Away with Dash…

And on previous similar outings, we have done things like whale watching.

This was a pretty amazing experience, during which one set of enormous brown eyes almost popped out of his little head.

It was almost as much fun as fishin’ with his Dad…

The boy can fish… his Mum loves eating fish. Not so much the actually sport that precedes that event. Or the cleaning of said fish…

But my Dash, he thinks it’s huge fun! And the little possum catches them whenever he hooks a line… he has yet to be disappointed with a still line. Who knows why… he has actually been known to give away some of his catch to other less fortunate anglers. SSB is as bemused as I about our son’s success with a fishing line.

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Me? I love watching him fish. Watching our kids play with their Dad as he relaxes away from Granite Glen, and the million chores that await him back home. I love seeing our friends, the people from our city life who take time from their own hectic lives to catch up with their mad gone-country mates. Seeing the people we knew as wild single ‘youngsters’ who now have settled too, with their chosen mates and their growing families.

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It’s a pretty special time in our lives really. A time where we make ourselves stop for a day or so, and assess our status quo. And savour the little milestones those special to us have achieved. The few centimetres our kids have grown. The burgeoning bellies of mums-to-be-again. The increasingly fanciful recollections of ‘the good old days’. And the sharp (sometimes sleep-infringing) reminders of just how much our lives have changed over the last ten years. For better and worse.

Does it mean you’re spoiled, if you know how lucky you are?

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This year we are combining a visit to Australia Zoo, where Dash is quite sure that he will finally get to meet Bindi the Jungle Girl… Once upon a time (in my previous life as a newspaper hack) I had some connection with the fabulous Terri (and the irreplaceable Steve)… indeed I fondly remember taking photos of them the day they announced their pregnancy with little Bindi. But that was almost eleven years ago, and I doubt that I have any pull these days in helping my son meet his little heroine. I somehow imagine that the days of me rocking up to the front desk, giving my name and being met with a big American grin and a “How ya goin’ girlfriend!” are gone… things have gone from small and intimate to big and corporate in that neck of the woods! (And good luck to them!).

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And we also planning on a brief look at the Ekka… a fabulous hotbed of rural people, animals, sideshow alley and the dose of citified flu. So I am facing either a massive double-whammy of excitement and delight…

…or crashing disappointment and illness.

…Wish me luck!