The days roll on by.

The boys held a memorial service for their Dad and our mate Rosco. Darren and we flew to Adelaide on monday night last and stayed at Craig and Anges. Craig had the arvo off and we (Darren,Craig and us) drove to Goolwa for the "wake". It was a great day, much laughter and a tinge or two of sadness. Parso,Sue, Sean and Brett and Ilona all spoke, giving insight to their friendship with Rosco over the years. So annoying that it takes the occasion of a friends death to get together with so many other old friends.  Ross would certainly have enjoyed himself. Back to Craigs place after I was finally dragged out of the Goolwa golf club, with just enough time to clean up and meet Clive and Vicki for dinner at the Vic. (top of taps). Craig and Ange, Amy and hannah accompanied us also. Sarah was on a 4 wheel drive camping trip somewhere in northern Victoria. Not too late home as we have to rise at around 5.00am to catch the 7.00 am flight back to Ceduna. Darren and Bob both had to go straight to work. The next week was quite busy with Bob working (at the East West) and me housekeeping, gardening and 1 day of Lucas. Phew.

Dress in your  Sunday best, grab a small lamb and pose for tourists. Of course there is money involved but hey.

Everyones gotta eat.

Its all happening

Back from holidays just 3 weeks and the feet are yet to touch the ground. Sort of began again on Sat night with a barby and a chat about this years adventures of the travelling twelve. Early plans look like a night and part of the day at Peterborough, then off to Broken Hill and surrounds for a day or two. Sunday was a full day with a round trip of over 500 ks to the Iluka mine site at Jacinth/Ambrosia. Not a huge operation, but interesting enough with lunch and afternoon tea provided. Got back to Ceduna about 6.45 so it was a full and tiring day for us older folk. Monday was spent trying to make the garden at Seahorse Villa presentable and finish cleaning the house for guests on Tuesday. Tuesday was Melbourne cup day which meant lunch at the pub with a day full of prizes,sweeps and of course the Cup. Home for a rest about 3.30 and then to prepare some of the food for a family dinner at Tracy and Darrens. Mazzy bought her stir fry noodles, we took a potato bake and Tracy did the meatballs and snapper on a stick and chicken wings. And salad. We left about 10.30, absolutely bloated and tired, with an early start tomorrow. Wednesday was Bobs first day at a temp job at the East West motel with a 7.00am start. Because the car was booked in for a service today I had to also rise early to take her to work so I could later take the car in. Lunch and chores (booking a few days in Bali in March for a nephews wedding and gardening) filled in what was left of the day. And the week is only half way through. We managed these things but the news that our best mate, and best man at our wedding Ross Loader, finally gave in on Tuesday to the pancreatic cancer that had bedevilled him for nearly 3 years. We all new it was coming, but that doesnt help when it happens. We count ourselves lucky that we were able to have a lovely lunch with him and Ilona at Goolwa just 3 weeks ago.  So sad.

Back home.

Well thats the first week back home gone.Been pretty busy with herself out to at least one thing every day, like op shop, mind the local gallery, etc. and I had a board meeting on wed. and another on Thur, but 50% of participants didnt show. Lucas, (grandy no 11) came on Tuesday, only sitting him one day a week at the moment.
   Checked all the Sentinels while we were away for a letter I wrote before we left. It failed to get printed. A couple of people have told me that the letters to the editor may be vetted by some one before they are published. The latest omission certainly points that way. Surely not. I know local government is all powerful, but even they are not above criticism. Are they?
    Some one snuck daylight saving in on me while we were away. Took a couple of days to work out what the time actually was. I notice Sylvy Dolphin from Lock having her five cents worth again on the perils of daylight saving. Come on Silvy, its been in about thirty years now. Its time you built a bridge.
   Cricket season underway again with Horry, grandy no 5 I think, making it into the E.P. under 14 side. Good on you Horry.

Sydney to Adelaide

The transfer from Sydney International to domestic was painless enough and the 3 hour wait for our connecting flight to Adelaide went by quite quickly. Even the boarding passes for Qantas which were issued in Santiago worked OK. Arrived in Adelaide on time after completely missing Thursday and over 25 hours since we checked out of hotel in Santiago. Got to Craig and Anges, sat around for a bit, had a lovely dinner, meat and veggies, unheard of when dining out, crashed around 8.30 and slept for over 12 hours.  Feel better now. Traveling is certainly hard work for the not so young, but I guess someone has to do it. Had a great time, saw so much it is all a blur at the moment, will have to look at the piccies to remind us what we did. Great to be back in OZ.

Flight home pt 2

Arrived in Auckland and disembarked for around 2 hours.  Came time to re board and there is someone else in our seats. Excuse me hostie, we don't appear to have a seat. Hostie disappears with our tickets, leaving us standing around in a full plane like stale bottles of urine. Finally she returns, beckons us to follow and we head to the rear end of the plane where this poor bugger was moved for the second time so that we had a seat together. We had flown quite a bit with LAN on this trip but they certainly blotted their copy book on this leg, even to the point of overbooking the flight. It does seem though that if you spoke Spanish and smiled nicely at the hostie you could get you and your mates in the four seats in front of us, all together. Unfortunately, I'm a bit old for the smiling nicely and I don't speak Spanish. I almost forgot, more drama whilst boarding. For reasons unknown, it is quite OK to take bottled water on the plane in Sydney and Auckland, but not in Santiago, where we were relieved of our two unopened bottles of water.  bastards! Anyway we arrived in Sydney, safe and reasonably well.

The flight home. Santiago

Our guide picked us up on time and off we went to the airport. A dream run on the freeway and straight to the check in counter. The friendly smiling check in chick, handed Bob our boarding passes. She noticed that despite requesting our seats some four months ago we were given one seat in the middle of four row 21 and the other in the middle of four, row 15. We asked for two together and the check in chick replied, its a full plane, no can do. We said how can this be, we are one of the first people to check in. She shrugged, embarrassed because she probably hoped we would not have noticed the seating until we were gone, at which point we asked to see the supervisor, who said to ask at the gate when boarding. Its called duck shoving, and nobody wanted to know. Finally a young lady at the gate actually did something and managed to get us two seats together but in the middle of four. Although we had to climb over people to get out we were at least together for the  12 and a half hour flight to Auckland. As it turned out it was a reasonable flight and passed relatively quickly for 50% of us. But wait theres more.