Maxy the Wonder Dog, Hume Weir and Daggy Picnic

That little road trip and night away for New Year's Eve made us realise we don't do stuff like that much anymore like we used to and it made us all feel better and we seem to be getting along better and not snapping at each other.  Yesterday Phill was going down to see his family, his sister is very sick with cancer.  I wanted to go but was pouting because of what I perceieve as his difficult attitude toward me going over to see Mum.  I probably got it wrong (again) but I decided at the last minute to go with him anyway so we all drove down to Albury, saw his parents then walked up to his sister's house, his parents, and his three sisters all live within streets of each other now, it's great.  As usual there was a crowd of family, Phill's nephew and his wife were over from Adelaide, I hadn't seen Andy since he was a kid and now he's a 6'5" grown married man and gorgeous.  Josh is the spit of him as a kid and I can still see the resemblance (wouldn't be surprised if Josh is as tall or taller).  Got to meet my niece in law's new man, he seems nice, down to earth knockabout sort of fellow and seems to adore Toni and treats her well by her account.  She's a lovely girl, well a woman of 40 now and has had some bad luck with blokes so hopefully this will be the one to bring her happiness.  Vonnie, Phill's eldest sister who is ill, was clearly frail and in 35 degree heat was sitting totally covered in a crochet rug when we got there which was alarming but is due to the side effects of her chemo and other meds.  Later she came out and sat in their lovely outdoor area and joined in with the rest of the family.  Our kids, as usual, sat inside and pouted because we stayed too long (got there at 2pm left at 5pm, shock horror!!!!)  It was lovely to see everyone and I'm glad we went.  I left my camera in the car so didn't get any photos.  Then we left and drove down to Hume Weir.  It's full to capacity after all the rains and there were people everywhere, we found a spot to swim and although it was a bit crowded everyone was friendly and in good spirits.  I didn't go in as there were no change rooms and I'm a bit past changing in the car like the kids did (Em while I held a towel in front of her, remember doing that?) 

The dam is 6 times the size of Sydney Harbour, it's huge!  There were lots of boats and water skiiers about.  It reminded me so much of my childhood.  Summer holidays were always spent on and in the water, swimming, fishing, skiing sometimes, camping and caravanning.  This is what Aussies do over the Christmas holidays and it felt good to be out among them.

Don't know why, but this boat reminded me of my father's boat.  His was wood and it was before my time, I only know it from the home movies.  That's my lot down in the right hand corner under the date stamp!

Phill wasn't the only Dad to have a cool brown bottle in the water with him. 

This morning I booked two nights at the holiday park on the weir for later in the month.  Phill can spend some more time with his family without the kids whingeing and we can all have some relaxing time out.  The cabin we booked has views over the dam from the big deck at the front.  I'm so looking forward to it.  We decided if it's okay we'll book it for Christmas this year.  I decided that we are going to start going away for Christmas.  The kids had fun last year but it felt a bit empty and lonely to me, especially when we talked to our families who were together with extended family.  It worked to have Christmas at home while the kids were little but now it's time for a change.  We will stay for a week, and tell anyone else they're welcome to come join us down there, but if not we'll see Phill's family and that's always a party no matter what the occasion.

Harley has not proved to be the good mother she was with the last litter of kittens.  I don't know if she's just too young or losing the other three has affected her but she won't stay in the nest and wants to cart the kitten all over the house.  This wouldn't be so bad if she would settle somewhere with him and let him feed and snuggle and sleep but she won't.  We got home late last night and they had been in the shed while we were out.  We brought them in and she wouldn't settle.  I was so tired and went to bed but she kept trying to get in to our room.  Many times I went out and moved them but she'd bring the kitten back up the hall and scratch and push on the door to get in.  If we let her in she would bring the kitten up on the bed then take him off (an injury risk there) and sit and scratch jingling her bell.  I tried putting her in the room off the kitchen but she just pushed the old sliding door out and came back.  In the end I put them in the outside loo which has a better closing door.  This morning I was horrified to see she had pushed that open and I had visions of a torn apart kitten, by Max who I feared may have thought he was a rat or mouse which he often catches.  But there was Lucky, smack bang in the middle of Max's mattress, out on the back porch safe and sound asleep with Max sitting watch beside him.  No way would that kitten have crawled up onto the mattress as it's quite thick and I know Harley wouldn't have put him there.  He was perfectly in the middle, like where Max puts things that are really important to him, his bones etc.  He's a better mother than Harley is!  We're going to try to hold that door shut tonight or nobody will get any sleep.  Poor little kitten has spent most of the afternoon in a little nest on my bed while Harley is kept outside until he needs feeding.  He was lucky to survive his birth and will be lucky to survive this, which is why his name is LUCKY.

Joshy loves him, he will find it very hard to say goodbye to him in a few weeks.

This morning we dropped Phill off at work at Temora.

The amount of wheat being harvested is amazing.  Pile after covered pile we passed and saw farmers harvesting and trucks pouring their precious golden cargo into the hoppers for storage and transport.  This is good for everyone, including us, as that's what Phill's company hauls.  So many years we were all victims of the drought, this year the rains nearly ruined it all but thankfully it wasn't as bad as was predicted.

The kids and I then went and had a daggy morning tea picnic at Centenary Park at Temora.  We didn't take our swimmers as we'd had a storm here earlier and thought it was going to be a rainy day.  We're going to go back there soon for a proper picnic and a swim, the lake is really full and people had boats out and were skiing and the other side of the lake was for swimming and many families were doing just that.

Love an Aussie Summer.