We had to return to Brisbane to see the doctor so we booked into the caravan park at Aspley. The laundry needed to be done so we spent a quiet afternoon and evening.
We went to Cafe Zanetti to have coffee with Al and the kids while Sarah did her shopping at Brookside. Jean wanted to shop as well so I took her there and we all returned to Mitchelton to pick up the kids.
I rang the guy repairing the beep and he said it would be ready by the week end so I booked the last seat (first class) on the XPT on Saturday morning for Al to go down and pick it up. We will babysit the cats while he's away.
In the afternoon, Kelly was very excited because Ross had found a cicada still in its shell climbing a tree. We relocated it to a "tree" on the picnic table and all watched, entranced, while it broke out of its shell, climbed up onto a clear part of the branch it was on, inflated its wings and hung them out to dry. I identified it as a Paperbark Cicada. It was quite beautiful. While we were waiting for it to complete its transformation, Sarah found another newly hatched cicada, this a Brown Bunyip, on the washing and we watched it fly away.
Ian got a phone call from Armidale to tell him that Charlie wasn't well so they brought forward their trip to go there for Xmas by a day and planned to leave very early on Thursday morning.
In the evening, we had take-away indian from a newly found place in Samford. It was very, very good and I just had to ring and pay my compliments to the chef. Preparations for departure took up the rest of the evening.
We spent the afternoon with Al and retired to the Motley early.
I had booked a call from the local washing machine repairer who promised to come between 10am and noon so we headed for Patricks Rd early. He was horrified when he saw the age of the machine and that I had been inside it and copped out of the job.
We lunched at Cafe Zanetti where we were given a little box of goodies by Peter, the owner, presumably as a Xmas present for valued customers.
We stayed overnight at Patricks Rd as I had to be up early to take Al to Roma St to catch the train.
We were up and away by 5.50am and reached Roma St in plenty of time only to be told that the train had been delayed two hours.
I rang the garage in Kew to warn them that Al would be arriving late. He will have another long, long day and we hope he has a good drive back.
We plan to stay here again tonight. Much to our relief, Al got in at about half past twelve.
Soon after I got up, I realised that I had switched everything off in the Motley, including the fridge. I hurried to Aspley to clean up. I had to throw out all the milk and meat, but at least the fridge got a defrosting and a thorough cleaning.
We sat around most of the day enduring the heat, watching the cricket, eating a little and drinking a lot. Jean and I returned to the Motley for dinner.
In the morning, I did the laundry and went shopping to replace the lost supplies.
We spent the afternoon at Patricks Rd with Al wrapping presents and such.
The weather being particularly hot with the temperature passing 38°C (100°F), we chose to return to the Motley and its airconditioner for dinner.
Christmas time is here by golly
Disapproval would be folly
Deck the halls with hanks of holly
Brother, here we go again.
It doesn't much seem like Christmas with the family all over the place. Nevertheless, those of us in Brisbane, Jean, Al and I gathered round the hearth, drank lots of toasts, exchanged presents, and ate curried turkey, well chicken actually, and watched abysmally bad TV programmes.