We’re Back Baby!!!

/ susiecameron

After 4 long months we were finally allowed to travel to Sydney to see our family. It was so exciting, I was like a kid at Christmas packing up the car and Bailey dog even came for the eventful reunion! When I pulled up at the house and Cooper came running out to greet me with that million watt smile on his face I was truly happy. Yes we may have missed out on holidays overseas and eating out in restaurants but what we REALLY missed was being with the family, hanging out and chewing the fat – nothing earth shattering, just being together. As you can see from the pictures we were happy little vegemites all round. Sadly Tasmania is still shut but has announced they will open their borders on December 15th so Rara already has a ticket on the 10am plane to Hobart! I will finally meet my smallest granddaughter and have a couple of precious days with her before returning to The Meadow for Xmas and the arrival of the ENTIRE family!!! It will be chaotic but fabulous I’m sure…..

This was the Princes Highway (the main road from Sydney to Melbourne) the day before travel to and from Greater Sydney resumed. It will probably never be this empty again and it has definitely been the silver lining of lockdown that the traffic has been almost non existent. They have forged on with the upgrade and as you can see it’s just the finishing off of the median strips that needs doing in most parts now. Hopefully by Xmas the road will be 4 lanes allowing the holiday traffic to flow, unlike the past 3 years where it has been a 10km traffic jam between Berry and Bomaderry!

I had to laugh last weekend when I went out into the garden and saw the MOTH and our neighbour having a chat over the fence ‘country style’ The sound of ride-on mowers is the playlist of my weekend as we are all back to mowing about 3 times a week with the sunshine and rain causing it to grow about an inch every 3 days!

Needless to say this means the garden is in full throttle. My new project is my Pierre de Ronsard climbing rose which I am training up the veranda posts and along a soon to be constructed wire running under the front veranda barge boards. Every country cottage needs a rambling rose in my opinion. Not so much in the MOTH’s opinion but thankfully I won this one….The sweet peas are also putting on a huge show and I cannot help smiling every time I walk into the veggie patch and see them climbing up the fence reaching for the sun, they punch far above their weight and really are the easiest flowers to grow. The mulberry tree gave us our first flush of fruit and we enjoyed a delicious pie and still had enough to give the neighbours a few kilos too. 5 hours later a jar of jam was waiting at my back door as a thankyou – how good are country folk!

So as we are now almost 90% double vaxxed in Australia we have a cautious sense of optimism that we can plan life again. This has come just in time for Summer and the festive season so we couldn’t ask for anything better as we anticipate family and friend get togethers, holidays here and overseas and sharing meals with friends old and new. However I must say that I still had many happy moments while Covid was keeping us locked up. I had a new found appreciation for the everyday and what lay around us. I paid attention to my inner voice, I didn’t feel guilty if I felt like curling up with a good book in the middle of the afternoon or watching a midday movie and I had a real sense that we were living through a unique period of time in the world. I lost some special people during the pandemic and I felt sad that they spent their last months being separated from their loved ones and not feeling free to do what they may have wanted to. Therefore we should grab every day by the scruff of it’s neck and give life a red hot go while we can no matter what that life may look like. I’m going to be braver and less worried about what people think and how silly I might look and finally attempt to improve my swimming and have a go at SUP-ping and enjoy all that this world has to offer while I can! This rings very true to me…..

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