Instalment 12 - End of Story

It was a pleasant flight from Singapore to Brisbane. I watched a storm in the sky for a while but couldn't really sleep. Anticipation I expect, plus an out of whack body clock. I felt a real sense of pride/emotion/nostalgia when the sun started to come up and I knew I was over Australian soil; I had a lump in my throat and nearly a tear in my eye. I am so glad I'm Australian.

We landed at 1/4 to 7 and took an hour to pick up our duty free purchases and clear passport control and customs. Lillie met us and we dropped her home and continued on to Toowoomba where we caught up with Gibbo's mum and Viv and Desley and Ken. Then we came to D and went to Mums; Megan was waiting there for us and had the afternoon off. It was so exciting to see her; she's so beautiful. We came home; I saw Andrew on the way and had a quick chat to him. Peter rang to welcome us home.

Started unpacking and washing; we met Millie, the new mouth to feed. Andrew found her running on the side of the road after he'd been to check some traps and he knew Meg had been wanting one for ages. Bit like the goat story really. She is only a few weeks old and is Megan's delight. Chris wants to call her "ham". She'll never end up on the table though; she'll be with us for the duration now. You can't eat something you've given a name to.

Drew had driven himself to school as he had to go to Toowoomba to a Biology day at USQ so he didn't get home until after 4.30pm. He came over the grid, beeping the horn madly. I raced out to meet him; he was grinning widely and we had a huge hug and kiss.

I made a delicious beef steak pie for dinner; Meg made potato and pumpkin roasted chips. We gave out the gifts we'd bought then went through some of the photos. Gibbo, Megan and Mum fell asleep! How dare they. Actually, I came very close to nodding off too; the camera nearly fell out of my hand once of twice so we all packed off to bed.

It's wonderful to be home again with the kids. Megan is still loving her job and the goats and little Millie. Her Uni work is going well; she made a fantastic guitar cake for Peter's 50th birthday while we were away. She also made him honey soy chicken wings. He was so blown away by them coming to his little "party" and for showing their love. He likes spending time with us because we're all so funny. Drew is going well at school; he got straight A's for his Japanese for terms 1 and 2 so that's a great achievement for him. He's MC tomorrow at the commissioning/opening of the new multi purpose centre at school. He's chosen his subjects for QTAC; his WEP profile has been sent off to Canada - now we just have to wait for a family over there to "choose" him. I'm sure he'll get snapped up right away - how could he not!!! He's really excited.

Today we slept the afternoon away. Tomorrow Gibbo will go to the office and I will go to the school for the opening ceremony. Drew has a total of 10 weeks of school left. Egad. That means that graduation, formal and Schoolies are not that far away. I need to start taking my strong pills.

Now all that's left to do really is go through the hundreds of photos I took and pick out the best ones to keep and post here. I have a good record of our trip due to the detailed emails I sent home.

I don't go back to work until Monday...and that's another thing. I have to decide what I'm going to do there...do I give up the "arrivals" part of the job and just keep doing all the other...do I give it away altogether (virtually impossible considering what I do for G)...do I cut back to say 20 hours of office work a week and pursue "other interests"...or do I just keep plodding along, being tired and cranky at the world.

A girl's gotta do something.