Thursday, 26th August 2010

On the move again – briefly!

My ‘Sandra from Sydney’ blog is supposed to be the travel blog but since this is just a short trip I am writing about it here on ‘Snippets’. We actually are on the way to Queensland to pay a surprise visit to our oldest daughter Kylie so I won’t post this until we arrive. She needs a bit of family support at the moment, and I hope we can give that. Peter and Nathan and I are driving up and they will leave me and the caravan there for at least a couple of weeks then come back for me. They will stay a couple of days each time to rest (it’s the best part of 1000kms each way) and we will take a couple of days for the trip.


It has been a spur-of-the-moment decision, made last Saturday, so this week has been very busy indeed. Of course my packing started with choosing the minis I would take! I have packed a quarter scale ‘Petite Properties’ project (#1, The Corner Shop) – just in case there is time to start on it vbg. Also lots of Paper Minis things to put together in small bits of time. Flower kits, and more.


Then there are mini needlework projects. I hope that once I am with Kylie and not so worried about her wellbeing I will be able to concentrate a bit better and able to stitch again. And some full size cross stitch too – have to get a move on with those Christmas stockings for the grandchildren after all.


So I don’t think I’ll run out of things to keep my fingers and mind busy when I’m not doing Nana things with the boys and Mum things with my daughter!!!


After those essential things were dealt with – that took a couple of days to get sorted – it only took an hour to sort out my clothes. But I also needed to wash the curtains in the caravan, give it a quick dust to get rid of any that had come in while we left it airing, make up the beds etc. As well as tidy the house and clean it; appointments to keep; Peter’s birthday presents to buy (that’s on this Saturday); Church Bulletin to do and deliver ready for this week; Mum to visit then again just before we leave; other appointments to cancel; rearrange Nathan’s work schedule; and so on.

We had planned to leave first thing this morning but here we are in the caravan all of five minutes from home! At my brother’s house in fact, where the van is parked while the storage container is still in our driveway. We are spending the night here, will do a couple of last-minute things in the morning, do the last visit to Mum, and be on our way by lunch-time at the latest.
 I’ve included some photos of our caravan. It is a Regal brand 18’ long, and we tow it with a 4WD (Mitsubishi Pajero). We love our caravan! The photo at the beginning was taken last year in winter at our house, around a month before we left for our trip. The bare garden (lacking it’s usual winter colour) was mulched in the hope of keeping weeds down while we were away, and we were packing the caravan in readiness. My Holden just fits on the driveway with the caravan there, as does the Pajero. As you can see, we live on a small suburban block in your average small suburban house.

This next one photo was taken on our trip, at Coffs Harbour north of Sydney, where we stopped for the first night of our trip around Australia last year.