Home alone

I will write something about the Oroville house tomorrow - but I am feeling maudlin this evening. Susan is in Australia. She has been enabled to visit Helen and Robert in Newcastle - but a nearly unalterable condition of her going away during the week is my taking leave to fulfill her newspaper-delivery contract. Susan's paper route is complex and it is very difficult to find anyone to fill in satisfactorily.

This isn't really a great problem. I have annual leave that I have to soak up, and was already (before this trip came up) scheduled to take leave from Friday the 24th through Monday the 27th, in order to go on retreat, so I extended my leave.

But I am lonely - and bored. I finish making my dinner; do the washing up; and then ... well, there is the computer. And I have many jobs that I probably should do. But without Susan, I am at loose ends.

Sue left here Thursday the 16th - two days ago - for Sydney, and took the train up the coast. It's only about a two-hour drive by car; perhaps a bit longer on the train, because of stops. Helen and Robert have a smallish house - three bedrooms, to be sure, but still a small house. Thursday night they had not only Helen and Robert, their two children Georgia Grace and Gus, but my sister Robin's two children Ka'ai and Kaleo, who are touring Australia and were on their way up to Brisbane.

So Ka'ai and Kaleo slept in Helen and Robert's room; Gus slept in his room; Robert slept in the living room; and Susan, Helen, and Georgia Grace slept in Georgia Grace's room. Close companionship :-) Yesterday, Friday, K & K continued up the coast, so I suppose things are little easier now. Later in this week Johnny is driving up from Sydney to spend some time!

Sue comes home next Saturday, the 25th - a week from today - but I won't see her until Sunday evening, when I get back from the retreat. Life in, if not the fast lane, at least in the lanes in which ships pass one another in the night.

It will be awfully nice to get back to what passes for normal around here.