This was a nice calm break in the middle of a busy holiday. We've stayed with Barry & Nancy many times, and they're happy to let us relax. We usually get our own breakfast as they often have things to do first thing, like taking grandchildren to school. They just carry on with their normal routine with Barry doing his voluntary work, we do things together when we're free.

It was nice just to do normal day-to-day things, rather than being holidaymakers. Les helped Barry get an old computer online, so that grandchildren can go on the internet without using his office computer. We helped Nancy choose her new glasses at the opticians and shopping a few times, and Les & Barry visited Dan Murphy's once or twice. Several swims in the pool and barbies with the family, including visits to Carolyn & Stuart. We also managed to meet up with Tery & Maureen from Darwin, who had arranged to be with their son Aaron who lives in Canberra.

In the middle of this we drove down to Tathra for a couple of days to be with Robyn and Len for Robyn's birthday. This is on a separate page.

Friday 10th February

We set off from Katoomba down the road to Canberra via Oberon. This was our first stop, and we just filled the car and bought apple juice.

We carried on through lovely countryside and finally got to Taralgo, where we had a sandwich in a coffee shop. Got down to Goulbourne where we joined the freeway to Canberra. We drove through a couple of bouts of extremely heavy downpours.

Arrived at Barry & Nancy’s about 5pm. Got unpacked and had dinner and then gave them their presents. They were really pleased with the picture. Went to bed fairly early, around 9.45pm.

Saturday 11th February/Jasper’s 6th birthday

Up around 8am as usual. Had breakfast of fruit and toast. Put washing on. Anne and Nancy went to the Hyperdome to buy a toy for Jasper’s birthday. Barry and Les went to Dan Murphy’s to buy beer, wine, etc.

Went to Caz and Stuey’s for 1pm for a barbecue. Gave Jasper his presents. Jeanette, Peter, Murray, Kristie, Nicholas and Emma also there. Later on some neighbours also arrived to see Jasper blow out his birthday candles.

During the afternoon several thunderstorms passed over and at times there were two different ones rolling around. Home around 6.30pm, had a sandwich and sat around watching TV while typing up the diary.

Sunday 12th February

Slept well. Got up around 8 and had a leisurely breakfast with Nancy & Barry. Les went back to Rivers with Barry so that Barry could get his AU$2 belt. We then went to Bunnings to look for some door hooks.

Had a coffee back home and then drove to the Southern Cross Club at Woden to meet Tery and Maureen. They don’t seem to have changed at all. Aaron & Tracey were there with the children, Kye, Brodie and Belle. The club is very smart. We sat in ‘Henry’s’ next to the play area, and hardly saw or heard the children. Nice food with good service, and we just sat and talked, and all of a sudden it was 3.30pm and we were saying goodbye.

Back to Sambell Place and we had a swim in the pool. Just had a cheese sandwich for tea, and we watched a Midsomer Murders on TV before going to bed. Odd, because MM is on ABC and so has no adverts.

Monday 13th February

Natalie arrived with half-brother Daniel, and we took them to school with Nancy. Saw Caz with Jasper and Christie with Emma. School looks nice.

Went to the opticians with Nancy and helped choose her new glasses. Anne spoke to the optician and got some more eye drops. Went to the posh coffee shop for coffee and cake, then went to Coles and got some stuff for a bbq this evening.

Back home we had bread and cheese for lunch and sat round chatting. Someone phoned Barry and brought round some documents for him to witness (he’s a JP). Had a swim during the afternoon, and then looked at Barry & Nancy’s pictures of their trip to China, and their earlier trip to Vietnam.

Had the bbq around 7.30 and then watched TV briefly before going to bed around 10pm.

Tuesday 14th February

Nancy was off to school with Natalie and Daniel before we got up at 8.15. Just as we finished showering etc Barry left to do his stint at the Police Station. Started ironing and packing before Nancy returned. Had a coffee with her before setting off for Robyn & Len in Tathra.

The rest of Tuesday, all of Wednesday and most of Thursday are on the Tathra pages

Thursday 16th February

Got back to Canberra about 5.15pm. It had been a really hot day and Les’s nose had finally started to peel/bleed despite the sun cream and big hat. Went to Dan Murphy’s with Barry to top up Anne’s supply of light beer before coming back and having dinner.

Anne saw Colin was on Skype so managed to speak to him, Glenda and Joan briefly. Stuart and Caroline arrived just as we were sitting down to eat. They were leaving Jasper here while they went to a meeting at his school. After we’d eaten we played games with Jasper until he got tired and instantly fell asleep on Nancy’s lap.

Anne had a quick Skype with Karen - she leaves for Oz next Monday. Also managed a Skype with Tracey, Niamh & Millie while Jasper was still awake. Stuart and Caz came in and sat and chatted for a while after their meeting and we went to bed fairly shortly after they left at 10pm.

Friday 17th February

Up around 8am. Had intended to go to Botanic Gardens but Nancy’s friend who live nearby them it was chucking it down with rain over there.

Went to transfer money to Rick to buy shed and found batteries were dying in Pin Sentry. Just managed to finish the transaction. Went to the Hyperdome and Les was able to buy a dozen batteries for AU$2. Wandered around shops and Anne bought cropped trousers in sale (reduced fro AU$49 to AU$25) and bought Nancy a scarf that she really admired.

Had a toasted cheese sandwich and coffee for lunch and then went into Coles to buy stuff for tomorrow’s bbq. Got home around 2.30ish. After a while we went in the pool for a swim which was nice until the storm clouds gathered (again).

Barry had booked the local club for dinner (on us) and we got ready to leave around 6pm. Shortly before this the rain started in a very big way. Les managed to shuffle the car up so that everyone could get in it through the carport. The drive to the club was short but exciting. Haven’t driven in such heavy rain since we were in Tassie. Naturally the rain stopped 10 mins after we got to the club. The club is very smart but we had to show our driving licences as ID when Barry signed us in. All very high-tec. We sat and had a beer in the lounge area before going to the dining area.

You have to order your food at the counter and get your own drinks at the bar, but it’s all very nice. Barry and Les had rib-eye steaks (in Oz they leave the bone on the rib-eye), Nancy had veal Parmigiana and Anne had a whole lemon sole. We could see some kangaroos in the field just outside the club as we ate.

Back home around 9pm and Barry and Les had a glass of port before we went to bed.

Saturday 18th February

Up at usual time, although Barry had been up since 6am cleaning the pool. After breakfast Barry went to the dentist to have his crown checked. Anne made a lemon meringue pie for the bbq. When Barry came back he and Les went out to get bread and other last minute bits and bags of ice for the beer/wine cooler.

Phil and Mel were the first to arrive with twins Erin and Liam - the older girls were away on a netball coaching weekend and Emily was working. Phil had had to get Maddie and Caitlin to Queanbeyan by 5am for them to catch the coach to Wagga.

Stuart and Caz with Jasper arrived next and then Murray and Kristie with Nicholas and Emma. The children are now old enough to go in the pool on their own and they all played happily while we sat round and talked with drinks and nibbles until Murray started the barbecuing.

Anne had fish (perch), while everyone else shared lamb, steaks, sausages and chicken shashliks. There was a beetroot, spinach & pinenut salad, a mashed potato bake, cous-cous salad and greek style salad with avocado, plus french bread. The children had a sausage in bread. Pudding was a choice of banoffee pie, lemon meringue and apple coconut crumble cake.

Eventually around 4pm Gary and Julie arrived (Gary had been baseball coaching) and shortly after Phil and Mel had to leave to collect Emily from Queanbeyan. The rest went around 5pm and by 6pm we had cleared up and put everything in the dishwasher and away in the garage, we all went in for a swim. Didn’t stay in very long as another storm was gathering.

As we sat on the patio the storm produced hailstones of pure ice about 15mm round. We managed to photograph some on the top of the pool cover. Eventually we came inside and ate up some of the leftovers while we watched Taggart on TV. There was an early Taggart showing that we couldn’t remember but as it was going to last about 3 hours we never saw the end.

Sunday 19th February

A day of work! A late start. Barry had been clearing out the den and wanted to get the old PC there onto the internet so that various grandchildren could use it. He and Les went down to Dick Smith’s and bought a wireless dongle. Naturally it was really difficult to set up. It installed easily enough but Les had enormous difficulty in getting it to actually connect. Eventually we got it working and connecting automatically on start-up.

Meantime Nancy and Anne had done two loads of washing and hung it out. Nancy had also got the sewing machine out to repair a pocket on one of Les’s shorts. Her machine rises up out of a cabinet but this mechanism wasn't working properly and the machine wouldn't go back down.

We had a cheese sandwich for lunch and Anne ironed whilst eating hers. Les then had a look at the sewing machine. It was quite simple but Les had an enormous fright. He was laying on his back with his head inside the cabinet when something with several legs moved. Les moved even faster and Barry came out with his deadly spray. It was in fact a cockroach rather than a spider, but still a bit worrying. After the machine was working we sat outside and read the papers for a while before Les vacuumed out the worst of the gravel and sand out of the hire car.

We left for Caz and Stuart’s at 5pm. We sat on their deck with a beer for a while and took some photos including Jasper taking a group one. One of Caz’s cats (Jesse the Burmese) had gone missing and we were searching, when it was eventually found under the bbq on the deck. There was another storm rolling around.

We ate indoors and then were able to Skype Colin and then Tracey. Colin said Joan wasn’t well and had gone back to bed.

Got home just after 10pm and Les had another go at the constant round of Windows updates to Barry’s old PC (it hasn’t been used for about 3 years and at one stage there were 108 updates).

Monday 20th February

Got up at 8am to say goodbye to Daniel as Nancy took him to school. Natalie wasn’t here today so we missed her. Barry had gone off early to the physiotherapist but was back by the time we’d showered and dressed. Nancy was doing remedial reading and got back about 9.30am. We had a leisurely breakfast of banana, coffee and toast.

Then slowly started packing. Nancy ran our last few bits through the washing machine. Packing took quite a long time and we used their bathroom scales to check the weights. These turned out later to have been remarkably accurate. After a late morning coffee we did quite a lot of typing to bring the diary up-to-date. Barry has buckled down to the task of clearing his den. This involved him emerging every so often with odd bits of memorabilia. We stopped for lunch around 12.30 - Nancy defrosted pies for Les and Barry - a great old Australian tradition.

Straight after lunch we drove down to the Shell/Coles petrol station to fill the car. Amusement at the petrol station as the man behind the desk asked Anne to stop a motorist who was about to leave as she’d overpaid. She started by strenuously denying this, but as she saw the man was waving a $20 bill at her she relented and went back in. Next we went to Dan Murphy’s and bought a bottle of gin for Nancy and one of Glayva for Barry. We were almost home when Anne thought she spotted a kangaroo at the roadside. We did a 360 turn on the roundabout only to find it was a tree stump.

Back at Sambell Place we gave Barry and Nancy their pressies and did the final packing, ironing and changing into flight clothes. We then sat outside with a cup of tea until Caz arrived wth Jasper at 3.15pm. We just had time for a brief chat before tearful farewells. Drive to the airport was fairly easy except when we entered the airport itself. Everything is new and after following a sign for car rental returns we then came to a T-junction with no signing. Fortunately Anne just glimpsed a Hertz sign in the distance and we were able to get the car back.

Everything is totally automated now and in effect you simply park the car and walk away with no paperwork at all.

We took a lift to the Departure area and as we walked in Tery and Maureen emerged from the escalators. There were no queues and it only took a moment to drop off our bags. We went through security to the Departure Lounge where we got coffees, etc and were able to sit talking with Tery and Maureen until it was time to board the plane. The plane hadn’t actually arrived by the boarding time of 6pm. It finally arrived at the gate at around 6.15 and with a pretty swift piece of work we were all boarded and took off at 6.45 - 15 minutes late. Sad to say goodbye to Tery and Maureen but they hope to get to the UK for a long trip in 2013