The last few days have been absolutely wonderful! They were very relaxing and, as many of you will have noticed, totally PC free. Not that I did anything particularly earth-shattering, but I had lovely company and was (and still am) feeling more positive and happier than I have in a very long time. I consumed far too much caffeine, but that being the worst I got up to I needn't feel too guilty. My boys, Jet & Merlin, however were not terribly happy as i abandoned them for most of the last week, popping by only to feed them & give them a quick cuddle. I'm sure they will forgive me in time.

One of the topics of discussion over the weekend was family holidays. This brought back many a fond memory. My family often went away, caravan in tow, to various places on our magnificent continent. One holiday that sticks in my mind is our trip to The Grampians in Victoria in the September school holidays when I was about 7 years of age. Now, this is going to have to be a Readers Digest version, because it was an action packed week! Things were travelling nicely with Mum & Dad, myself & my older Brother & Sister and caravan in tow, until Mum (though she denies it to this day) gives Dad the wrong directions. I should tell you at this point that this is one of the wettest school holidays we have ever seen & it had been raining cats & dogs for weeks. Anyhoo, this wrong road we were on was far too narrow to do a u-turn with a caravan, so Dad decides to pull into a farming property to execute the turn. All was fine & dandy until he deviated from the track from the gate to the house whereupon the said caravan became bogged, and stayed, for the next few hours! We arrived at the caravan park as the sun was setting. Due to all the rain, the caravan park was more like a marina, with caravans instead of boats. Mum thought it a good idea that I get some wellies to keep out the water, so we trooped off to Horsham to get them the following day. The first thing she tells me is "don't go playing in the puddles". What was the first thing I did? Yep, I did. It was great fun & my feet stayed dry. I couldn't see what the problem was. Caravans are always fun to stay in aren't they? Especially when you have a tall family. Being the Kid that I was, I insisted on sleeping on the top bunk. I was allowed to, despite having fallen off & cutting my lip (I still have the scar) on a previous holiday. The first night, as expected, I fell off. I woke everyone up except myself. The second night, same thing happened. They had to wake me to put me back to bed. Third night, sme again, though this time I somehow flung myself into the bottom bunk & landed smack bang on my brother! Mum had lost her patience at this stage at being so rudely awoken (no concern for my wellbeing - I was obviously fine) and promptly made me sleep in on the kitchen table-come-bed together with my Sister. I was pissed off & didn't speak to anyone for 12 hours! There is much to see at The Grampians, and it is still one of my favourite places. On day we went to McKenzie falls, to find that there was an additional waterfall, running down the steep stony steps that you have to traverse to see them. That was a bit hairy. It remained wet & cold for the entire week. On one particularly freezing afternoon, we drove to the top of the mount to find that it was snowing!! We had never seen snow before, this was great. That is until my brother decided to try & scare my Sister by throwing a snowball at the window of the car. Now, snow is cold, very cold. The car, was warm (the heaters in the holden Premier were VERY effective) and of course the sudden change in temperature caused the window to shatter! So, the following day, we trooped off to Horsham again to try and find a new window. There was none to be found & we had to wait until we got back to Adelaide. The piece of plastic that Dad found had to suffice. In spite of all the dramas, it was one of the best holidays we have had as a family. it was certainly memorable, albeit for all the wrong reasons!

Time for me to get back to work folks......