Victorian Trip Feb. 2006.

Photos; 1, Vicki, Me, Jacqui, Lorna.

2, Allan & Lorna with the Queens card.

3, The Davies family, Vicki & me.

4, Rex, Me, Vicki.

5, Walter, Jacqui, Allan, Lorna.

I love traveling and getting together with friends and family, but I also love
slipping back into my comfortable surroundings.

So the trip was great, the company was excellent, and getting home again
topped it off, it would be remiss of me not to thank the folk who made it all
worthwhile, so my sincere thanks to the folk who fed me, provided
accommodation and most of all the pleasure of their company.

Having two functions to attend only a week apart and two hundred miles
apart was indeed fortunate; Keith is my oldest living friend, so it was great
to be able to help celebrate his 70^th birthday, a little sobering to realize we
were born in the same year!

Our recently departed mate Alan Davies was in everybody’s thoughts as it was
the first birthday gathering he had missed, Alan’s family were there and it was
my pleasure to escort his widow Jeanette to the party.

There is always a lighter side to things if you look hard enough, after Alan’s
funeral service last year, as we emerged from the service, there was a very
loud clap of thunder, as this was from a relatively clear sky we decided that
this was Alan announcing his arrival in heaven, to add to the spooky feeling,
while we were all celebrating Keith’s birthday there was a thunder storm that
came and went in moments complete with lots of thunder, just Alan joining in?

To also be able to attend Allan & Lorna’s 60^th wedding anniversary was
great; they have been my friends for the last 40 years.

An extra bonus was that my daughter Vicki and husband Rex got to both
functions, Vicki handled the trip quite well, but still won’t be doing much
blogging for a while, as sitting at the computer is still stressful.

Also attending this function was my first wife Jacqui and her husband
Walter, nowadays it’s always good to see them too.

The wedding anniversary was quite impressive, as they received
congratulations from many dignitaries, including Queen Elizabeth, our
Governor General, Prime Minister, and State Premier, very toffy.

The trip through NSW was a lot better than my previous one, there has
been goodrains since then and a fairly successful cropping season too, so
there was nowhere near the same carnage of wildlife on the road this time.

On my return trip I was “breathalyzed” twice, I don’t know whether this
is a worldwide procedure, where you blow into a tube connected to a
device that analyses your breath for alcohol, there has been another
advance in this technology, now they just hold the box in front of you and
ask you to count out loud to ten, you only have to bow in the tube if they
detect alcohol now, this makes it much quicker for us law abiding citizens.

Petrol prices are even scarier than last year, I could have flown much
cheaper than driving but by the time I had hired a car to get around in it
would have been a bit more expensive, and I still enjoy driving, plenty of
time for flying when the driving worries me, waaaay down the track.

The computer sessions with Merle were pretty full on, I don’t know
whether she absorbed it all or not, time will tell I guess, like countless
others who had never touched a computer until a couple of years ago,
she has latched onto it all pretty well.

We are in our Autumn, (Fall) period, March, April, May; in Queensland’s
sub-tropical climate we get very little of the beauty of the colour change,
so it was a disappointment to be in Victoria too early in the season for the
colours, oh well we can’t have it all can we.