January 26th is Australia Day, the day we celebrate the white man landing on Sydney's shore and claiming the land for England. Apart from a few'official'celebrations it's basically time for a get together with friends and unfortunately a big excuse for a lot of people across the country to get drunk. We celebrate with the middle option - a get together with friends. The Citroen car club has a tradition of a breakfast get together and this year it was held at the club president's place, he has 5 acres in an outer Perth rural suburb. We went along the evening before and camped on his back lawn to be ready for an early start. The weather was quite a bit warmer than usual - in fact it was hot! so we all spent most of that previous afternoon and evening inside in the airconditioning until it cooled down in the night time. The next day was another hot one and so it was back inside for most of the time. Breakfast was a long casual affair, lots of bacon and eggs cooked outside on the barbecue. The morning melted into the afternoon and before long it was time to consider our next move - where to spend the night.
Ralph and Hanny had come along in their motor home too and their niece, Elizabeth, another Citroenophile, was at the breakfast too, along with her Mum and Dad (Diane and Alan, who also have a motor home, which they store on Elizabeth's farm). There were a few suggestions of where to go but as the afternoon stretched out we decided to just drive about 15kms down the road to Elizabeth's and spend the night there with her family, parked next to Alan and Diane. So that's what we did - setting up for the night under the gum trees, among the chickens.
The intention was to move on the next morning but after some chatting and a few cups of coffee someone noticed that Ralph had a flat tyre - that would explain the slope inside the motor home!
Everyone gallantly left Ralph alone to change the tyre and then we had more coffee, then some lunch and then we ladies challenged the gents to a boules match. After this, ( we ladies lost, narrowly) we again considered where we would be spending the night but Elizabeth kindly invited us to join the family for a barbecue dinner so it was decided, we would spend another night on the farm.
The next morning it was back to work for the family and after a slow start we headed off too, slowly making our way northwards and home via Kwinana Beach for a paddle.
Gary and Petra, our Berlin friends, were over in Perth enjoying the 40 degrees heat. They took off for a few days camping in the bush but found time to come up and stay with us for a couple of days.
We took them on a little sightseeing tour of the northern beaches, and Petra just loved the sales in KMart - I think she bought about 15 Tshirts.(and went back a couple of days later, before flying home, to get more).
February arrived and the summer heatwave continued, most days the maximum temp is around 36 degrees. If it's less than 34 we don't put the air conditioning on, we open the doors and windows and run fans. Thank goodness for the almost constant sea breeze that we have where we live. At night it drops to 19 or 20 degrees and in the early hours of the morning I have been known to pull up a blanket (much to Michael's amusement - I sleep near the window and feel the cool breeze.)
The annual Vintage Automobile Swap Meet, in the nearby town of Northam, is our excuse to try and clear some 'stuff' out of the shed. This year, we once again loaded up a trailer and taking the motorhome set off on the Saturday afternoon across country to Northam. We had dinner with friends, Tom and Lois, before heading down to the showgrounds just before 10pm to camp the night in readiness for the morning's sale.
Once again Ralph and Hanny were with us and after a drive around the ground looking for an open gate, we were parked up on the grass. We had a bedtime cuppa before heading off to bed around midnight. We had a rude awakening in the early hours when the sprinklers came on. We weren't parked right next to them but they had a very long wide sweep, spraying our vans with really smelly 'recycled effluent' - ugh! We closed any open windows and tried to get back to sleep for a few short hours. Country folk do not have 'lie ins' - there was movement outside our van around 4.50, and the gates were opened to the first 'sellers' at 5.00am.
We got up then and after breakfast, which shocked the system at that hour, we were out unloading the trailer. It was a hot day, as expected, but the trailer was a little lighter on the way home and I had an extra $180 in my purse.
Since then we had been pottering around the house, actually got around to replacing a couple of broken venetian blinds.
Our next trip away is coming up - a weekend away with another motor home 'chapter'.
Will take the camera and blog later!
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