Soft Autumn Days

 

Full moon Junee.

........flow like honey.  These were words of a poem I wrote as a teenager.  

The weather here is just beautiful, warm days and cool, cool nights and early mornings.

Life is good right now, going off my medication for depression was the best thing I have done in ages.  I guess post menopause is good for some things.  My hair has thinned out and straightened which is something I've always wanted.  I was a frizzy, curly teen and adult.  I am feeling happy and stable.  My emotions are appropriate for the circumstance.  I feel like me again and I like me.

I have missed blogging, Facebook isn't the same, I feel like I'm talking to myself most of the time so I may as well do it here.  I can't seem to get onto my old blogs, I have journaled online since 1999 in one form or another, but that's okay.  Not much I can do about it.

I got stuck into the kitchen yesterday, it was filthy after so many months of being unwell.  It's now half done, and hopefully I will finish it today.  We ordered pizza last night as I wasn't going to cook on my beautiful clean stove/oven.  I have Thai Basil Chicken planned for tonight, we actually have Thai basil growing in the garden now.  Will also do my favourite Satay chicken and Thai fried rice to use up some of the frozen prawns.  We are trying to empty the freezer in the kitchen fridge so we can clean it but we keep buying more stuff!

We have almost finished the sleep out, we pulled down the broken blinds and installed new ones that are the same  as the ones in the house, and hung some pretty curtains.  The carpet and rug need shampooing and the bed aired and made up (it's SOO comfy but I don't need to sleep out there now I have my new snore blocker earplugs, expensive but well worth it).  I hope we will have visitors to stay in the near future.  I wish we could add a little bathroom out there and it would be fully self contained, with a newish fridge, little table and chairs, wardrobe and plenty of storage.  The little tv that the Druggie broke will be replaced.  The room, which was the garage in a former life, has its own entrances from the driveway and the door into the pergola.

We enjoyed our 15 day 30th anniversary cruise in October/November.  It was only my second cruise and on a different cruise line and I certainly learned some lessons.  Tonga was horrible and we know now we should have booked a guided tour instead of just wandering aimlessly around the dirty town (followed by one of the many underfed homeless dogs who I wished I could have taken home with us).  The wine and cheese tour in Noumea wasn't good, dried out cheeses sitting out in the heat with a thimbleful of wine.  The bus trip back to the ship more than made up for it, with a lovely guide who told us much about the city.  We left with a much better opinion of Noumea and will definitely be back.  Fiji was glorious, I will post photos later. 

Breakfast which came with a romance package.  We fridged most of it for leftovers.

Sailing out of Sydney Harbour.  We saw whales!

Our lovely Pacific Adventure sailing into the Quay.

 I doubt we will sail with P&O again, we feel that Carnival was better.  Also it was a long time to be away from home and the cats, who were well looked after by our lovely cat/house sitter.  We can go away now and not worry about them.

We drove up to Sydney for the James Taylor concert.

Yep, he's still got it.

Pork and Veal meatball spaghetti, so good.

The night view from our hotel room over Darling Harbour.

  Stayed the first night in Campbelltown and had a disappointing meal at the Catholic Club compared to my birthday trip last year.  Then drove into the city to stay at the (wrong) Novotel.  Duh.  It was a long walk to the theatre, there and back, and I'm still not walking well after so many months of inactivity.  There are heaps of hotels near the venue as we discovered later.  Sydney has changed SO much but I love it.  JT was great although we couldn't really see much we were so far up.  I am glad we did it, as it will no doubt be his last visit to Australia as he is 76 now.  The restaurants at the Darling Harbour precinct were excellent and I'd like to go back to visit the aquarium, Madame Tussaud's and the zoo.  And stay at a closer hotel!

Our next trip was going to be down south to visit the Tyrant's mother's grave for Mothers' Day and stay the night at our new favourite motel.  We may have to cancel due to work commitment but might just drive down for the day.  Then we will go up to Walgett for his birthday in June.  We get to choose our birthday getaway now and his was fishing on the Barwon.  I am looking forward to it, as I have never been to Walgett and especially Lightning Ridge.  It won't be four star but I will load up my iPad with books to read and might even throw a line in myself.  My birthday trip will probably be Melbourne.  Then our anniversary trip to Victoria on the Q Train.  We will stay long enough to spend my brother's 79th birthday with him.

So, slowly getting this house deep cleaned, baby steps as I'm still not physically well enough, but feeling better all the time.  I love our little house, we are so lucky to finally own our home after all these years and in a town we both love so much.