Home for Christmas

I smile as I watch the Woolworths commercial. A family travel by car, motor bike, plane towards a family member's house to celebrate Christmas.  It's a vibrant commercial with family members rushing to meet up for celebration lunch while the host and hostess are basting the turkey and getting the vegetables ready.
Any other year it would just make me smile; it's a great commercial of people getting together.
That's where the curve ball comes in.  Merv won't be coming home for Christmas.  For the first time in forty-two years Merv and I will wake up in different residences and experience a Christmas unlike any other.  There will be no celebrations at home, I'm not able to transfer Merv alone.  Dustin and Grace aren't arriving until 3pm on the day due to Grace's working hours.  It is what it is.
Merv continues to have anxiety related movement and mostly refuses to leave his room.  I have ideas that he will be happy to be hoisted into his wheelchair and have lunch with Mel and I in the dining room.  I later picture him sharing afternoon tea with Dustin and Grace on Christmas Day when they visit at 3pm in the cafe area.  It is my dream, my expectation, my hope.
Then I decide to clean down the fold up picnic table and throw it in the boot on the day. I cringe at the thought of lunch and afternoon tea huddled in Merv's small room.
Christmas isn't always what it's cracked up to be, but we have so much more than many others have.  We will enjoy it as it is, Merv is still here to enjoy the day just the way he is comfortable with.

Woolworths family Christmas get together 

Home for Christmas is the Woolworths message

Flying High

A month after the wedding in Port Douglas and off I go again.  This time it's much more local returning to the Swan Valley for a few days away.  Mel was off to Busselton for a ladies getaway with friends, so I took a break from my caring role.
I miss my handful of friends in Beechboro even though many of them have already taken the opportunity to visit me in my new home.  I spent a couple of nights in a farm stay B & B.  It came with a most delicious breakfast and acreage of cows, sheep, chooks and amazing pigs!  Then there are the stories...Marija said her husband found some eggs and brought them home placing them under the brooding hens and out popped two beautiful peacocks!
While at the B & B I visited friends morning, noon and night.  I spent a relaxing hour picking two bowls of plump purple mulberries from low hanging trees for Marija to make her famous mulberry jam.  I was introduced to chooks and pigs and the family dogs.  The younger dog we were warned enjoyed munching on visitor's shoes.  I kept mine safely on the inside!
It was a fabulous getaway followed a few days later with a family engagement party, finishing only a few days later with Mel's 39th birthday.  Mel was born on Melbourne Cup Day all those years ago.  Melbourne has a  public holiday to celebrate their world famous horse race.  It just so happens this year Mel celebrated her birthday on Cup Day.  Her friends celebrated with her, it was a fabulous day.
The getaways and celebrations have finally finished it's time to get back to everyday living.

Chooks, Chooks and more Chooks at the B & B

One of many many pigs

Merv and his girls, a happy man

Mel blowing out candles on her cake