Achoo!

So another week has flown by. Sometimes I think I am afraid to sleep cause if I do, I'll wake up and it will be next year!

Monday Dobby had netball practice, and her gracious father took her so I had an hour or so to myself. Thursday was guitar. She seems to be doing well at it. Boss has been out of the office a lot again, as his wife is now out of hospital and he is part time carer for her. I have finally caught up so it's not as hectic for me.

We saw Annabell briefly on the weekend, but sadly have not seen her since. Many of you suggested I keep her, but sadly I was not able to. She would have been very welcome but I was gently told it was not going to happen. Anyway, I have to assume that the family came and took her away because she has not been around since Sunday evening. Very sad.

Friday Boss let me go from work early, at 3.30. Which meant I had time to change the sheets on the bed and get the washing in before Fluffy got home from work. We hooked up the van and were on the road by 5.15.

Thursday I started to sniffle. Friday it arrived. Fluffy got his cold back, and not to be left out, mine came back too. This time though it was worse. By the time we got to Mount Pleasant I was blocked up, sniffling, and feeling somewhat light headed. But that's all I am going to say about it. I have a cold. End of story. As I write this, I still have it.

Anyway, it was dark before we even hit the tunnels, and so here we were, out in the sticks, trying to find our way to a place we had last visited about 8 years ago. The sat nav, eventually, did it's job. It is so difficult to enter stuff into it. Definitely not user friendly. It took us an hour and a half, and when we got to the caravan park, we couldn't see to find anyone in our group!

We drove around for a bit until we saw a familiar car and van set up, then found ourselves a nice site on the end, across the field from the loos.

But upon leaving the car, we realised "Shit it's cold!" It was so icey, there was a real bite in the air. All we did was roll out the awning, leaving it attached to the side of the van, and put up Dobby's tent. That was it. The rest of the group lit a campfire behind our van but I was too sick and too cold to feel like joining in. As a lot of the other teens didn't come, Dobby stayed in the van with me.

The showers were hot, though, and after that I crawled into bed. Dobby went into the tent, crawled into her sleeping bag, and opened another over the top of her. Fluffy joined in the fireside chat for a while then came to bed.

We had the heater on in the van, and blankets on the bed, warm pajamas and socks, but we were still so cold. At 4.17 the door opened. "I'm cold... can I sleep in here?" Sure, and bring the dog. It was actually warmer outside the bed than in, I suspect because the cold air trapped/coming up through the mattress.

Saturday morning brought frost and iced up windscreens. The people in the van behind us had an early start with footy, and were furiously trying to scrape ice off the windscreen when I got up. It was soo deathly cold. Further down from us, was a lady with 3 kids of her own and two japanese students. They had a small camper trailer and tents, and they were so cold they didn't stay a second night, but left after dinner Saturday.

Eventually people emerged, and we had morning tea at 10.30. There were lots of discussions about the cold. Our next meeting is Queens Birthday long weekend, in the Riverland, so I can imagine there will be a lot more blankets making that trip!

After club game we had the afternoon to ourselves. Fluffy, Dobby and her friend (one of the girls from the camper trailer) and I took Ozzie into town for a walk. We bought a drink, wandered through the antique shop, then made our way back. I needed to walk out the stiffness in my hips but I think I just made it worse. Plenty of lazy reading time, but then later that afternoon they built a campfire and set up barbeques under an old grandstand shed thing, which I think was used for sheep shearing demonstrations.

Which was about 200m from our van... over unlit ground... it was fun...

The club decided that we would have a communal barbeque, everyone bring your own food and stuff. Happy hour first, though, at 4.00. I went down for that, but it was cold away from the fire even then. I made several trips back and forth, with Dobby bringing Fluffy steaks for me, putting together the makings of steak sandwiches for him and taking it to him, making something for Dobby to eat, and taking that down with us to join the group, then having nothing really for my own dinner. But I wasn't terribly hungry anyway so that didn't bother me. But another camper said she had these thawed frozen meals that were going to waste and please, take them. So I had one of those new Chicken Parmi meals. Very nice. Back up to the van to heat that up, back down to join the others for dinner.

Then back up to the van to take all the dishes back. Dobby had a couple of other kids (the first teen she was with went home), one of whom was the boy she decked at the last rally, in the van with her watching movies, so Fluffy and I had to sit outside. Eventually we got too cold so back down to the fire.

By now it was cold and we were stiff as heck so about 9ish we all called it a night. I took the dishes up to wash them while Fluffy had a shower. Dobby's friends went back to the fire until 10.30 when everyone else went to bed. She went back to the tent but this time had her warmer sleeping bag on and the other open over the top.

About midnight I woke up to the dulcet tones of some hoon doing burnouts out the front of the park. I needed to go to the loo, so I rugged up and left the van. And almost tripped over the dog who was sitting outside. When I went to put him back I realised he had, again, broken the catch on his lead. He must have chased something but I didn't hear a thing. He obviously didn't bark. Anyway I tied it to his collar, which was funny because he knew he had messed up. He come and lay beside me so I could fix it. He went straight back into the tent where he stayed all night.

Back to bed and it was a little warmer this time.

Sunday morning we woke up to grey-ish clouds. Rain had been forecast but it ended up being a lovely day. As we had not really unpacked we didn't have much to pack up. Morning tea fixings had been left outside our van as the couple who had been doing it had an early start. We put it out ready, and just milled about chatting until about 10.30.

We did the rounds, said out farewells, and jumped in the car. Ooops, Fluffy had left the key in the "on" position the entire weekend. Flat battery...

One of the other campers raced down to grab his 4WD to offer a jump start, and another camper grabbed his jumper leads. The fellow with the car raced up to help - forgetting in the mean time to unplug is fridge in the back of his car! Leads flying, people running to stop him! It was hilarious.

Anyway, car was started and off we went.

We made it home in an hour! Dobby went straight in for a shower (she had not showered all weekend and you know what? No one cared...) She had a birthday party to go to. Fluffy and I unpacked what needed to be done, then took her to her party.

We both had a shower in her absence (no, not together!) and had a snack. Then it was time to pick her up again. Lazy afternoon, take away fish and chips for dinner. Nice relaxing end to the weekend.

And I think Dobby is getting my cold....

Oh, and I forgot. It was my friend Rat's birthday on Saturday and I totally forgot to send her a text, so Happy Birthday Rat! Hope you had a great day! xxxxxx