penthouse apartment which did not turn out to be what we expected.

The apartment left a lot to be desired - the lounge was grotty, there was no decent curtaining and it faced the sunrise so was like a sauna in the morning. So we turned on the air-conditioning and went out to have a good time.

We went to Eumundi Markets and had a look around. Back to Lifeline to buy a couple of books and then spent the next day by the pool - reading for 6 hours straight, interrupted only by our Subway lunch.

We had tea at the pub one night and then tried the 2 surf clubs which were good  and generally did nothing for 3 days - it was lovely.

The wet weather is still persisting - apparently we have had forty days and nights of rain - the beach is just about non existent however the weather was warm enough for us not to worry at all about the rain.

John rang to say he had a new job at Brisbane Hospital but we don't know the details yet but it will be an improvement on working in the weather - don't know what was worse the heat last summer or the rain this year.

Back home on Friday and a quiet weekend till returning to work on Monday.