Menotalid; it was Adelaide (part 5) - and theeeeen...

If you read yesterday's post and have been following along, you know that the trip to SA was almost entirely about building the wider family picture. The final day  of that part of the trip was spent entirely with that extended group. Sadly, I did not get  photo of us all on my own camera and am still awaiting a copy of the 'official' one from Sally. It could be a while.

A simple but filling and tasty spread was laid out buffet style down at the Lodge of the gated community and we had the whole place to ourselves. Thirteen of us rather rattled around the copious space, but that was quite a good thing really. The lads got to playing snooker and the younger ladies found their own niche leaving... you now how it goes. Cuzzy D and I were the only two not taking alcohol. Quite a prodigious amount was consumed by the others. It has been a long time since I have been around this type of lifestyle and it is certainly challenging for me. Have I really become such an old fuddy-duddy?

Anyway, it wasn't rowdy or rude, just a bit rumbunctious at times and definitely jolly. As the evening wore on and it was just we older cousins left into the evening, out came the family tree and records that Sally keeps and attempts made to tie it all together.

Sunday morning, 28th April, D and I were packed and ready for Sally to drop us at the airport and we landed in Sydney right at lunchtime. We ate before leaving the airport, taking the train South to Wollongong. We were in the door by 5:30pm and ready for a cuppa!!!

Monday we spent attending to shopping and getting a couple more odd jobs done. There was one more week to spend with D and I wanted as much as I could, to do some of the tasks she was not able to do for herself. Changing dud light bulbs, remounting her towel rail (polyfilla and screwdriver job - one of my fave things to do!), a small amount of gardening... even managed to alter a top for her. Me who never sews!

We did one trip on the bus and train up to the Memorial Gardens (which featured here yesterday). One of the days was so wet and cold, we stayed hunkered up and did puzzles and listened to podcasts. Another day, there was a drive up to the mountains for D to get her hair done and we made an outing of it, going to the Penrith Regional Art Gallery for lunch and a viewing of exhibits. That was rather fun too.  We were particularly intrigued/mystified with the main exhibit, which took up four rooms and was a comment on environmental concerns.

That last room had us talking more about it; each room on its own was a bit adrift, but taken as a whole, and particularly with the linking through the words on the ring, there was definitely an impact. In case you can't make them out, the words are, GIVE MORE LESS TAKE. Putting them in that order in a circular form, it was interesting that D actually chose to read from 'take' first; TAKE MORE GIVE LESS... wonder if that says something about the psyche?

I really like the second room. European settlers saw this wide red earth and immediately thought in terms of ownership and boundaries, putting up fences and building foreign structures.

On my last Sunday with D, we had heavy rain showers, but we dodged between them and managed to fit in a nature walk and a picnic.

The list of images now lined up for the Me-Now-Views page has become quite large. Won't be running out of fodder for that weekly post any time soon!!!

Anyway, the last Monday was spent getting laundry done and packing the Beast Luggage, because on the Tuesday, May 7th, I had to transfer to bed and breakfast in Mosman.