Visiting our family....

and the fluffball too....

We travelled to western NSW to visit our daughter Kylie and her family, and our younger daughter Kirsten and her family also visited later in the week.  We all wanted to have some time together before Kirstie had results of another aspiration biopsy of a lymph gland in her neck.  The tests have been going on for some time now and the Pathologist is fairly sure that she has Hodgkin's lymphoma. 

I knew that the fluffball would remember me, but I was surprised that she actually recognised the car - she ran out welcoming us, shivering with excitement and demanded attention before I even had time to greet my daughter and grandchildren vbg.  She is impossible to resist, jumping and barking and getting between you and the person you are trying to greet - I am sure she climbed to my waist while I was cuddling Kylie and the boys.  Once I picked her up she went straight to her usual place sitting in the crook of my left arm and putting her head near my shoulder, in between kissing me and wriggling lol.  This is a photo to the right of our farewell cuddle just before we left for home.

We had had an eventful trip, with another blown tyre on the caravan - again, one of the set of tyres we were given.  No fishtailing of the caravan or anything this time, just a soft clicking noise that I noticed but Peter couldn't hear.  I mentioned it, he stopped to investigate and this is the state of the tyre:

Isn't it beautiful?  But that's not the end of the story.  When Peter brought out his brand new, expensive jack - it would not work!  He hadn't tried it out when he bought it, and of course he has no idea where the receipt is.  So we had to ring Road Service, and once the new tyre was in place, it wouldn't move - the mechanic investigated and found that the rubber from the old tyre had wrapped itself around the axle and around the electric brake and we now had no electric brake on that wheel.  I am grateful that we had crossed over the mountains and also that our van has tandem axles!  We were a bit shattered by it all but now I give thanks to God for this incident.  Strange, you think?  Not at all - when Peter bought the new tyre and had it fitted, he had the other two tyres from the same source thoroughly checked.  They both still had plenty of tread on them but they both had tiny, tiny cracks in the wall!  If we had driven home on them they would have blown as well.

We had a great time with our family.  I would dearly love to put photos of my gorgeous grandchildren here but with things the way they are in this day and age I make it a policy that I don't do that.  There are six of them - four boys and two girls.  The most beautiful grandchildren in the world and I love them to bits.  The oldest, James, is 9, Cameron and his cousin Grace are 8, Luke and his cousin Chelsea are 4, and Michael is 20 months.  Our girls are both wonderful mothers.

We enjoyed a day by the river that runs through my son-in-law Ray sister's property.  You could see the damage from the floods earlier in the year and last year. The boys had been fishing the previous day and left lines in overnight.  They caught a catfish and  Cameron caught two Murray River cod, one about 15" long, one over 24" long.  He was so proud!  We had a big bonfire going, and a small fire of coals to barbecue our lunch.  And we had umbrellas for the intermittant rain lol!  We spent most of the day there until the rain decided to get a bit heavier and to set in.  Fluffy wasn't sure she liked the damp sand and decided my feet would be a good place to sit and keep warm and dry.  A sulphur-crested cockatoo was an interested spectator for part of the

time, along with other birdlife.  These are really commonplace for us but on my other blog you said to make sure to post photos of our birdlife Marlene in California, so I'm doing just that vbg.

Kylie, Kirsten and I spent some 'girl time' together doing craft shopping on Sunday while the grandchildren went on the ritual trip to the ten-pin bowling alley with Pa and son-in-law Jason (Kirstie's husband).  The girls and I enjoyed browsing through Spotlight to our hearts' content, then since Michael was asleep in the stoller I walked him around and around the large furniture shop next door while the girls browsed in peace - a rare treat for mothers of pre-schoolers. Tuesday was back-to-school after the winter school holidays so Kirsten's family returned home on Monday and we left on Tuesday. 

 Before we did though,  I was able to finish Kylie's

crochet rug that I started in September. I wanted to do a longer one for her than the previous one, so that it would cover her completely when she snuggled up on the lounge. And it's a good job that I did because the first one mysteriously disappeared. But Kylie loves this one too, and was delighted that I finished it in time to give it to her this visit.  That's her hiding behind the rug - isn't she photogenic lol?  Well, actually she is, very much so, but you cannot convince her of that!

The trip home was quite slow, raining or so foggy it was very limited visibility.  Temperatures ranged between 2-4 deg C all the way.  We were well on our way when we heard that the highway was closed just after Bathurst because of snow on the road.  That was the way we go, and we debated whether to keep going or detour and take the long route going down south and coming home via Cowra.  But there was no guarantee that it would not snow down there as well so we decided to keep going to Bathurst, stay overnight and consider options in the morning.  If necessary we could just stay at Bathurst until we could get through, though Nathan wasn't impressed that he wouldn't be able to go to work at the sheltered workshop where he has employment 3 days a week.  We assured him that they would understand and he rang them on the Wednesday to let them know what was happening. 

When we were settled in the caravan park, Peter went off for some milk and diesel.  The shop owner said it was only 2" of snow, but that people are stupid in the snow and don't drive sensibly.  The thing is of course, that unless we are visiting the snow country, or live where it does snow most of us don't have chains for our vehicles.  And unless you have the means of pumping up your tyres again, you can't deflate them either for safe driving.  We would have loved to have taken Nathan up the mountain to Oberon where snow was falling heavily, but after such a slow trip Peter was really tired and we weren't equipped for driving in the snow.  It is years since we have seen any, but now wasn't the time.

Next morning, after a lovely warm and cosy night's sleep, we heard that the roads had opened overnight so we set off.  Peter still drove with care - there were some residual patches of snow by the road under the trees, but nothing of significance and none in a position where we could stop and take a photo. We were thankful that we were tackling the slippery roads over the mountains with four good tyres and four working brakes on the caravan! 

And to finish here's another photo of my trusty lap-warmer, the very spoiled but  lovely Fluffy.  She really is a sweetie!  I am laughing here because every time I went to put her off my lap she clambered back on, kissing me and pawing at me and hanging on for dear life.  For sure she knew we were about to leave!

Cameron will be happy to have his dog back though!  She loves it when we are there because I let her sit on my lap and I don't hop up and down all the time - I indulge her seriously lol.

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