Last night, I dropped L-Bro off at the airport. I wasn’t allowed to go in with him so had to make do with a very hurried farewell hug at the 1 minute drop off point at the departures area while overzealous security man strode purposefully up and down to ensure we were 1 minute, 1 minute only and not 1 second over.
1 minute – ridiculous! You barely have time to get your luggage out of the boot in 1 minute, never mind giving 1 years worth of hugs as well; given that I don’t actually know when I am going to see him again.
Anyway, L-Bro’s departure brings us to the end of the ‘holiday season’ chez Melbs. It was rather a long season for us, starting all that time ago in January with the visit of mum, sis and gorgebag nephew. They left and husbs parents then arrived a week later. They left and then L-Bro arrived a week or 2 afterwards. So for the first almost 5 months of the year we have been sharing our house with varying family members and doing the Melbourne tourist thing. . . . a lot.
And I have had a fab time.
It has been brilliant being able to show everyone where we live, places we go to, things we do.
Now that we are back to just the 3 of us again it feels odd. I don’t really know how else to describe it. It feels like someone (anyone from the past 5 months) will come in through the lounge door at any moment and ask if I want a cup of tea, and it got really familiar and comforting. It is not like people were only here a couple of days before moving on elsewhere, each visit was a good few weeks and it is amazing how you fall into old habits and the familiarity of home, even though we are thousands of miles away.
I really feel that now the family have visited it makes me feel closer to them even though in reality we are still on the other side of the world to each other; but the fact that they now know and have been to the places that I talk about and have met many of the people I talk about somehow makes it seem like we are not so far away.
Back to L-Bro and in the 3 weeks that he was here he managed to pack more in than husb and I have managed to do in 10 months of living here. He made me feel a bit slack if I’m honest.
He did a whstle stop tour of Sydney in a day, I’m not talking opera house and bridge, oh no. In one day he managed to fit in brekkie at the barracks, walking the bridge, bridge observation area, opera house, lunch at the botanical gardens, Bondi beach, Darling Harbour, dinner in Cockle Bay Wharf all before heading back on the last flight of the day! I haven’t managed to do Bondi yet so I am well jel of his exploits.
Not content with that he also did a tour of the Great Ocean Road that was supposed to take 3 weeks he did it in 2 days. Mental! He did Bells Beach, 12 Apostles headed all the way up to Portland taking in various sights along the way (we have never been that far!), before heading inland and home to us via the Grampians and Hepburn Springs.
But . . .not content with that either, he also headed off down to Wilsons Promentary via Phillip Island to see the penguin parade and back again along with a load of other stuff that I can’t remember. I am tired just writing about it.
Fair play to him for packing so much in in such a relatively short space of time. No one can say he didn’t make the most of it.
Listening to all of his adventures when he got back has given me renewed vigour to dust off the monster truck and get seeing some more of the sights we haven’t managed yet. Although I might leave it for a bit so that we can get used to our daily routine again first.
It is going to be really really strange not having any more visitors planned until the end of the year. (Strange that, I wonder why suddenly as we go into a Melbourne winter, no one else is booking their flights over!)
Fairweather family. . . . 
