13 - Travel paused for family needs

 

Entry 13 – Have plans – subject to change this time due to family needs.

We spent three days driving from the mid-northern regions of South Australia to its lower south east area. It was interesting viewing the change in the landscape from the dry northern landscape to the cooler, damp southern areas of the state. The further south we progressed, the lusher the crops became and a marked increase of the volume of farm animals in the paddocks.

We set camp alongside a shearing shed a bit south from the township of Naracoorte. The air around us was full of the distinct smells of sheep, wafting from the shearing shed.

We were at the farm to provide Mary’s sister with some company and assistance after the death of her farm owner husband. There was no time line set and we thought it an ideal opportunity to perform some maintenance, starting with the caravan. Steve jacked up the caravan, placing it on blocks of wood allowing him a bit more room to move about under the caravan. He adjusted the brakes and rotated the wheels.

Shearer or should it be farm girl Mary, set up in the shearing section of the shed to clean up Steve’s fleece.

We do permit others to view this blog or as we call it, “our journal” of our retirement life. For us at times, it can be a fine line when considering what we publish for others to view.

We were at Naracoorte to provide support for our extended family and to acknowledge the wonderful person our brother in-law, Bill had been through his life up to his recent passing.

We have found, “Death” and its subsequent emotions seemly to be another one of those taboo topics, with people having great difficulty talking about it. Yet it is as common as births which are normally celebrated openly.

We have decided to place on record some of our activities at Bill’s farewell. Mary performed a reading at the church service before a gathering of about 100 people. Our son Ashley was a pall bearer and we have added a couple of pictures showing Mary and Ashley saying their last farewells.

It was time to move on from the farm after a week. A long weekend holiday was almost upon us and we were hearing comments about camp locations all about being booked out. Adding to the horrible thoughts of people about in crowd proportions the long-range weather forecast was for rain and more rain over the coming week. We decided to head home, about a 350-kilometre drive away where we enjoyed the extra freedom of movement in the comfortable climate of our house while it was quite wet outside. It was much nicer than being cooped up in the confines of our caravan during a wet period.

Steve doesn’t overly enjoy going home when Mary starts talking about her wish list of purchases. Once home there is no stopping or deviating her from that wish list as there is a plethora of shop choices within close proximity of our home base. We may have only been home for a few days but we (she) managed to spend several thousand dollars before Steve managed to get her to move on away from the busy suburban crowds again.

Though we did enjoy some time with family coming together for Steve’s birthday over the weekend.

Oh, there was another reason for being at home over the weekend, with the access to good communications. We were awaiting the birth of a grandchild for our Canberra based family, due any minute. On time we welcomed the arrival of Lacey with a picture of her around her 3^rd hour of arrival.