Marc went back to work today, so the Family Holidays are kind of officially over. There are still almost 4 weeks standing in between me and the relative freedom that Back to School represents. (Although the term time after school insanity kind of cancels that out.) But then, the grand plan is for me to enrol in a full year (almost full time) TAFE course this year, so *whooshka* - there goes any thoughts of me and any sort of swanning around with some ME time. But more about that next post or two.

The last few days of our hometime holiday wound down to a bit of an anticlimax. Friday's grey skies (and thus no sun, sand and surf) were given a bit of a lift; Marc, in a moment of weakness, had suggested that we let the kids take a friend each to the annual local summer holiday amusement carnival. It proved successful, if not expensive.. The grey skies led to a bit of rain, but I suppose that was provident - it kept the crowds away, so there was no queueing. (And only a bit of grumbling from me.) Just watching the kids on the rides is vicarious entertainment in itself. I could feel a stupid grin on my face as I watched them. (Except for watching Ali and friend on the Skywalker*- that just freaked me RIGHT out.)

Photo time:

Yes, that is a boy friend with #1. We have only just met him too. If you can count a noisy carnival atmosphere as "meeting". Apparently we are scary and/or embarrassing, and/or excruciating so we had not been entitled to meet him, up until the drawcard of an amusement carnival. (And that's about as much as I can say on THAT without being further pilloried for being whatever it is that I am.)

#2 and friend - or rather friend + #2 - preparing for one of the tamer rides.

* And now, I am posting this youtube video to demonstrate the Skywalker, because even if we had managed to take a picture (given that we forgot the camera, and the above shots were taken on Marc's phone) it could not go anywhere near demonstrating how a mother might be feeling watching her baby UP THERE! DOING THAT!

This was taken by someone at the EasterShow this year. Same ride. First 2 minutes will give you the idea.

Anyway, they survived. Without a silly grin on Mum's face. Speaking of silly grins, the Mum and Dad had a go on the old Cha-Cha (aka Whizzer), for old time's sake. And #3 was braver than we've ever seen her, helped by the fact that the friend she took was not pushy about encouraging her to have go on some rides that looked ever so slightly scary. We took them both on the Hurricane, which was a HUGE thing for Zoe - she needed Dad's protective arms for that one. (I screamed too.) And so a happy and carefree time was briefly had by all. (As long as I try not to think about value for money...!)

Because we'd been enjoying our days of sun, sand and surf, and generally lolling about, we had left it till the bitter end to pay a quick "Christmas" visit to Marc's mum. We'll just duck down to Tea Gardens on Saturday afternoon, we said. And stay the night, and come back Sunday. Is it an Australian thing to use the words "duck down" - meaning a 'quick trip' - for a 4 hour Plus drive? Each way? And to then NOT factor in holiday traffic on the Pacific Highway (caused by extensive kilometres of roadworks, and merge-into-one-lane factor AND the one-set-of-traffic-lights factor of soon to be bypassed towns?) And also to NOT factor in the IDIOT factor of holiday drivers who can't even build their speed back up to the 80kph (for roadworks) limit when the traffic DOES dissipate and spread out?!

So a four hour drive became an over 5 hour drive, with quite some time crawling along as per above, and we cursed our the stupidity of our timing. But we think Nana appreciated the visit.

Labels: holidays