End of first week

I've been a bit nervous about using my laptop recently. After my Facebook account was apparently hacked last weekend, there has been further suspicious activity since then - like losing control of the mouse - a scary situation. My virus guard spotted a multitude of errors on my Outlook files and tried to clean it up but, as a result, Outlook doesn't work at all for me now - I'll have to re-load it when I get home. All I can use for e-mail, diary, contacts etc just now is Windows Live - and my phone of course.

Therefore, I'll keep this short.

Been out cycling twice and Jo and I now have our Metro cards which make travel on the buses and trains a lot easier.

Miller asked Chris for a "Superman" the other day:

Jo and I were back at the Wheaty on Friday to return their tab card and we got caught in a brief storm on the way back to the station - fortunately we were under cover as the heavens opened, and, almost before we knew it, it was all over and the sun was out again.

Yesterday (Saturday), Chris, Jo and I took the train in to town and went for a spot of lunch and a couple of beers. Kelly picked us up and took us to Chris' friend Simon's 40th birthday party, held in the Bombay Bicycle Club:

This morning (Sunday) Miller's going for a short ride on the little train that runs along the prom here, after which we're heading to the hills again for lunch at one of our favourite brewpubs, Lobethal Bierhaus, followed by some wineries - it's the Crush Festival weekend here.

Week 1 midweek

I did get my credit card back on Monday - Chris popped in past the Wheaty on his way home to retrieve it - an expensive detour for him - it cost him A$80 to settle the bill I had left behind! I've still to return their tab card, but there's no great rush now.

Jo was housebound with Miller on Monday so I had to go to do the shopping. I strolled down to the prom - just 200 yards or so from Kelly's - and took this photo from the end of her street:

Taking a slight detour, I walked to the end of the pier, where there were 3 large pelicans perched in various positions:

Miller was OK to go back to nursery on Tuesday morning so Jo and I decided we needed to get out and about and get some exercise, now that we were over the worst of the jetlag, so we decided to take the beach walk south to Grange and have brunch at the Jetty Cafe there. We hadn't walked for a while and we were pretty tired when we got back to Kelly's not long after 3 pm, having covered almost 20 kms. The toughest part was through some of the softer sand trails. Jo was pretty red by the time we got to Grange:

- and we still had the return leg to do!

Kelly was off work today (Wednesday) so she suggested we take a drive up in to the Adelaide Hills and have lunch in the pretty little town of Stirling, not realising that today was Day 2 of the Tour Down Under and it was passing right through Stirling - in fact 5 times in all on a mountain loop. It was pretty hectic there but we eventually made it to Patch Kitchen & Garden in good time for lunch.

They keep hens there and Miller was enchanted with them - and the playhouse:

We were seated behind the cafe but each time the peloton passed by, I stepped out front to have a look and take some photos:

There's a couple of short videos here - https://youtu.be/EMyGvT_oieQ & https://youtu.be/EMyGvT_oieQ

After lunch, Kelly drove us over to nearby Mount Barker and the Prancing Pony brewery. We had been there a year ago on the very day they opened, but this time they were much more organised - nice place. Unfortunately, Miller had fallen asleep on the short journey in the car and did not appreciate the rude awakening. He eventually settled down on the concrete floor and fell fast asleep again!:

Travel Down Under

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It's Monday morning in Adelaide and there's been a slight change of plan - Kelly and Chris are off to work and, ordinarily, Miller would be at nursery by now, but he woke up this morning with a bleeding nose and it wouldn't stop so we knew he couldn't really go to nursery like that so Jo and I are looking after him today - well Jo is primarily. Here's the poor little boy:

Actually, he's not so little any more - I know, I carried him for a bit yesterday and he weighs a ton(ne) - 200 yards and my back was done. He's a proper little boy now - no longer the toddler we remember from last year. He and I left the house yesterday and I opened up the front gate out on to the pavement and he was off, giggling away. "Come back Miller!" only served to make him go faster and laugh louder. It was all I could do to run after him and catch him. Lesson number one learned.

Anyway, let's go back and do this in chronological order. My last post was just over a week ago so there's a bit to catch up on. The weather last week wasn't too bad - coldish but at least it was mostly dry. I was able to get out for a cycle with the Freewheelers on Monday - through some more floods, but generally conditions were OK. Before that, I had been back to see the Doctor concerning my medication. We agreed to continue on the Rivaroxaban for now, particularly as I would be away for 6 weeks. If I have problems with dizziness again, he told me just to revert to aspirin until I get home and then we can review the situation once more.

On Tuesday, I awoke not feeling too bright and I had to cancel going over to Inverurie with Jo - and also the CAMRA committee meeting that night. I felt a bit better on Wednesday but took things easy anyway, and Thursday was a repeat of that, plus sorting the house out for our absence and doing some final packing.

We got picked up on Friday morning in a chauffeur driven Merc and were driven down to Glasgow airport for our Emirates flight to Dubai. The first leg went fine and we arrived in plenty of time to make our connection for the longer second leg to Adelaide - after a bit of duty-free shopping for Chris and his brother Matt (16 yo Balvenie).

Taking off at 2 am local time on a long flight makes for a strange experience. With a 13 hour flight, 3 meals are served, the first of which is breakfast. Our body clocks were still in Friday evening, not Saturday morning, but I still couldn't bring myself to ask for a gin and tonic with breakfast!

Intermittent TV watching and dozing, then finally, we were served lunch a couple of hours before landing in Adelaide. I think we both missed the interim snack between breakfast and lunch.

Over two flights and more than 20 hours in the air, I only watched one film - Room - and that was pretty downbeat. There weren't any other films on I really wanted to watch, so I ended up just watching a few episodes of Better Call Saul, the Breaking Bad spin-off - as did Jo.

Again there was a chauffeur waiting for us at Adelaide airport to drive us out to Semaphore and we met up with Kelly and Chris before 10 pm on Saturday evening local time.

We both slept fitfully and we were up and about before dawn with the rest of the house. After breakfast, we went for a stroll along the promenade, with a couple of stops at the playparks:

Too quick Granda - you never said cheese

That's better!

Mummy and Grannie had been swinging him along the prom - "again" he cried

Then it was off to brunch at a local cafe before heading home for a little nap. In the afternoon, Kelly and Miller went to the store for groceries but they dropped Chris, Jo and I off at one of Adelaide's favourite watering holes - the Wheatsheaf, aka the Wheaty. I had no Aussie dollars so I left my credit card behind the bar and ran a tab.

When Kelly and Miller returned to pick us up and take us home, we dashed off to the car, completely forgetting about my credit card. I think it was some time during the night when I woke up and realised it. I haven't done that before - shows how tired we were. Hopefully, I'll get my card back some time this evening.

Some other photos of yesterday:

Miller's bedroom

Miller's bedroom from another angle - note the step up in bed size

Inside Miller's playhouse in the back garden

Back garden