Time For Me To Head Home Again

Despite an unkind weather forecast, the day was almost perfect for the wedding of my nephew Marcus and his lovely bride Brigitte. We drove to Dromana (about 50 minutes away) soon after lunch on Friday. We had Kate with us in the car (which completed the round trip perfectly)and met our other daughter Kim at the hotel. We stayed in the Dromana Hotel which had lovely large older style rooms. We were extremely happy with our choice of accommodation. We discovered the bus service was only for getting back to the hotel after the Reception.

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It was a lovely day, catching up with all the family and attending the wedding and the reception. Kate isn't a real lover of alcohol and she was fine to drive us back to the hotel about 11:30 pm. It was great night.

The wet weather arrived Sunday morning as we went to the bride's parents home for a lunch. We didn't stay too long as the weather was threatening and we were all tired or perhaps a little seedy from the night before.

Trish went to bed quite early Saturday night. She has a cold and the wedding reception didn't help either.

Today is Sunday and I am due to fly back to Maroochydore first thing tomorrow morning. Trish will take me across to Chris' place this afternoon where I will spend the night. She will then drive back to Kate's. Chris will drive me to the airport first thing Monday morning.

I am due to arrive in Maroochydore about 10 am and my mate John Logan is coming with me for several nights.

Trish is staying a few more days and is due home on Thursday morning.

Water Level Is Fine!

I spent yesterday glued to the TV enjoying the 1st Test match, Australia Vs England live from Brisbane. The Australian fast bowler who took a hat trick was Peter Siddle who plays with Dandenong, the team I played much of my cricket with.

Trish went to a show in Melbourne last night with our youngest daughter Kim. She drove the car into Melbourne and back again. I checked the water level in the radiator this morning after the car had done about 150k's and the water level is fine. The car has performed perfectly, it hasn't missed a beat!

We are about to head off to Dromana this afternoon (about an hour away) for the wedding and won't get back here until Saturday afternoon.

$200

I caught up with my brother yesterday and left quite a few movies and TV shows with him. That should keep them going for a couple of months!

The car has been running fine but I had to put water in the radiator yesterday. I am hoping this was just from an airlock when the repair was done recently. The temperature gauge doesn't budge and the temperature yesterday was well over 30 degrees. With the motor running beautifully and the temp gauge not budging it seems OK.

For the fun of it I popped into a Hyundai dealer just to check out a change over on a new small very basic brand new model Hyundai Getz. They valued our car at $200! However the key words were "changeover price". If necessary we could get into a new Getz for about $10,000. Hyundai have a $12990 drive away deal on right now.

Our feeling is we will stay with the car we have. However any more serious problems and it may have to go.

We went Vietnamese last night with Patsy and Eddie. The total for the 4 of us was $60 and the meal was sensational.

Kate took the kids down to catch up with Arj who is on a school camp about 80k's from here for a few hours yesterday afternoon. As you can see from the photo taken here, when they returned last night it had been a pretty tiring trip for two little kids.

I have the cricket test match on TV today and then we have the wedding tomorrow and Saturday. The weather has turned to rainy. A cooler 24 today and then low 20's for the next few days. This is a shame for the wedding tomorrow afternoon.

From Melbourne

I arrived in Melbourne Monday afternoon after flying for over 2 hours from Maroochydore to Tullamarine, Melbourne. One of the disadvantages of living where we do is the Sunshine Coast is a popular holiday destination for families. So the little boy who played up for the whole trip down in the plane was constantly being attended to by his mum. She stood and sat back down again about 25 times, each time plonking down into the seat in front of me. I was watching a movie on the laptop and unfortunately the drop down table I had was broken. The laptop didn't sit properly so each movement in front of me had to be managed carefully. As a school principal I was always in favour of retrospective abortion and this was yet another good case!

I spent the first evening at Chris' place with youngest daughter Kim, Trish, and Chris and his family. It is always a bit of fun. I gave Andrew the 'old' laptop to use and after 15 minutes he was frustrated with how slow it was. Trish was driving Kate's car so getting to the other side of the city and Kate's place at about 8:00 pm wasn't an issue. This photo of Kate's home in Melbourne was taken this morning.

On Tuesday we were off to see our official financial advisor Darren and our unofficial advisor John Logan. As I am about to turn 65 we need maneuver the superannuation around to make the most of benefits available to us. That is all now done.

From there it was back to John's home for 'coffee'. We knocked over a few stubbies and now John is flying back to the Sunshine Coast with me on Monday as he has some business to attend to in Brisbane. He will stay for a few nights with me before flying back home.

The car is running very well. One of the spark plug leads wouldn't click on properly but after clearing some debris (broken bit of old spark plug lead) the lead now firmly clicks into place and the car runs very smoothly. We have an issue with the front door as the driver's side door won't unlock with the key. The lock needs replacing. However the remote control works reasonably well and unlocks the door OK. We drove the car for well over 70k's yesterday and it went flawlessly.

Today I am driving over to visit my brother this afternoon and then later tonight we are out for Vietnamese for tea with Eddie and Patsy.

The weather has been sunny and low 30's with a northerly wind. Rain is forecast for tomorrow and stretching over into the weekend. We have the wedding on Friday.

Showery Weather

Overcast, windy with showers of rain is the weather we are getting right now. Another 7mls in the gauge from yesterday with several showers overnight. This is the view which greeted me this morning at about 7:30am.

I fly to Melbourne tomorrow morning so it is time to tidy the backyard up, clean the pool, give the lawn a quick mow and get things ready. I am only away for a week so there isn't as much to do as some other times.

I have been invited out for tea tonight and to have a few drinks. I won't over indulge as there is nothing worse than moving at 100% and flying in a plane.

So my next post will be from Melbourne. The forecast down there is for lovely warm weather while here is expecting showers on and off throughout the week.