We are home....the caravan is home....and all is well

For which we are thankful.  

The van had its broken spring fixed in Tooraweenah, for which many grateful thanks to the manager of the caravan park, Scott, and to Paul, a fellow visitor, who was 'volunteered' by Scott to help!  The tyre damaged by the broken spring has also been replaced, and our little van is now once more chugging along happily.

As a bonus - just a few doors along from the mechanic who replaced the tyre, there is a quilt shop!  How good is that!  Another piece of blue fabric came home with me after that stopover, fabric which looks like the night sky; very appropriate as Coonabarabran is an important centre for astronomy.  We also found a coffee shop tucked away at the back of a women's clothing shop, so while we waited for the tyre to be replaced we had a very good coffee and a very yummy chocolate cake (for Kevin) and freshly made that morning Monte Carlo bikky (for me), both of which were delicious.

We had a day to spare in Tooraweenah as the spring was fixed the afternoon we arrived and we had booked ourselves in for two nights, so the following day we did the touristy thing and went for a Nice Sunday Drive (on Wednesday) to visit an emu farm, Emu Logic.  Don't you love their 'welcome to our shop' emu?

Emus are quite large.

Young emus aren't quite as big....you can see the blue skin on the face of this one.

We were told that once the female emu had laid her eggs, she is off and away.  "Bye, Fred, it's been nice, but I have better things to do with my life than raise your chicks....."so the male incubates the eggs and looks after the striped chicks when they hatch.  The females can be quite aggressive to other emus, even to their own chicks.  Talk about women's lib!

A comparison of eggs.  The ostrich egg on the right is the largest, the emu egg next to it is still fairly big.  We were told that it takes 45 minutes to hard-boil one emu egg!

The farm dog, whose name we didn't get.  Anyone who throws her red ball is her New Best Friend, a label now applied to both of us.

I couldn't resist a souvenir of Tooraweenah Caravan Park!  Painted by Janelle, the manager's wife, whose paintings add a lot of fun to walls around the park.  Emus are ripe for caricature, while the background colours remind me of a cloudless summer sunset.

After that extended adventure we now feel that our holiday is finally over, and we can settle back into normality.

Winter has arrived - we didn't quite get the 'warm' welcome home we had expected!  The fire has been alight for a few days and we even had frost yesterday morning, with more forecast in coming days.  

Today is the 13th anniversary of the day we shook the dust of the Big Smoke off our feet and moved into this house.  Although we lived in our previous house for 23 years it is now but a distant memory, and it feels like we have been here forever.  It's been a good move.

Words have been read, notes have been plinked and sung.  Diamonds have been joined, blue and green fabrics have been cut out including some of the new holiday blues shown in the last post.  Stitches have been knitted, and now the placement for the cable pattern on the front of my jumper can be worked out.  That's about it for my week...how about yours?

Continuing on with Etiquette of the Street:

"Crossing the street with a lady.

If a gentleman is walking with a lady who has his arm, and they cross the street, it is better not to disengage the arm, and go round on the outside.  Such effort evinces a palpable attention to form, and that is always to be avoided."

Of course it is.

Enjoy your days!