Time to stop now

So what a week it has been. At work, I put my nose to the grindstone to get end of month finished before my two days off. But then, about 3.00 Wednesday afternoon I realised two things. One, one page of my production report wouldn't be forthcoming from our plant at Nowra until Thursday, which meant I couldn't finish my stuff, and two, I didn't have the memory stick to back up the accounts even if I did finish my stuff.

So I left knowing I would be all set to go Tuesday.

Thursday, I got to sleep in till 7.00. That was nice. I got Dobby off to school then attacked her room. I worked until 1.00pm, and got it pretty much finished. The rest of the house was a disaster with bags of rubbish and bagged stuff for the 2nd hand shop in the hall, bags of clothes for friends in the office, and the kitchen full of dirty drink bottles and washing.

I changed and dashed off to meet Nan at the cheap grocery shop, to give her one of the bags of clothes and pick up the cake she had made Fluffy, and to do some last minute snack shopping for the weekend away.

Then, back home, and picked Dobby up on the way home from school (she was almost home anyway). I finished the last of the tidying up, and she sorted her shoes. When Fluffy got home he was still annoyed at the mess I had left behind, even though I had not stopped since 8.45. I put it down to his giving up smoking. For now.

Lazy tea Thursday night. Friday he and I both had the day off work. We had planned to go to Waikerie early, say lunch time Friday, but wouldn't you know, Dobby had her one and only SAPSASA netball game at 2.00pm. Sigh. I took her to the game, they lost by 3, and when we got home she dashed inside to change, I went to the loo, and we jumped in the car to go.

We did the trip in just on 3 hours. Arrived in the dark, and found that the park was just a field with randomly placed power boxes. Some even had water. There was a kyak or canoe regatta on as well, so the place was a huge tent city. We found, in the dark and after some driving around, a free power box close to a water tap and settled down.

Poor Fluffy was having a stress attack and sadly Dobby and I wore it. I vowed then and there I was not going to do this again. It is always the same. We always fight because he gets stressed. Dobby and I tried so hard to help, she even doing things without being told, but it still wasn't good enough. We were still yelled at and my handbag was thrown to the ground (not by me).

Anyway, eventually he lit his firebox (made from a wine keg cut in half length wise and welded back to back), and other members gathered around. Dobby and I pretty much stayed inside.

Saturday we hosted morning tea, as we had taken possession of the utensils at the last rally. After morning tea we pretty much had free time. The kids went to the ferry and rode across the river for Kids Club, and we just sat around. After awhile we went for a drive into town, and bought a mat. It was terribly foggy and everything was wet.
This is overlooking the field beside the park, and what you can't see is the treeline at the edge of the Murry River.

Given that most of the ground was find silty dirt with patches of grass, we ended up tracking mud everywhere. The mat worked a treat. We also stopped at the Chocolate Cafe. It's a little place that does handmade chocolate. Very nice, but extremely expensive. We spent $38 on 3 blocks of chocolate and two little packets. Fluffy bought those for us.

Happy hour was, as usual, at 4.30pm. We moved the fire pots into the huge common ground between our rows of vans, and everyone gathered around. It sure kept things warm. I had put on a hot pot stew for dinner so that was easy. We just filled up bowls and took them back to the fire. I stayed in the van and watched TV in the quiet. Dobby loves the rallies because she gets to hang out pretty much all day with the other kids. We like that too. She brings them back to our van, or they go to someone else's.
this is his firebox during Happy Hour.

I had a headache pretty much from Friday morning on, so I took pills for it, which make me sleep, so I dozed on and off until midnight when Fluffy came back to bed.

Sunday we did morning tea again. After that was treasurer time, and it was then that we decided not to go to the next rally. Fluffy had said to me that it just wasn't worth it, it wasn't working because we didn't enjoy ourselves, so we needed to take a break from it for a bit. I thanked him. So we didn't pay for the next rally this time.

After that we had club game. Dobby always makes it to the semi finals, and this was no exception. Good girl, she's good at it. In case I haven't said, Club Game is a lot like bocche, where you have a Jack, but you throw wooden discs at it, and the aim is to get as close as possible. Kinda boring, kinda fun, depending on whose go it is.

Anyway, Fluffy and I always get knocked out in the first round. Then we have to be polite and sit there until the end. We do.

This time, however, I had something to look forward to. After the game I raced up to the Chocolate Cafe and had an amazing lunch with my friend Leanne. It was the first time we had actually met face to face, but it was like we had always been friends. A very lovely, together, lady. We chatted for two and a half hours! We shared a platter of crackers, cheese, olives, nuts, pesto, chutney and ham. Then we shared a delightful apricot pie with cream. Wonderful! Expensive, though, but wonderful!

While we were there several members of the club traipsed in. Whew. Fluffy hadn't met Leanne so I did wonder if he thought I was running off to meet a guy. Having said that, the club secretary went back to him and said "gee, when she said she was meeting a friend, I didn't realise it was a bloke". Fluffy just stared at her. "No," he said, she's meeting a girl..."No, it was a guy" says the secretary.... Then she saw the look on his face, and put him out of his misery! I would have loved to have been a fly on THAT wall!

I walked back to the park and again we met around the fire. As Social wasn't until 7.30 we all just ate our dinner around the fire. This time I did a corned beef in the hot pot.

Social was a series of games that everyone joined in. First, we all had to make a paper paddle boat with newspaper. That was fun! Then, we got split into groups and again using newspaper, had to dress a group member as a royal. For some reason, all but one of the groups dressed one of the kids in their group. It was fun.
This is our queen, we figured it was the best way to make him settle and be quiet for a few minutes!

The next game then, was to list first of all things starting with the letter P that had legs, then things starting with the letter S that float, and lastly things starting with the letter G that grew. It was interesting some of the words people came up with.

Lastly, most of the group formed two lines down the middle of the room and played balloon soccer, where they had to see how many goals they could get by hitting a balloon across to each other. If it went over the other side's heads, it was a goal. Fluffy scored most of the goals for his side.

This is the 3 wize monkeys... sort of.... The lass in the middle is the secretary who told Fluffy I was meeting a fella!

Supper followed that, and everyone was back beside the fire by 9.30.

This morning we packed up slowly, hosted morning tea again before passing things off to the next family. We left Waikerie at 11.15 and were home before 2.15. Unpack, washing, put the food away. Now we can relax. Dinner tonight will be toasted corned beef, pineapple and cheese sandwiches for Fluffy, who knows what for Dobby, and I think I may indulge in one of those sandwiches too.

Note to self... need to buy bread tomorrow.....