What shall I pack? Decisions, decisions...

Monday July 15^th

Where has the time gone?

It seems like years and years ago that I was buying tickets to fly to Australia and invade my sister and brother-in-law’s sprawling house in Warnbro and now it is less than a fortnight before we are leaving. I am trying not to get too excited by the prospect, although I know that Laura is really extremely bouncy about the whole thing. Skyping my family out there isn’t the same as actually being there in person, it is a good substitute and it is certainly better than all the old methods of communicating. Our countdown calendar is nearly completely covered in crosses, although the last three days won’t be crossed off here as we will be at Dad for the weekend before we fly and he is kindly taking us up to Glasgow airport as well.

We dog walked together this morning and then whizzed down to the pool for our usual 100 lengths. We have promised to e-mail Sarah with all our news and exploits while we are away and we have given loads of people our Skype address. I just hope everyone remembers that Perth is 7 hours ahead of UK time in their winter and they don’t think about calling us after UK tea time. We’ll be in the land of nod! (Half past six UK will be half past one in the morning.) 

She said she will miss our silly morning gossips. I’ve told her we’ll e-mail at least one line every day. I have also informed her we are going to continue our morning swim as Warnbro pool is only about 500 metres from my sister’s house, on Warnbro Sound Avenue. They have changed its name since last year and have now called it “Aqua Jetty”. The last few times I have visited Susannah I went with her to the pool. I swam in the indoor pool while she did her aquarobics class, from 7 am to 7.45.  They have now moved that time slot all over the place and have a seniors’ movement class in the pool at those times. I have told her she could easily pass for a senior and she has promised me a very hard slap when I arrive!

We arrived at work at 8.30 again and went our separate ways until lunch time; this is still a swift half an hour for us as we are leaving early. Good old flexible working.  Nothing out of the ordinary occurred at either of our works places and we left pretty pronto at 4.30 to have our evening meal.

Laura is still not quite used to the slowness of pace that has returned to Dominic’s after the tour de France went through over a week ago and her tips have returned to their normal, pre-extravaganza levels. We have been looking around for a good deal on currency exchange but it is still pretty dire. I remember once when we went to Australia, probably in 2001, my hard saved pocket money of £500 made me over $1500! I think those days have long since gone, sadly.

Tuesday July 15^th

Dad has decided that once he drops me and Laura at the airport he and Louisa are going to spend the last of July and all of August on Arran. Seems like a sensible plan to me. If we weren’t going to Australia I would be planning on doing something similar. He has worked out that if on average a High Season Holiday Let would be around £600 per week then having five weeks in the van will have put back £3000 into the caravan’s value. I sort of see what he means; he is, of course, referring to the money saved by having the van in relation to having to rent every time. It was this cost benefit analysis that Laura did her in head when the idea of sharing was first mentioned. She reckoned that I needed to spend 25 High Season weeks to have recovered the equivalent of the amount I had paid out. After that I was quids in. 25 weeks is easily attainable in only three years of visits, especially with our length of holidays.

We were discussing this with Sarah at the pool and she said, “You have a static caravan, on Arran?” I told her I thought she knew. Either she had forgotten all about it or I didn’t tell her. I explained I had gone halves with Dad on the purchase and we had it right by the shore line in the south east of the island. I bemoaned the lack of sunsets but also commented that the west of the island is very windswept whilst the east is sheltered and can be relatively balmy. I invited her and partner to come and stay with us sometime. She said that she would love to.

At work I had some very interesting case law to find on intestacy where the entire family had no wills. I spend all day looking up different precedents and rulings. I discovered several instances of large country houses falling into the hands of sisters of the deceased after the male owner died without a will. This surprised me as I thought there was a law which used to prevent this from happening. I took a while trying to find this law. I knew all about “feme sole” and “feme couvert”; one of the things from our past which really incenses me, but I was convinced there was a single named act about intestacy. I believe what I was thinking of was Salic Law, which is quite different.

The country house thing was fascinating, the law provided that a woman could inherit, say, her brother’s estate but any titles which the brother had conferred upon him were void upon his death. Yet another bloody example of the oppression of us women and the denial of our rights. There are times when I wonder if studying history is what has actually made me the ardent feminist I am today.

Wednesday 16^th July

More of the same today. We are diligently crossing off the days on our Countdown Calendar and I keep looking at my wardrobe wondering what to pack and what to leave behind. I am planning on taking the bare minimum again but then I think: “Mmmm…. I must put that in; those would be good too; how about?” I have packed my suitcase three times already. Laura thinks I am mad. She has made a list and is sticking to it. I wish I’d done that but if I do so now she’ll think I’m copying her! LOL

I think foot wear is the hardest to decide. I am not taking my uggs, as I will buy a couple of new pairs while I am out there. I will need something sturdy for walking in but not boots; I need something jazzy for nights out and I definitely need sandals and walking in water shoes. It’s tricky. Previously I just bunged any old stuff in and hoped for the best but with Laura coming too I don’t want to look dowdy alongside her, do I?

I know I sound really petty and trivial but things like this do matter. I can’t look like the ugly duckling  next to my swan, can I? It wouldn’t be fair on her and I would feel so embarrassed. She tells me I would look gorgeous in a sack but I know she’s just saying that to stop me getting obsessive about it all.

Australian winters are difficult as the weather though mild by UK standards can be changeable and you need to be prepared for chilled mornings and roasting afternoons. When I came out for Christmas (Two holidays ago) it was simple: I put my UK summer wardrobe in my case and that was it. I also put in every bra I owned which was a pretty dumb thing to do really.  

The one thing I am definitely taking is my lightweight gore-tex waterproof. It proved invaluable last year when Mum & I were caught in several torrential downpours in Perth and Fremantle. It is longish and comes down to mid-thigh, last year on one occasion it was longer than my shorts so it looked like I only had my waterproof and my sandals on! They were quite short shorts and Mum said I was wearing them just to show off my tush! Where did she get such an idea? It was true though.

Laura is getting really excited now. I am trying to be the calm rational one when what I really want to do is grab her by the shoulders and jump up and down together shouting “Yaay!” Dignity Miss Jay, dignity.

At lunchtime, at work, I mentioned my packing with Laura and she said she has been packing by colour of garment. She is going for a lemon, blue and purple theme with all her stuff. I thought that was a great idea so I will try and repack using a colour theme too, I won’t copy Laura’s colour choices because that would be too cheesy by far!

Laura started work as usual at seven and was home again by seven thirty. I asked if she’d been sacked but she laughed and said there was a power cut in the village centre and Dominic had had to close. This was an unexpected bonus, so I drove us both across to the minor road that runs through the Strines Valley and we walked up to the pub (The Strines Inn) past the reservoir and back to the car – after a suitable libation of course.

It was really quite a muggy evening and still pretty hot. It seemed lightish as I drove up through Bradfield and down Lumb Lane but at home it was quite dark (no, we hadn’t had a power cut). As we were back early we had a shower together and then spent a good couple of hours messing around in bed before falling asleep. I didn’t need to walk Callie as she’d had her long after ‘sup sup’ walk.

Thursday 17 July.

We  walked the dog, swam and breakfasted as usual this morning. Sarah wasn’t on at the pool so we didn’t stop for a gossip like we often do. This meant we were early away to XXX & Y and as such had a slightly longer than 30 minutes lunch break.

After our lunch Mrs Briggs was called away and told me I was in charge again! Rah rah rah! However, just like last time this happened; nothing happened. Nominally I was in charge but as everyone was busy on their individual tasks and no new ones filtered down to us there was nothing to do but carry on with what I was doing. I didn’t even have to answer the phone as no one rang. Not even an internal call from another department.

There is an adjunct to this, because when Mrs B got back at just before 4.30 she started laughing in her office and then buzzed me through. She asked if we’d had any phone calls while she’d been away and I told her there had been none at all. She explained that she must have turned the ringer off and even if anyone had called we wouldn’t have heard it. Whoops. We aren’t exactly the frantic nerve centre of the company so I doubt if anything of import will have been missed.

Laura was back at Dominic’s tonight and she learned that the power cut had been caused by a lorry hitting a telegraph pole on the Middlewood Road and bringing down the power lines. Why it hadn’t blacked us out, further up the hill I have no idea. Dom  had no idea what had caused the lorry driver to drive into the telegraph pole but apparently he was taken to the Northern General Hospital for treatment afterwards. This had happened at about 6.15 last night and had partially blocked the road for ages.

I am now half way through book nine of the Sara Paretsky novels. I had forgotten just how good they are.

Late-ish night as Laura came with me to walk the dog and had a confession to make – she hadn’t chosen her packing by colour after all. She was so surprised that I had thought it was a brilliant idea she hadn’t the heart to tell me she was pulling my leg, yesterday! Good one Laura.