Ruth Amos

Living a quiet life

Family

Celeste Transcription

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Today’s guest is Celeste, and Celeste is living in London, yes?

Yes, in Surrey, an hour from London.

In Surrey. So I met Celeste in Tasmania when she was there from Brazil, working as a missionary –

No.

No? Not Brazil?

From Argentina. (laughs)

From Argentina! Wow. What a thing to get wrong. Okay, see, I should have been nervous and not you. She came from Argentina to work as a missionary in our church. Priscilla and Celeste came together, and they were just – you were such a blessing to us, it was wonderful.

Oh, thank you.

And I always remember, but I don’t know which one of you said it, at that final service where we were saying goodbye, one of you said about identity, that my identity is that I am the disciple that Jesus loves. That was really meaningful to me at that time.

We have remained Facebook Friends, but I don’t know a lot about what you’ve been doing in the intervening years Celeste, so it’s going to be exciting to chat today, and I just want to say to everyone listening, that if you hear another voice that I can hear right now, that is Celeste’s daughter Mia, who is chatting with us as well.

Yes.

So that will be lovely. Cool. So we might start where we always start, which is: how did you become a Christian?

Well, really I was born in a Christian family, so I was brought up Christian, but I remember praying, inviting Jesus into your heart and everything, but what was important to me was when I got baptised, because my parents, even though they were Christians and they met at a church, they decided not to baptise us when we were little, so I decided to get baptised at 12, and I think it was something important for me so I could really own my relationship with God. It’s not anymore through my parents, it was a moment that I could decide how to go about with my faith.

Growing up, I always envied a tiny bit, or really wanted to have a more, I don’t know… a story to tell that would be amazing about how I became a Christian, but really God showed me that some people have those kinds of stories and some other people were blessed to – God shielded them from lots of things, and that’s how I feel now. God showed me to be grateful that I didn’t have to go through any difficult situations and tough times in my life, and I was protected by Him through my youth, that other girls weren’t as blessed as me.

Yes, it’s very – when you grow up in the church, because I did too – and it’s very easy to think ‘Oh, my conversion isn’t as real as somebody who has the horrible story and then the great story,’ but it is! It is still faith and it’s still real so it’s precious.

Yeah.

So how old were you when you came to Tasmania?

Um… I think I was 21. I had just finished studying early years, teaching, so I wanted to have an experience abroad and talking with one of my best friends Priscilla, and she was a fellow leader at the church with me, we both wanted to have an experience abroad. So we talked to our pastor in Argentina, and he said, ‘Well actually I know the bishop of Tasmania John Harrower,’ because he used to live in Argentina many years ago. He used to go to the same church as my pastor when he was growing up. So we got contacted with John Harrower, which is a lovely person, and yeah!

Then God made it so that we could go, but it was a time of some uncertainties and having to do steps in faith, with paying for the visa, not knowing if we were going to be accepted or not. So from the beginning it was a journey of learning and having to rely on God, and for me it was a life-changing experience from the start. And then our trip to Tasmania and our journey there and the 6 months we spent there were life-changing for me, in lots of senses. From getting to know the area to going to a lovely church as St Clements, where God really, I don’t know, pampered us with… we got there and we were received by all the families. Everything was so organised. Different families had arranged to take us different places or invite us to their homes, so that was amazing for us. But I think what really God showed me, more than everything that we learned and all the experiences we had, was as simple as His relationship with me through that time, and His provision for us.

For example, we had an experience where we were leaving Tasmania, we had our farewell party, and a lady from church gave us an envelope with money on it, and we said ‘No, we don’t need anything, don’t worry about us.’ And then when we had to leave, the day before we received the news that our flight was cancelled. Our flight from Sydney to Argentina was cancelled, so we had to stay a night in Sydney, and the money in the envelope was enough for the night in Sydney.

Wow, that’s amazing.

Do you remember giving us that envelope?

(laughs) No, I don’t!

No?

That’s incredible.

That’s a surprise for you.

Wow, that’s amazing. There you go.

Later we thought, you had told us that, ‘God showed us to give you this envelope,’ so then we thought – your parents were missionaries, right?

Yes.

So I thought, ‘well, this is what – missionaries depend on God showing other people what they need before they know it themselves.’

Absolutely.

So that was one of the times God really showed, ‘I am in control, I have you in My hand.’

And it really shows that God is real. You have a couple of experiences like that and then you look back at it all your life. When you get into that new risk situation and you’re like ‘What am I doing?’ and then you think ‘Let me just remember back to that envelope with the money in it.’ He knows what’s going on.

We can forget about the extraordinary things that God did in our lives. So it’s good to write it down, and then when you write your prayers and you go back and see ‘This has been answered, this has been answered, this has been answered, this has been answered.’ If not, you go through your life like, ‘Oh, it must have been a coincidence that…’

Sure, yeah. I remember now, I can’t remember who the famous person is, but he said ‘When I pray, coincidences happen, and when I don’t pray, they don’t happen.’

(both laugh)

I’ll have to look that one up, put it in the show notes. So do you keep a prayer journal, or some sort of formal record of your prayers?

Yes. Mainly when there’s something that I’ve been praying for a long time, or when there’s something that is really important for me. If you ask me when do I feel God closer to me, it’s when He puts me in situations where I need to depend on Him. And when we went to Tasmania we were away from family and friends, and now when we came to live in the UK, we’re also away from family and friends and having to depend on God for everything. And when you’re put in those situations by God, and also when we allow God to put us in these situations of stepping out of our comfort zones and being in situations where things are not easy and we have to rely on God for… I think when I was back in Argentina and we both had jobs, and a car, and a place to live, you can forget or you can think, ‘well, yes, you’re not in that situation of having to depend, to rely on God’.

What brought you from Argentina to Surrey, to the UK?

Well, my husband is from an English background. His mother was born here in England, so we used to go to an Anglican church in Argentina, so he always had in the back of his mind ‘What would it be like to go and to come and live here in London, in England?’ So when we had our first child, I think he got a little bit… yes. He didn’t have a meltdown, but he started saying, ‘Well, my job is not going anywhere, where is our daughter going to go to school, are we going to be able to afford it?’ et cetera, so I think that’s when he made a click and he started thinking really about the future. And I told him, ‘Well, let’s wait. We’ll pray about it and see. I need to feel that God is showing us to go.’

And the way things happened, I had a lot of peace with coming here, and God showed us that it was the thing to do by how things developed, and things quickly… like, he got a job here while being in Argentina, we have friends that were living here in Leatherhead, Surrey, so they said, ‘You should come here,’ and we said, ‘Well, we’re going there 9th of September,’ and they said, ‘Oh! You can come and live in the flat that we are renting, because we are leaving, like, the 8th of September morning,’ something like that.

Oh my goodness.

So it was a bit obvious that God was putting things together so that we could come here. When I came here, it was like, ‘Pablo has his job, and I have friends at church…’ it’s different when you come and you go to another country but you go to a church, you feel like you have a family. I instantly went to a bible study group with mothers with babies, so that it was what I needed. I prayed for God to show me what He had for me here in the UK, what He wanted me to do here, and He responded that prayer not so long ago. Like, last month, I got a job as the children and families minister at a church near here where we live. It wasn’t our church, but we moved church. So it’s a very exciting time for me, and to see how God responded – and we had prayed with my daughter, my eldest daughter, she’s 4. We used to pray at night, and she would say – she struggled with differentiating ‘We ask’ and ‘We thank you for,’ so she’d say, ‘Thank you for a house, thank you for a job for my mummy’, so she used to thank God before things happened. So I think maybe it’s the way to go! ‘Thank you for the job you are going to give me.’ And God provided! So it’s my second week on the job. I’m new, everything is very new, but we are very happy. So I think the puzzle is starting to look… well, not complete now, but God is putting everything so that we can see clearer what He has for us here, and what His plan for us is, for the near future at least.

That’s absolutely fantastic. Wow. So you said that you felt close to God when you’re absolutely depending on Him – are there any other times when you feel especially close to God? Do you like being in nature, or do you have a quiet time every day? Your life must be pretty mad with the children…

Yes. We live in a lovely place. We are really blessed that we have… you think England is a tiny island and it’s full of people, but we live in a place where we have parks, and lots of green, so I’m reminded of being grateful to God for His creation and what He does. And being away from family and friends, it’s very important to feel God close to us. So it makes us draw closer to God.

As a child, did you always have a big desire to travel internationally, or is this just something that’s happened?

My father is a pilot, so we used to travel a lot. Yes, I always wanted to travel, but I always wanted a family. Sometimes you think things cannot go together, but I think I was so lucky – well, ‘lucky’ – when I went to Tasmania I had my boyfriend Pablo that is my husband now, I always thought, ‘Do I regret something about my youth, like not… I don’t know, not being like the rest of the other teenagers that went to clubs and did other types of lifestyles that as a Christian I didn’t?’ And really I think I could do everything I wanted. Because Pablo really supported me when I wanted to travel to Tasmania for those 6 months, and everyone was like ‘Oh, 6 months!’ If anything I think it got us closer together, because having to write letters, or… so I think I was very fortunate that God showed Pablo to support me in that, then I supported Pablo when he wanted to come here.

But also I think it’s like when people are not prophets in their lands. I feel like being in another country, I feel that I can talk about Jesus more openly, because, ‘Oh, you don’t do this here? Talk about Jesus? Well back in my country, yes!’ So I can be a bit quirky or something and get away with it because I’m from another country.

So that leads me nicely to my last question, which is: what is one thing about God or Christianity that you wish everyone knew?

Well, first of all, for people to know that God is real, God can be real in your life if you let Him, if you give Him that opportunity to be part of your life and to bless you, and also for people to know that you don’t have to carry with all of your problems and your worries and your past, and everything that is a big bag of loads of bad things. You can present it to God and ask God to take that load off from you, and ask God to help you with that. We could talk theology for hours, but what’s most important is to say, ‘This is how God reveals Himself to me, and how God is present in my life.’ Encourage people to step out of their comfort zones too, and to rely on God more. That’s when God can really show what He can do, if we give Him the reigns of our lives. That’s when He can really show His power and what He can do in our lives.

And then you get such great stories that you can tell people, or remind people!

Yeah!

That’s fantastic. Well, thank you so much for sharing with us Celeste, it’s been amazing, and Mia as well.

Thank you! Yes, now I have to see what she has been doing while she was out and about. I’ll find some things smeared somewhere.

Motherhood is a wonderful thing.

Yes. Well, thank you for inviting me on your podcast! I have such fond memories of Tasmania, and I always say, ‘Tasmania has the shape of my heart.’ It’s very corny. (laughs) But I always have a special place in my heart for Tasmania, so I’m hoping someday I’ll take my family there.

That would be wonderful.

Ep 10: Bruce – a growing relationship with God

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Ep 10: Bruce – a growing relationship with God
A Quiet Life

 
 
00:00 / 00:43:01
 
1X
 

Bruce talks of God’s provision in his life and business and how in his family God is the head of the house. We learn about how God provided a unit for Bruce and Wendy to move into in Hobart, meeting some very specific requests, and how Bruce has had a very different retirement than expected. We talk about Alpha, https://alpha.org/ and the people whose lives have been changed through that ministry. And Bruce wonders, ‘what will our first words be when we see God?’

http://www.worldview.edu.au/ Worldview college where Bruce met Wendy at a Singspiration.

Ep 10 Bruce Transcription

No Bridezilla here

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DH has spent most of today washing, cleaning, and polishing my little Mini (Verdi) and his bigger Audi (Wombat) to within an inch of their lives. You see, tomorrow we are going to be the wedding cars for our friends’ wedding and we are pretty excited. Yes, the bride is going to try to squeeze her beautiful gown into the Mini. We’ll put all the bridesmaids into Wombat. Then after the service the bride and groom will travel in Wombat and we’ll work out the rest later. As my lovely MIL says ‘We’ll come to that bridge when we cross it.’

A couple of weeks ago there was another wedding in our church. Both the brides (tomorrow’s and last fortnight’s) have known each other since they were tiny (if not since birth) and have grown up together in the church. Both met their men around the same time and both decided to get married at approximately the same time.

This could have been a recipe for disaster, but it wasn’t. The two brides have worked together on timing – making sure one is back from her honeymoon before the other has her wedding. Making sure the first wedding was first because the second bride is moving to Western Australia immediately after her wedding.

They are bridesmaids for each other and I heard Bride no. 1 talk about how she was going to look out especially for Bride no. 2 this week and give her extra support. Bride no. 2 has talked about how grateful she is to have been part of a wedding already and therefore she knows what sort of timing things need – things like hair and makeup, for example.

They are mature enough to have their weddings reflect their own unique personalities without even the slightest hint of competition with each other. Bride no. 1 has had a bridal shower tea with gifts of kitchenware and this awesome game where we had six pots of different kinds of tea and we had to guess which tea was what. Bride no. 2 had a bridal shower picnic in the Botanic Gardens where she wore a veil and sash and we gave her photos and written memories so that she didn’t have to pack boxes of stuff into the ute that’s taking her to WA. Both brides were delighted with the parties (except for the part where the attention was placed on them).

These two lovely humble women are starting their married lives in what I consider the right way. The weddings are a reflection of who they (and their grooms) are, not a competition as to who can make the day the flashiest. They are still doing the dress, the flowers, the service and the reception, the cake, the speeches and the dancing, but they are doing it their own way as a celebration, and as part of a community, and it’s something I enter into wholeheartedly.

So I pray for them, long life and happiness. I pray that they can face the challenges of life with a commitment to their other half that goes way beyond signing a piece of paper. I pray that their wedding day will be a milestone in a journey that lasts the rest of their lives. And I thank God for the example of selfless celebration that these two brides are.Wedding cars

Micromanaging

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You know the situation. There’s a job that needs doing. You have a picture in your head about how it should be done but you don’t want to do it yourself. So you give it to someone else and they do it ALL WRONG.

This is what happened to me yesterday. I’ll tell you the story.

I am a member of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute. The RACI is 100 years old this year so we’re trying to do all kinds of interesting things to celebrate and our Chair has come up with a great idea – 100 reactions in 100 days (here’s our first one: RACI 100 Reactions in 100 Days #1). The idea is that we (we being chemists all over Australia) create small YouTube videos describing a reaction of some sort. We need 100 of these videos so we are reaching out to all sorts of people to have a go. Starting with us here in Tasmania, and that means me.

Now, DS has made some really fun YouTube videos on a whim. They are called Caleb “Cooks” and I encourage you to look them up if you want a laugh. So I said that I could provide a video and I decided that DS should be the actual person to do this.

We don’t actually have a chemistry lab in our house (though believe it or not, I know a family that does) but I knew a cool experiment that can be done with red cabbage and various household chemicals (vinegar, bicarb, dishwashing detergent – they are all chemicals). So I suggested (strongly) to DS that he do that experiment and do a video for me. He was happy to comply.

DH and I decided to go out for lunch yesterday and as we left, DS was happily story-boarding his ideas and coming up with a good video of the purple cabbage experiment. He said he’d do the recording while we were gone. I thought that was a great plan.

We had a delightful drive, a delicious seafood lunch at the Inn at Kettering overlooking the yachts in the harbour, a delightful drive back. The weather was gorgeous – sunny but not too hot. We were peaceful and in accord with one another and we felt like we’d had a micro-holiday.

When we got home the scene was slightly different: the house stank of cabbage, the kitchen looked like a bomb had hit it, there were bowls and cups everywhere and there were two more whole red cabbages being put through our Kenwood juicer (one whole cabbage having already received this harrowing treatment).

This is not what I had planned!

When I have performed this experiment I have made the purple cabbage juice by cutting up the cabbage and then pouring hot water over it. DS made the juice by using a juicer which provided a much deeper purple colour.

I would have poured some juice into a few glasses, added the different chemicals, and watched the colour change. I was actually a bit worried that DS’s juice was so strong that there wouldn’t be any colour change at all. I was concerned that he was doing it all wrong and I was severely tempted to step in and change things.

But I held back. I took my books and computer downstairs and I tried not to worry. I could hear the video being made and the first two times DS poured chemicals in to the cabbage water there was no change in colour. I got more worried. I even snuck back upstairs and peaked in through the doorway, ready to give my advice if it was needed.

But the third chemical – vinegar – did what it was supposed to do. The purple cabbage juice changed colour to become pink. I was relieved. I went back downstairs, stopped listening, and left him to it.

I haven’t seen the final video yet. I will post it when it’s done. But I had a chat to DS after he had cleaned up all of the mess in the kitchen and this is what he told me, ‘It felt a bit boring Mum. I looked for other reactions to do but they were all a bit boring too. So I made it big so that it would be more fun.’ And I’m sure it will be. It definitely looked more fun than my idea.

If I had made the video, or made the process my process, then all of the reason for asking DS to do it would have been lost. We would have lost the joy, kept it safe, and kept it boring.

By allowing him full creative control the process was messier, true, but so much more fun. And mess can be cleaned up. And yes, DS did clean the mess up, basically by himself. There are consequences to our actions and we need to deal with that.

I think sometimes we lose a lot of joy in life by trying to retain control over processes that we should leave in other people’s hands.

Take from this what you will.

Here is the link to the finished video:

Celebrations

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In the last week I have been part of two major life celebrations.

On Saturday I went to a wedding of two lovely young people who are part of our church. They had invited the whole church, whoever wanted to, to come along, so I went. (DH wanted to come too but was stopped by a very inconvenient attack of hay fever.)

The couple getting married were young and beautiful. The bride (of course) was especially gorgeous. Thin, blonde, and radiant, she could have stepped right from the pages of a magazine. The groom was also a dashing young man, and the church was filled with the young and the beautiful, all dressed up to the nines. Now, I’m not that old, and I don’t consider myself to be ugly, but wow – I didn’t hold a candle to all this youth and beauty. But, you know, it was so great to have them all there, supporting their friends as they made their life commitment.

The service started with an announcement that I’ve never heard before.

‘Please, could you turn off your mobile phones’ I’ve heard that bit before, obviously, ‘the bride and groom wish to have all photos during the service taken by the official photographer.’ We weren’t asked to turn off our phones because they might ring, but because they didn’t want us taking photos during the service! That was the new bit. And then came this:

‘And while the bride and groom are happy for you to post to Facebook, please let them post first.’ Brand new. And oh so necessary.

So I’m going to have to make sure they’ve posted before I put this up on my blog, but that’s fine.

Anyway, the wedding was beautiful. It’s just so amazing to see people take the risk, take the plunge, commit to each other for life. And I realised, as they clearly (and a little tearfully) said their vows, that while I love individualised, poetic, beautifully written vows, for me there is something so special about the stock standard Anglican prayer book vows. And the something special is this: I said those vows. DH said those vows. And as I listened to another couple vow to love, cherish, protect, and honour each other for as long as they both should live, I could renew my own vow to my husband too. (It would have been more special if he could have been there, but we can’t have everything).

After the wedding we were all invited to share afternoon tea together, I said hello to people I hadn’t seen for (literally) years and renewed old friendships. I live in a small place and it’s guaranteed that you’ll meet with old friends at this kind of thing.

It was a truly special celebration. An absolutely joyous afternoon.

The other celebration in my week was the celebration of the life of DH’s grandfather. He was 92 and had passed away peacefully at his nursing home with his daughters by his side. We’re so used to having him around, it was hard to say goodbye, and there was so much to celebrate.

Pop had made it easy for us, he had written his own life story, so getting dates and names correct was not the difficult task it sometimes is. And both daughters and several grandchildren, as well as other friends and family, stood in front of the congregation and shared their experience of this outgoing, enthusiastic, energetic man. Even the great-grandchildren got involved – the youngest two stood bravely in front of everyone and sang ‘Down by the station’ as they had been taught to do by Pop.

One of the grandchildren had written her part of the eulogy but there was no way she could read it to us, even through her tears, so her husband read it on her behalf. That led to a fun moment where he told us about the time he was pregnant and Pop came to his rescue. There were a couple of other fun times in the service, particularly when Pop’s poetry was read out. He had so much fun writing his poems, he was quite serious about it, and if rhyming couplets are your thing, then these are the poems for you! But they make pretty hilarious reading.

Once again afterwards we had a morning tea, and then the family went out for lunch. We shared stories and caught up on each other’s lives. I met people who were connected to us through Pop that I probably will never meet again. It was such a joy to meet the pint sized Elsie (Pop’s sister-in-law) who is a tiny woman with a personality as big as a house. “I’m the small one!” she said when we were introduced. And it was good to catch up again with Pop’s elder sister Betty, who is still going strong. One of the great-grandchildren found out that she was the second cousin once removed of one of the teachers in her school. And even though the service was in Launceston, we met Hobart friends there as well.

I love being part of community. A part of a family tree that branches out through parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, and down through the children, and grandchildren. A part of a church community that shares each others’ lives, that celebrates together and mourns together, and helps each other through tough times. A part of a friendship group that has been close for over 25 years and that knows each other almost as well as cousins do. And a friendship group that is new and growing as we meet more people that we make a special connection with. I feel connected, established, supported.

Sometimes the community means that you have to put up with irritations, with personalities that you just can’t stand, with little quirks like Pop’s poetry, or with being around people so shiny and beautiful that you have to wear sunglasses. That’s all part of the deal. But I am so grateful for the traditions, the celebrations, the people, that make me who I am and for the reminder of that in the celebrations this past week.

Holiday Adventures

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It is the time of the year that we go on adventures. We take a little time out and see where we can travel to. We’ve gone to Vanuatu, once. And to the north of our beautiful state several times.

This year we went to Adelaide. We thought it was time. My brother has lived in Adelaide for 17 years and I’ve only been to visit him once. There are reasons, I’m not just totally slack, but this summer we decided our holiday would be a trip to Adelaide.

We decided it back in November of course. We sat down and said to each other ‘what adventure will we go on this summer?’ This was back when we were still stressed from work and unsure how the summer would play out. ‘Adelaide’ we decided and we contacted my brother. He was not real fussed about which weekend so we booked one in. I decided to go with Friday through Monday and have just a little extra time.

In the end, the timing was pretty perfect. Losing Kat (our cat) on the Monday before was a whole lot better than having her put to sleep on the weekend of. And the week after has been a great recovery week – Thursday being a public holiday and the fact that I don’t work Fridays meant that I only had a two day work week.

We had a fabulous weekend in and around Adelaide. We had hired a car and most of Saturday and half of Sunday we went driving through the hills and into the countryside. We saw Murray Bridge and the mouth of the Murray River. We saw salt flats, ads for cow racing (yes! Cow racing!), vineyards, dead fish (heaps of them at the mouth for some reason),  bush and paddocks and lovely towns. And that was just Saturday.

Saturday night took us and my brother and his partner into the city. We had a delicious dinner in a Chinese restaurant and wandered around a bit just looking at the various shops and pubs and places where restaurants and pubs used to be but had now shut down or changed to something else. And the big inflatable bike in the square – bikes were everywhere – the Tour Down Under was happening.

Sunday after a gorgeous brunch with our cousin and her husband, DH and I went for another explore. We visited the National Automobile Museum – that is – DH visited the museum and I found a handy cafe nearby and worked on my novel (yes, it’s still coming along, slowly) and then we wandered around the town. After that, we decided to turn the SatNav off and keep going in the same direction for a while so that we could find a new way home. That’s the exciting thing about the big north island/mainland of Australia – there are many roads, many different ways to get home. There’s only a couple here in Tassie.

So we wandered away, making sure we were going in the right general direction. Our road took us past the Big Rocking Horse which I’d only seen on postcards before. Then we were directed to take a detour along Gorge Rd. It was a beautiful driving road. DH enjoyed himself so much. I tried to not worry about the excess on the hire care and just enjoy the scenery. DH knows what he’s doing, but I like to be sure.

The scenery was incredible, we followed the bottom of a gorge, right along a river, hills rising on both sides. Then we came to Kangaroo Creek Dam and ended up going up to the top of a cliff and then driving right back down again to the river. I’m having trouble remembering specifics, there were crazy rock walls, huge heights, complete u-turns, wildlife parks, all sorts of fun driving experiences and then, suddenly, suburbia. We were back to driving through flat Adelaide and making our way back home. It was a fantastic adventure.

So it was a brilliant weekend, and I haven’t even mentioned the food yet. I put on three kilos or so – my brother and his partner know how to provide! It was all good food, very good food, both bought and the deliciousness that was created and eaten at home. And brilliant conversation too.

The final adventure waited for us as we tried to get back to Hobart. We knew we had a very long wait in Melbourne between flights. It was supposed to be about five hours. We had looked into going to a nearby hotel and paying for lounge and pool access just to get out of the airport space, and we were all ready to do that.

We left for the airport in plenty of time to take the rental car back and be in time for our flight. Everything went super smoothly so we had time to eat a bite of lunch as well. We were sitting at the cafe table watching the departures board. It said to go to the gate and we were just discussing whether we would wait where we were until it said ‘boarding’ or whether we would go and wait in line, when the board changed.

Delayed.

Doom.

No problem, we thought, it’s only delayed half an hour or so, we’ll find something to do. So DH went to the newsagent across the way and bought some cards, and with the help of a counter on his phone we played crib. I won.

We’d had enough sitting by that time so we decided to head to the gate, just for a walk, something to do, and see what we could see.

When we got to the gate we watched planes for a while, and we watched people for a while, and then the dreaded announcement came. Our plane was broken, we would need a new plane, that new plane was coming from the Gold Coast and it had itself been delayed and we wouldn’t be going anywhere until 4pm.

So we cracked out the cards again, and I won, again. DH didn’t want to play anymore after that. (He may just have been tired.) So we read for a bit, and chatted for a bit, and then headed down to our new gate and got on our new plane.

Turns out we only had two hours in Melbourne. So the whole hotel plan will have to wait until next time. But we were so grateful for the time between planes that meant there was absolutely no stress about catching our connecting flight.

At the end of the day se were very ready to get home and get into bed. We were simultaneously tired and refreshed. This was a weekend away that we didn’t even bother dreaming about when we were poor uni students with children. It’s the type of holiday we hope to have more of.

Once we got home we knew that this weekend had marked the end of the summer break. It is now time to get back into work with a vengeance. DH has spent all week doing his online professional development courses and I have, well actually, I haven’t done too much work but I’ve also done a fair bit of pottering around the house. I’ll get back into work with a vengeance next week, I promise!

Thank you, brother dearest, for a wonderful weekend getaway. And sister dear, when you’re rich and famous, you can pay for us to come and have a getaway in LA with you (I know you’re on your way after you won that award for the music for Gold Balls – us poor teachers will never be rich!).

Our next adventure will probably be somewhere exotic… like Ouse. Stay tuned!