Being rain gods and making future plans

Being back in Australia with our son and daughter-in-law (Ben and Sarah) is really special and they couldn’t make us feel more welcome. However, it seems a massive imposition to stay so many weeks at their place and disrupting their lives so comprehensively every year!

We think we have hit on a solution for the future – a caravan! This would mean on subsequent visits to Australia we could come and stay just for a couple of weeks (like normal out-of-town parents) and then take the van off for a few weeks to explore parts of Australia we haven’t visited previously before returning to their place for a few more days and so on.

Fortunately for us our son and his wife live on a glorious 100 acre property with plenty of space to store a caravan while we are away travelling overseas.

Just before Christmas we made our thoughts a reality and bought a 19 feet 6 inches (around 5.9 metres) semi off-road van that can tackle sand, gravel, ruts and tree-root-studded ground that you would typically find in Australia’s national parks and wilderness camp sites.

It has a very smart and comfortable interior with a lovely comfortable bed , living area with a big fridge and lots of storage and a well appointed bathroom (including a washing machine!) and – the best bit – an outdoor kitchen! We can’t wait to explore more of Australia.

In between shopping for the caravan and getting ready for Christmas we had some great visits with friends and met up with others for lunch or dinner.

These included sailing buddies from our time in South-East Asia, Mike and Jill from SV Yantara. They have sadly sold their trusty vessel but are now proud owners of SV Oscar’s Ride.

We also had a lovely lunch at Currumbin surf club with our sailing buddy Sue (one half of the crew from our buddy boat in the Med, Catabella) her son, daughter-in-law and gorgeous little grandson.

When we first arrived in Australia the Brisbane area was drought affected as there had been very little rain over the past seven or eight months. Amazingly, we had some excellent rain soon after we arrived and the precipitation has been a constant ever since! They don’t call us the rain gods for nothing!

The week before Christmas was busy with celebrations for Jonathan’s birthday at a Thai restaurant and the arrival from Sydney of our good family friend and Ben’s godmother, Libby – who was coming to spend the festive season with us.

The night before Christmas Eve Ben and Sarah took us to a really unusual concert in St John’s Cathedral Brisbane, the only stone-vaulted church in the Southern hemisphere – highly regarded as a first-rate example of neo-gothic architecture.

As well as being held in this stunning and atmospheric building, the concert had several notable elements – it was held in sparkling candle light, the music (by Tchaikovsky) included many Christmas favourites (including excerpts from The Nutcracker ballet) and there were three gorgeous ballet dancers who performed beautifully to the music played by the excellent string quartet Paradiso Strings. What a great start to Christmas!

The following night was Christmas Eve and we had a big family feast with Jonathan’s brother Jack and sister-in-law, Carole, their daughter and her husband and three children.

We had a great evening with delicious food and some hilarious games organised by Carole.

When we arrived back at Ben and Sarah’s we found a lots of torn bits of wrapping paper and chocolate wrappings on the floor. The two older dogs have NEVER in all their years opened any Christmas gifts from under the tree before the big day so we can only assume that little Indie was the culprit. We think she might have ripped the parcel open and then the older dogs “helped” by eating the contents – a worry as dogs are not meant to have chocolate as they are often allergic to it.

We were particularly concerned about the puppy as her little digestive system was still developing and we were also worried about Lucy our other border collie Granddog as she has issues with her pancreas and is on a no fat diet.

As it turned out it was the food focussed cattle dog Ozzie who spent most of the Christmas holiday in pain, not wanting to eat a thing and feeling terrible. We realised that he had eaten the bulk of the chocolates – with the foil wrappings still on – whereas the other two had unwrapped the few they ate and had licked the wrappings clean.

Fortunately, after a number of anxious days on our part, Ozzie began to recover and started to eat small amounts of steamed chicken (but only if we hand-fed it to him!).

Christmas Day was a little quieter with a long brunch and bubbles in the morning and gift opening and dinner in the afternoon/evening with the four of us and Libby.

The festivities continued the following day as it was Libby’s birthday so we were back at Jack and Carole’s for another celebration lunch.

After all the partying we decided a post Christmas visit to the fabulous Queensland Art Gallery would be in order.

It turned out to be the perfect antidote to the craziness of Christmas with its graceful and calm atmosphere and some really fabulous pieces of art.