Home sweet home

Leading up to our road trip that I mentioned in a previous blog Bear became suspicious asking heaps of questions.  In particular why we weren't going to our sons for dinner on Saturday night.  I definitely don't have a poker face, so guess he knew something was up.  When I tried to make up excuses he decided to flip me over his knee to have a proper discussion.  It wasn't long with a few ouches and ooowwws  before he managed to get the truth out of me and then spanked me even harder for keeping secrets.  He doesn't like surprises at all. Why does he need to know everything! Anyway he asked me what I had said to be able to get all our family to agree to meeting together.  When I replied he doesn't need to know, he said I needed a harder spanking with his belt by the sounds of things.  So if things didn't go right when we met on the Sunday for fathers day that is what I had to look forward to.

On Sunday I was a bundle of nerves in anticipation of how everyone was going to behave.  It was a perfect day in every way.  Even the weather was kind to us with this being the only day with out rain.  All of our children and their partners had a nice time and conversed with each other.  Also all the grandchildren had the opportunity of playing together after being apart for so long.  We had several family photos taken.  Bear and I had one with all the grandchildren which I will treasure as the last one was just after the twins were born five years ago. To my surprise they all said we shouldn't have left it for so long without mending the drift and now everyone has added each other on face book to keep in touch. Hopefully they will all continue seeing each other even if we can't be down there.  Our eldest granddaughter also turned 13 whilst we were visiting, so that was another celebration besides fathers day.  It was lovely to spend it with her.  I couldn't believe how tall she has grown as she towers over me now.

We spent a lovely four days visiting with our family. Going shopping as we don't have any decent shops in our town, going to the movies and did a drive by our old house.  This was sad as the new owners have let it go so much in just over 12 months.   I caught up with some old friends. Then we headed to Bendigo for two nights especially so I could go to the New Freedom Gluten Free Bakery.  So many delicious things it was like being in heaven.  I bought a few to take on the road with us to enjoy at my leisure.  Bear also bought himself a new flat cap in our family tartan in the Bendigo Hat shop as he lost his other one whilst in our old home town.

After Bendigo we went exploring parts of Victoria we haven't seen before and wound up in Horsham for a couple of nights.   Bear decided we should go out to the local pub for dinner the first night.  I rang ahead to ask if they had a gluten free menu and was assured they did.  On arrival I was told no but they could grill me a chicken fillet with mashed potato.  I decided to go with this as we didn't really have any other options. It was really expensive though at $30 for my meal alone.   That night I put a status on good old face book ranting about the pub with a few f... bombs dropped in it.  Bear  was not very impressed with my language and let me know with a sore bottom.  Anyway big mistake, we should have walked out,  the following day I was so sick as obviously got cross contaminated  from my meal. We have decided in future we will barbecue our own meat to have with salad.

Even though I felt sick we still had a lovely day Saturday,  and had a picnic by the Wimmera River which was very relaxing. Unfortunately all things must come to an end and we headed home Sunday. In all we travelled about 1000kms for the week but it was well worth it.

                                                       beautiful yellow fields of canola

                                           our picnic spot by the Wimmera River

                                                       The Grampians on the way home.

We always feel unsettled when we return home after seeing our children and Bear starts looking for a unit in our old area.
Bear keeps telling me how happy he is that I organised this get together.  It was well worth the stress leading up to it to see him happy.  We had plenty of fun spankings and cuddles along the way as our internet connection was poor. So there was nothing to do except connect which was lovely.

We have already booked our next trip down to see the family just before Christmas and D1 and her little boy will be coming up to visit us before then. So life is good in our household.