A Big Day Out…

… but we managed to be on the road by 7am, and sending the kilometres flying under our tyres. A few kilometres of our chosen route was gravel road, but the rest consisted of lovely bitumen. And all bitumen is lover-ly if you have to travel on dirt for any chunk of your daily travel, trust me! It is almost a three hour journey to the city near Jeanie’s Paradise.

A journey filled today with some giggles,

some quite terrible singing

(I shall take a bow for that, thanks very much!)

a few bouts of bickering

(mostly NOT me, but it was a close call a few times)

and ended happily at McDonald’s.

Or as Dash likes to call it:

Ha’ McDonalls

You know:

“Ol McDonald HAD a Farm”;

which turns into:

“Ha’ McDonnel Had a Farm”;

which turns into:

“Are we going to Ha’ McDonnels Mummy?”

Makes perfect sense, doncha think?

(And no, McDonalds are NOT a paying sponsor of this blog.)

…

Happily sauced up on Bacon and Egg McMuffin and several hash browns, we visited the drive-through car wash. Now if my father reads this, he will roll his eyes and demand to know why the heck I didn’t just save my money and wash the Prado at home.

And here would be my calm and reasoned reply:

1. Washing cars requires clean water and energy – I’m short on both at the moment;

2. We have dirt roads;

3. It takes up to three hours of my effort to coax the dust from the crevices of that car;

4. 2+3 = dirty car… makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER;

5. At said car wash, a couple of very nice boys happily scrub and chamois my filthy vehicle

while the kids squeal in delight at the auto wash water blasts,

while I catch up on my mobile messages

(these suckers can seriously bank up when one is out of range for a fortnight at a time!) …

and if that isn’t a spectacular display of excellent Time and Motion at work, I’m not my father’s daughter!!!

Heh.

We then dashed around town picking up horseshoes and lotto tickets (darn, didn’t win!), stripping Woolies of grocery items unavailable in our hometown, dropping off generators, ordering Indian takeaway (and in doing so, being the most outstanding wife of all-time), buying shoes for my ever-lengthening son (when will all this food make him go OUTwards?) and appeasing my daughter with spangled headbands.

I DID mean to photograph the amazing architecture of this lovely town/city also, but in-car demands to get Salina and Jeanie abducted and long-distance telepathy from my husband to get some curries home in time for dinner, forced me to postpone that much-anticipated activity. Next time. *sigh*

My sister and her verbally-excited daughter put up very little resistance to our kidnapping activities, and despite many loo stops, yet another lotto purchase (still no good!) and picking up an outrageous number of grocery bags from Woolies parcel-pickup, we managed to be on the road home by 4pm.

The trip back to Granite Glen was noisy. Noisy with Salina entertaining her littler cousins with theatrical renditions of Someone On Her Mobile Phone Making Secret Calls to Someone Else!!

*giggle, giggle, giggle*

And the front seat was abuzz with sisterly catchup ranging from the obscene lack of morning sickness registered by one Jeanie in Paradise, to the chances of Hewitt winning Wimbledon (not great, but lovely to imagine just the same), to what financial planning decisions we had already based on our sure and certain $90 million OzLotto wins tonight (yeah, we know), to why the heck we cry the WHOLE WAY THROUGH “Find My Family”.

If I had been taking photos while driving, the landscape whizzing by us – to which we were mostly oblivious as we caught up on our news – would’ve looked a little like this:

But of course I didn’t.

I was driving.

And that kind of stunt would be downright dangerous.

And we all know how terribly sensible I am*.

Thanks. Your support means a lot to me!

Anyway, by the time we finally got to the landmark bottle trees on one of the last ridges before the GG homestead…

…it didn’t really look like this at all…

‘Cause it was quite dark.

But if it wasn’t dark, this is what we would have seen.*

You will be amazed and delighted to know that we made it in time for a sumptuous Indian takeaway dinner.

The kids have finally wound down and are dreaming crazy mobile phone dreams inspired by their darling big cuz.

Jeanie has said her goodnights and piled a gazillion blankets on herself.

Mr Incredible is tucked in bed (a different one) with a tum full of Chicken Tikka and Lamb Madras. A happy, gastronomically contented man.

As for me, most of the groceries are away.

The kitchen bears only a few curry smears.

Axel is tucked up under a rug.

And I am delirious with tiredness.

Can you tell?*

Don’t answer that…

So it’s goodnight from me…

and it’s Goodnight from Bush Babe!