Christmas plans

Our travel plans changed slightly and we’re now flying direct to and from Brisbane, rather than driving.  I was a bit tentative about attempting to visit Brisbane for just 5 days at Christmas time and coming away sane…  So we’ll now be there for about 12 days, and staying in one place the whole time, which hopefully will make it easier to see everyone, and to also take some time out for ourselves as a family.  It will be nice to plan some excursions that just the three of us can enjoy, like ferry trips and picnics, or a visit to Australia Zoo.  I’m quite looking forward to it. 

 

 

Holiday plans

We’re once again planning a trip east, and juggling the logistics of how to get there.  The current plan is to drive to Adelaide straight after Christmas, leave the car at the airport and fly to Brisbane.  Then Harrison and I would fly back to Perth, and Simon would fly to Adelaide and drive the car back to Perth.  I have almost no leave, whereas Simon has heaps, so it makes sense for me to get back for the re-opening of Uni on January 7^th, whereas he can take another week. Because of my limited leave, we only get about 6 days in Brisbane, which is not ideal, but can’t be helped.   The advantages of this are that

¨      we put some kilometres on the car for FBT purposes (but not too many for greenhouse purposes),

¨      we have some semblance of a family holiday (driving 2700 km in the middle of summer and camping on the Nullarbor – some would disagree about the holiday tag!),

¨      we get to visit family and friends in Brisbane, and   

¨      Simon also loves the long drive and the time to himself.

Spoke too soon

Well, I may have spoken too soon about the buffet at Observation City.  After we had dinner there on Sunday night, Harrison complained of a sore tummy all morning at day care, and didn’t eat any lunch, then he vomited everywhere just before nap time.  He seemed OK after that, and he did eat all his dinner last night.  I strongly suspect that something he ate on Sunday night had gluten in it.

Syd-en-ey

Had a trip to Sydney last week… my last law librarian jaunt.  I went to the law librarian’s conference (and gave a paper).  It was nice not feeling I had to go to all the law stuff – there were interesting papers on things like climate change which had a scientific bent.  One lesson learnt was not to rely on the venue having the same version of powerpoint as you.  I am usually an anti-powerpoint person and make the plainest presentations I can, but lately I’ve become a fan of timed transitions, and done things like have large black and white photos timed to fade in and out in the background as I talk.   This time I’d just used one or two “features”, and a groovy handwriting font on one slide, but when it came to present, they had an old version of powerpoint, so none of it worked!

 

I stayed on for the weekend with Michele F.  She lives in Newtown, almost on King St in a small terrace.  She and Mul are immersed in the inner city lifestyle.  It was a bit of a Ford family weekend, as Lisa has moved to Sydney, and Mary and Allen were also down visiting.

 

Simon took Harrison to the Perth Show on Sunday (he insists on calling it the Ekka, which I’m sure does not go down well with the locals).  A good bonding experience for the boys.   We decided at the last minute to go to dinner at Observation City (Scarborough) last night.  This is the secod time we’ve taken Harrison there and been brave enough not to pack any food for him.  They always have multiple gluten free dishes, including 3 or 4 desserts.  I think we’ll become regulars, just because it’s so convenient.  And they only charge $3 for him, which is a bonus.