What I did on my holiday…
Which basically ends tonight (or possibly tomorrow morning, depending on how you measure time).
So, almost exactly 3 weeks ago we stumbled out of bed at 4:30am, roused some very sleepy children, and hauled ourselves and large quantities of luggage off to the airport. We had a fairly uneventful flight to Brisbane, where we picked up a rental car. Andy had been having fits of paranoia because I booked a medium sized car, and he didn’t think all of our bags would fit. For the record, the boot of a medium sized sedan is plenty big enough for one large suitcase, two small ones, and some kids’ backpacks besides.
We had a fairly uneventful drive to my parents place in rural Queensland. The kids were actually surprisingly well behaved, although they were starting to get a bit restless by the end of the three hour drive. It’s been quite a long time since we’ve been to my parent’s house, and this may well have been the last visit - they retired at the end of last year, and are planning to move to Brisbane as soon as they can sell their house (not as simple as it sounds in a small country town).
There aren’t too many amusements in small rural Queensland towns. And in this one the level of amusements was considerably reduced by them having knocked down the local pool (there was literally only a hole in the ground left). Apparently there had been some kind of structural issue (someone told me asbestos, someone else concrete rot) and they bulldozed the whole thing. Fortunately there were some other towns with pools within short drives, so we could still go swimming. Still, I managed to read three books, finish two games on my phone and make half a macrame and bead necklace. We did arrive just in time for the local Christmas fair, which was like a very small but much cheaper version of the Royal Show.
It was stinking hot for several days that week. It’s rarely as hot there as it gets here purely in temperature terms, but the humidity is extremely unpleasant, especially when you don’t have the mitigating factor of a sea breeze.
After slightly less than a week of this we took off for the Gold Coast, which involved reversing the drive we took before, navigating our way through Brisbane and then through its southern extensions. The traffic was pretty hideous, and the kids were fractious, but we got there in the end. My parents had rented two penthouse apartments in a resort at the northern end of the Gold Coast. It was a lovely location, close to a quiet beach, away from the madness of Surfer’s, but a short drive to most of the attractions. The resort managed to squeeze a swimming pool, tennis court, minigolf course, sand pit and jungle gym into a very small footprint, which I thought was quite clever. The apartments were enormous - seriously close to the size of our house - and each equipped with a spa on the balcony. The views were really great.
This was the view to the north:
And this was the view to the south, looking toward Surfer’s Paradise:
Which was rather spectacular at night. I tried to take a photo of that with my phone, but it didn’t come out very well.
Two of my brothers, and my sister joined us, as did my brother’s little boy, and my other brother’s partner. We spent the days swimming and eating icecream, and the nights playing board games (we brought Boss Monster , Tiny Epic Kingdoms and Red November (this is an awesome game in which the players are the crew of a Gnomish submarine on which all is going horribly wrong) and my brother brought Cards Against Humanity - OMG! That game!).
We sampled a few of the local attractions. The kids had a go on this sea-based obstacle course:
And I took them to a maze/funhouse type thing called Infinity. This is a place where they use lighting and mirrors to create effects such as the room having no floor, or being in a train tunnel, but they also have some areas which are more or less completely dark and you have to find you way through by feel. Which would have been fine, except I had to navigate it with two terrified boys clinging to me. Not recommended for smaller children.
We managed to prevent the kids getting up too horribly early on Christmas morning (although, seriously Queensland, you need to get daylight savings asap), and then we had a potluck Christmas lunch, where everyone brought a couple of dishes. We ended up with three or four desserts. I don’t think my family adults very well
. I made a lentil and beetroot salad and Nigella’s easy cherry cheesecake (Google it - it is very easy and very awesome). We were a bit restrained with presents as most of us were travelling and had baggage limitations, but the kids did fairly well.
My nephew, playing Santa’s Little Helper on Christmas morning.
My beloved spouse exhibiting his Christmas spirit.
On the day after Boxing Day it was time for the next phase of our trip. We brought two boys home, and left Erin with my parents. The weather had been very kind of us the whole time we were at the Gold Coast, sunny but not too hot, but on the day we left the skies opened, and we had a rather bumpy flight home.
We were pleased to find the house intact, and more so to find the garden mostly intact too. Andy hadn’t managed to work out how to set the automatic sprinklers while we were away, so we assumed that all the tomatoes and herbs would be crispy when we came back. I don’t know what the weather was like while we were gone, but they seem to have survived it.
I have passed a quiet week doing jigsaws, playing Skyrim (still getting mileage out of this game), crocheting and taking the boys swimming. We had a quiet New Year with some wine and cheese and the monster movie on SBS (Piranhas!). Then we braved the heat on Friday to venture into town and hit the sales a bit. I got some nice bargains.
On Saturday morning we were woken up by the smell of smoke at 4am. I got up to investigate because the MFS had been warning about the dangers of electrical appliances overheating in the 40+ weather, and if we have anything, it is a lot of electrical appliances. It turned out that the smell of smoke was coming from the back door, which we had left open a crack. The smell of smoke outside was really quite strong. I got online and discovered that there was a serious bush fire in the hills just north-east of here, and burning about 2km from Greenwith and Golden Grove, which are a couple of suburbs north of ours. Fortunately for the fringe suburbs around here the wind changed at around 7am, but that just meant the fire went roaring through the local hills towns instead.
We spent an unpleasant, nervous and smoky morning, before deciding that we needed to get the grocery shopping done. It’s very odd going about such mundane tasks while there is so much drama unfolding so close. Just after we got to Tea Tree Plaza there was a terrible noise inside - it turned out that their air conditioning couldn’t cope with the smoke and had shut down and they had to turn on the (industrial scale) fans instead.
We’re pretty safe here - we’re much further from the fire than we were when we were in Canberra - it came right to the edge of our suburb then. The sky glowed and the air was full of ashes. It’s still awakening some unpleasant memories.
It’s still smoky around here - too much to have the house open unfortunately, even though it was cooler today.
And tomorrow morning it’s back to work. It’s going to be a pretty quiet next couple of weeks there at least, as most of my staff will be away. I’ve had a pretty good break, and while I wouldn’t sneeze at some more time off, I am looking forward to a bit of intellectual stimulation.