Two special celebrations

Since my last update time has flown by in a flash with two special and enjoyable celebrations and some precious times with friends and family (especially our grand twins.)

The first celebration was the 30th anniversary of one of the two book clubs I belong to. I’ve only been a member for just shy of 20 years but two of our current group have been members for the whole 30 years. 

We had a memorable book club birthday  meeting at one of our group’s beautiful holiday home in the hinterland of Byron Bay. 

It was a great evening of recalling some of the many hundred of books we had read over the years – the splendid and the terrible – and remembering former members who had left the group and more recently, one who had very sadly died. 

The following day we had a wonderful breakfast and then a walk around parts of the property – including the orchard where the fruit trees were groaning with fruit. We collected oranges and lemons by the armful to take home with us. 

The other big and very welcome celebration was our twin granddaughters’ corrected first birthday. (Corrected age is the age a premature baby would have been if they had been born on their original due date.)

It was wonderful to see them reach the grand corrected age of one year old and see them achieving all their milestones – both of them babbling and saying their first words and Eva standing and walking totally unaided. Tilly is not far behind her – walking around furniture and almost standing unaided. Such beautiful and clever little miracles. 

Sarah and Ben held a low key gathering for their best friends and grandparents in their “Picnic Paddock”  and the girls had an absolute ball (and their first small taste of chocolate cake!)

Other highlights this time included a visit to see the fascinating sailing vessel Notorious, a recreation of a 15th Century Caravel – similar to the boats used by early European explorers like Christopher Columbus. 

We hadn’t seen this lovely little vessel since we first took off in our monohull Bali Hai in 2015, when we came across her by chance in The Whitsunday Islands. 

Eleven years year later and she still looked great. 

Besides having lots of glorious grandbaby time, being back home has meant we have been able to enjoy getting down to a few jobs. One of these was to refurbish Ben’s old rocking horse “Dobby”.  Jonathan did an excellent job of sanding, varnishing, mending and installing a lovely new mane and tail. 

The twins absolutely love Dobby, especially Tilly. Eva seems to prefer the rocking chair at the moment which works well as they love to rock together on their respective mounts. 

We (Jonathan) also helped put up the twins’ swings that they had received for their first birthday). The swings are a huge hit!

Planning and preparation for another caravan trip has been in progress – this one is to be a little longer than the last one and covering more kilometres. 

As part of the preparations we took our 4WD and caravan to a mobile weigh station that happened to be in our area.  Sarah and the twins came with us to have a bit of a play in the park while the van and car were being weighed and undergoing a safety assessment. 

Fortunately all went well although the examiner did recommend having “beefed up” springs installed on the 4WD which we subsequently organised. 

Meanwhile back in the Netherlands, our daughter Hannah celebrated her birthday. It was a beautiful sunny day so she could have a great afternoon birthday party in the garden. 

It was sad to miss Hannah’s party but we have a visit to the Netherlands to look forward to in October when we will be able to celebrate all the missed birthdays and other events.