Home And All Rested!

We are currently safe and sound back at home on the Sunshine Coast.  We are back in our own bed again with access to our own small ensuite.  The weather is sunny but it is rapidly cooling off with today expected to get to around the mid 20's.

Our trip via Warragul and then on to my sister's place in Omeo saw us begin our return journey by road from Melbourne.

But I did manage to catch up with a couple of fellow teaching colleagues Gordon and Anne Atkin who recently moved from Hallam down to the Warragul.  It meant they could downsize to an easier place to maintain but still remain relatively close to appropriate medical facilities.  You see Anne has had Parkinsons for well over 10 years now and being close to medical support is crucial.

It was great to catch up even be it for a short time only.

But then it was a further 300k drive via mountain roadways to Omeo to catch up with my sister Judy and Peter.  Omeo is in the Victorian Alps and within 50 or so K's of the winter snow fields.  It has been around 15 years since our last visit to Omeo so much time was spent discussing numerous topics and enjoying numerous ales.  The photo above shows the view from their veranda towards some of the mountains over their 20 or so acres.

A $10 lunch at the local pub for was enough to fill two people let alone just one of us.

But it was great to catch up and I'm guessing that by now they are on the road with their caravan in tow for their regular 6 months spent on western Queensland near Isisford where daily temps will be around 28° and not the cold, snowy and wet 6° of Omeo.

We set off to begin our long trek home to the Sunshine Coast with our first stop at Parkes, a drive of around 700k's.  Then it was another 800k's to Warwick in Queensland and a final 300k trek back to Caloundra.

The drive after a hectic 3 weeks away proved extremely tiring.  But given a couple of days resting up at home and getting back into the run of things and back to normal.

I am back on the bike knocking over around 14 k's a day and most times looking for the pool for a cooling off swim upon return.  The pool is around 22° which means any time spent under the water is fairly quick!  With a very cool breeze this morning I declined a trip into the pool being more worried about what it would be like after leaving the pool than when I was in the water.

Somewhere along the way I have done something to my right arm.  I describe it as tennis elbow that has slipped to my forearm.  It can be a little painful and I am noticing it now as I type.  There is absolutely no strength in the arm if it is raised above shoulder height which makes getting my coffee cup out of the head high microwave oven a bit of a chore.

I'm back to the chiro tomorrow.

I usually have a little concern about what will and what electrical items won't start up after almost a month away.  My PC keyboard has been a bit 'iffy' lately with some keys requiring a double push to get the correct response.  It seemed worse upon our return from being away despite it being over 8 years old.  And I had a 2GB external hard drive that would not come up when plugged into the PC.

The keyboard has been replaced but the 2TB hard drive was eventually recognized so (touch wood) it has again gone back onto my Seagate cloud drive to give me an extra 2TB of cloud storage.  I keep backups of my very favorite Movies on that drive but will keep my eyes open for a super good 2TB hard drive deal and possibly replace it.

Recently my 6 month old Dell PC did an update of the operating system (Windows 10) and an upgrade of the Bios, the underlying computer system which first is used as the computer starts up.  I have never had a computer which has had an update of the bios.  So the next morning I was a bit worried when despite pushing the power button, nothing happened.  I did it again, still nothing.  So I turned the power off, let it sit for several minutes and then powered it up again.

This time a Dell Support Assist program began and because of the failed boot up, it carried out a 10 minute check of the whole PC.  It found everything was OK so it then restarted and operated perfectly.  So this morning, with fingers crossed I powered up the PC and hit the 'start' button.  Thankfully everything now seems to be working OK again.  I don't think I will agree to any more Bios updates on the PC!

Trish is back into the swing as President of the Arts Centre Association while I am beginning to get my head around an upcoming edition of the Community Newsletter.  She had meetings today and I have a meeting to chair tomorrow night.

It didn't take long for things to get back to normal!