I can’t believe I have not written a post since last October. We have been so busy.

We spent a couple of weeks driving up to the Gold Coast to pick up Mal’s boat and finally bring it home. With the boat weighing 3 ton, it was an interesting trip home to say the least. We even managed to get lost in Melbourne AGAIN, with the boat on the back. We had to do a U turn in the middle of the city, with the boat behind and the trams giving way to us. How embarrassing but true.The boat and trailer are 11 meters long so we created a bit of havoc !!! We did enjoy catching up with many good friends and family during our trip …. too many to mention. Next time we will have to make the trip longer so we can catch up with the friends we missed !!!

Before we left, we enjoyed a visit from our good friends, John and Sylvia. John and Mal have been friends since childhood !! We also had a visit from Chris and Marjorie, friends from Ballina. It was good to see them all.

I also had a major cleanup and garage sale. Sold everything we wanted to sell. A great declutter. We met many of the locals over the garage sale weekend which was good. I even had a group of lady’s from South Arm come up on the Friday with wine and nibblies, for an early viewing. Some of our favourite pieces went to these really friendly ladies which I was pleased about. My favourite sale was swapping a picture for 3 live Tassie Rock Lobsters (crayfish), just caught that day. Delicious !!!!

We drove into Hobart one day to check out the annual Christmas Pageant, but there was so many people we decided to give it a miss and drove further on to climb the Shot Tower just south of Hobart. It was a bit scary for me (not too keen on heights), climbing the narrow stairs, but well worth it. The tower was built in 1870, and a beautiful old building. Great views towards our home from the top.

We have been busy with ongoing improvements to the new home and property. This week alone we have laid about 110 meters of turf to a new garden area, installed 20 solar panels to make us more sustainable, built a new deck for the spa overlooking the ocean, and built a pergola for an existing deck. Mal has a bit of painting to do now !!!

We hope to have all the improvements completed by May or June next year as we are heading off for 3 months in the caravan visiting the Great Ocean Road, up through the centre of Australia including Uluru and coming home via the QLD, NSW and VIC coasts.