Sunday, after a lunch

I've just ironed my shirts for the week and I'll do a quick update.  Maybe only the first draft.  Or part of it.  We'll see.

It's been quite a weekend.  Today my family came over for a long lunch, which meant yesterday Mrs T went to Costco to stock up on food and the like.  As it happened, the Lake Goldsmith Steam Rally was on yesterday, so the old man and I decided late last week to go and see it (with, I should add, Mrs T's approval - her comment was that I need to send time with people).  We did this each year for a long time before I got married.  We even went twice to the National Historic Machinery Rally, once at Heyfield (Vic.) and once at Naracoorte (South Aust.).  Old machinery was one of the things we really bonded over, I guess.  I even recall when I got that particular bug - Good Friday, 2002, when we went to check out a Fordson Super Major on a cool, damp, cloudy day in a little peaceful valley at a place called Taradale.  I go back to that day in my head sometimes.  It's just one of the times in my life I've felt most at peace.

Anyway, I'm getting off the subject.  So, the old man and I went up to that yesterday.  It felt kind of good to seem to step back in time.  Just to soak up the smell of grease and kerosene and metallic steam and to hear the pop-pop-pop of old engines.  One of the static displays included an open bale of merino wool, and that smell took me back to the shearing shed that was part of where we always went on the school holidays when I was a kid.  Nice memories.

I did get a mild attack of the blue devils on the way back - we stopped to check out a large second hand dealership in Beaufort and for some reason being in that big warehouse of old souvenirs, homewares and miscellaneous crap, with cold air around me and Fleetwood Mac playing on a radio somewhere, I just got the feeling of someone walking over my grave and had trouble keeing my head straight.

For the get together, my sister K and her fellow came down from Canberra last night and stayed with us; they went shopping this morning.  The get-together was also for them: K has landed a job with the government of the Solomon Islands, so she's off to Honiara in 10 days and expected to be there for 2-3 years.  So, it's likely to be some years before she sees the munchkins again.  It was a fun evening with them last night - big thick steaks and a bottle of wine.  And for today, Mrs T flung her efforts into preparing a pork roast and the best crab/prawn/corn soup I've ever tasted.  Which was really sporting of her - she has a somewhat complicated view of my family, and especially of my mother.  It's a subject for another blog post, but in short (a) my mother really made no effort to help out after the girls were born when Mrs T was suddenly on her own in a foreign country with infant twins, and (b) Mrs T has always felt that my mother viewed her as a less-than-ideal wife for me.  So, she went to a phenomenal amount of effort and as I said - it was pretty sporting for her to do so. 

Anyway, it was a really good lunch, and as well and K and the parents, my other sisters J and F came with their significant others and they all got to see the girls for the first time in a while too.  I don't know quite how I felt as people were leaving.  The girls were tired and cranky and I was just too busy to really reflect too much.  After everyone had gone, I did find that the blue devils were troubling me a bit.  Not really badly, just enough to be noticeable.  And enough that listening to my favourite bits of mood-lifting music (The duet from the Pearl Fishers; Rhapsody in Blue; Jupiter from The Planets) just didn't cut though.  If you can imagine having a ribbon tied around your head at forehead level, very tight, you'll just about have it.

OK, I need to stop procrastinating and have a look at a file for tomorrow.  Really don't have my heart in it but I guess I just need to have a cup of "pull yourself together".