It’s quite a wondrous thing to live in two different worlds. After a few days where our equilibrium was more than a little unsettled, everything is just settling down gently and those feelings of dislocation are subsiding again. We arrived to find two very healthy cats, feeling neglected and very sooky and needy. School has started in a whirlwind and the kids don’t even arrive until tomorrow!
What a great trip back we had. Newcastle is such a rare gem and it is unappreciated by the majority of Novocastrians. It has a provincial charm that I was never fully aware of before, masked by its leaders continually puffing out their chests and declaring it a “city” and demanding all those big city services. It is such an enjoyable mix of town and city, you almost wish you could freeze it in time: we don’t want it getting too big or too sophisticated. That gorgeous harbour and sparkling beaches…we could walk beside them and sit beside them and gaze all day long (in fact we did on many occasions!). Those cafes and restaurants vying to be the next trendy thing all serving up scrumptious meals and coffees. The open space and the parks, gardens and fields; even the front yards. People here would think they’d died and gone to heaven. The wine, the libraries, the galleries, the roads, the people speaking English, the vistas. It is underrated by those who live there, no doubt at all about that.
We’re still a little overwhelmed by how quickly we’re “back”, holiday slowly drifting into a warm fuzzy memory as work picks up a dizzying pace.
That 1st bit was written on Wednesday night and it’s now Saturday afternoon. We’ve had a few surfs already and the pointy hat site has been updated a couple of times this week. I was quite euphoric yesterday afternoon, getting a really quick, but full cover tube out at the rocket. All the other boys saw it which was even better…..little harder to believe these stories if you’re just telling them without eveidence! Today we went again but it was fairly small, so Ross and I came back early. Cass and I have just done the weekly shopping and remember what a frustrating experience this can be sometimes. Now, to not have any mince is a fairly common occurrence and this happened again today. When you realize that there is no margarine anywhere in the supermarket, you start losing it a little, but even we couldn’t believe the lack of carrots! It just means that we’ll have to get this stuff somewhere else through the week. I had already made the pilgrimage to the other big store nearby to buy rolls of toilet paper, as our supermarket doesn’t stock them either.
So, I’m feeling frustrated and missing the ease of living at home. It’s hard to make yourself understood, you can’t buy what you need and to make matters worse, the weather is boiling hot and drippingly humid. I suppose it doesn’t help that work seems just that little bit harder to cope with this year: maybe we’ve had too good a holiday.
I’m sure we’ll feel a little better soon: Cass actually feels OK now, I’ve just allowed myself to wallow in a little tizzy fit of depression for a while…no doubt I’ll snap out of it in a couple of days.
Apart from all the people, I’ve included a few shots of some things we’ll really miss as well.