Aaargh. I'm knackered...
I stupidly volunteered to go on the school excursion today. We went to a farm. A very nice farm, as farms go, lots of loverly aminals - sheeps, cows, 'orses, donkeys, goats, deer, pigs, rabbits, piggles, chickens (there was a pink one! I swear! Pink and fluffy. Looked like a silky, very, very pretty!) but as I was wandering about I couldn't help getting hungry... all this delicious food there for the hunting... I looked at one of the deer and it backed away from me, ears twitching. Heh heh heh.
I'm also sunburnt.
Yes, it was coolish and overcast, but I still should have taken my hat. Tch. Bloody idiot, how long have I been living in Australia?
We got back to school half an hour before the final bell so I was allowed to take the cubs home early, and when I got home I found the Present Fairy had been to visit! Sitting snuggly amid the chaos which is my bed were two little flamingos on sticks (to put in pot plants. I'll need to get another pot plant though, my Madonna lilly is currently overwhelmed with pin-wheel fishie things *grin*). There was also a PowerPuff girl money box, a clear, pink plastic lobster - with sparkles in it! - massager thing, and a tape talking book of Martin Shaw reading 'Tess of the Durbervilles'. (Mr Shaw has the nummiest, bestest voice...) Heh, I like getting presents, always guaranteed to cheer me up. Thank you, Soulsis!! *HUGS*
The cubs were tired out from all the excitement today, one of them took himself off to bed about 7pm, poor kitten. : ) and fun as it was, I don't think I'll be volunteering for another school excursion in a hurry.

I've been pondering the best way to describe my holiday. Hmm, might just transcribe the entries from the pseudo-diary I kept - maybe fiddle with the tense... eh, we'll see how it goes.
Having said that, here's (at least) some of my holiday blog...

Thursday 14th November.

Woohoo! Holidays!
Got up at 6am *shudder* to be ready to leave as soon as my mum and my brother came round to pick me up. I'd packed the night before so there wasn't much to do except get myself dressed and fling the last few things (the list was written on the back of my hand) into my bag, then - ta dah! - done! Damn, I love it when I'm organised.
Christopher, my brother, drove Mum and I into the city to the train station but didn't hang around to see us off - parking is a cow down there - just gave us both a hug then zoomed off before he could get into trouble for parking in a 'tow-away' zone.

The journey from Melbourne to Sydney takes 11 hours by train.
I love trains, really I do, I especially like long train journeys. I like travelling, the feeling of going somewhere (and I've always found the motion of the train mildly arousing - but that's something else ^_^;; ). I also enjoy travelling through country New South Wales, there's parts of the land there which is hilly, the ground rising up in smooth curves and swells, with folds and clefts and dips.. It's a beautiful, subtly erotic landscape and one of these days I'm going to make the journey with someone I can snuggle with...

The train journey was uneventful, the food was OK, didn't spill anything on myself on the trips to and from the buffet car. Napped a little, read a little, spent a lot of time looking out the window at the dry, dusty brown countryside and the emaciated cattle. Australia's caught in a drought and it shows. The only patches of green we saw were the occasional irrigated field, and the shallow strips edging the few creeks and dams that carried water. It was quite sad to see, especially as the last time we made this trip (four years ago) there was flooding. This time there's been bushfires. Fortunately we didn't come close to any, but we travelled through the smoke from one - that was an eerie ten minutes.

I don't spend a lot of time with my mum, and I forget what she's like to be around. Jeez, she can't 'alf talk!
I'm used to a certain amount of quiet in my life - the only time Mum didn't talk (and this goes for the whole holiday) was when she was asleep. I love her dearly, but honestly...

Mum and I got off the train at Moss Vale, where we were picked up by Caroline and Ted.
Caroline is an old friend of the family, we made her acquaintance when we emigrated from England. She was one of the teachers who volunteered to hold classes for the kids on the ship - (yours truly remembers those classes, vaguely, colouring in pictures of kangaroos and the Australian flag, and learning some Rolf Harris songs *rolls eyes*. I was so prepared for life in Aus).
C & T live in Wentworth Falls, in the Blue Mountains, and it took about an hour and a half to drive there from Moss Vale - an hour and a half of The best of Kenny Rogers...

It was dark by the time we got home, so to speak, and Mum and I were both knackered. C & T have a german shepherd dog, called Rajah, big, old, sooky thing they're both completely wet about (child substitute) and he was very glad to have visitors, he kept presenting us with his blue rubber ring toy in the hopes that we'd play with him. Not likely, Mum and I are both cat persons. : )
Needless to say, being so tired, we trotted off to bed fairly early. The last time we visited C & T, we had seperate rooms; on the way up, Mum said something about us having to share a room this time cos Caroline was renovating, or something.
Damn! - I thought to myself - that puts an end to any plans for dragging someone back for screaming animal sex. *derisive snort* As if...
But, it turned out we had seperate rooms anyway - not that that made the idea of SAS any more likely...

to be continued...