Woof Woof, Its Christmas

---

Well, soon I was sitting on the plane, on the tarmac of Christmas Island airport, the Pilot pushed the throttles forwards and we were hurtling down the runway and as we gained height, we banked to the left and I took my last look at Christmas Island for 2010.

The flight to Perth took 2.45 Minutes and I arrived in the international side and I had to head to the domestic terminal which was a taxi ride which was about a half an hour away.

I had travelled back with two of my colleagues, Rob and June who were having there Christmas break off the Island in, Perth with their family.

They were supposed to be collecting a rental car from Budget rent a car at the international side, but were told that the car was still at the domestic side, so we all piled in to a cab for the ride across town.

I left Rob and June at the rent a car place, June handed me something wrapped in a sick bag and was told not to open it until Christmas day, we exchanged kisses and hand shakes and they went that way and I went this way.

The time lost travelling from international to domestic sides, concerned me, as it ate up a lot of time, I had before my next flight, only to find the queue for the next leg was absolutely horrendous, still what do you expect when it is 23rd December.

My flight had been called at 11.55 pm and the flight was going to be about 4 ½ hours from Perth to Sydney.

I took my seat and the e bloke next to me started talking and we got deep in to conversation, I remember well something he said to me, he said that when he was young he wished he had taken more notice at school as he felt he was not that well educated, then he hit me with the rest of the conversation, he said that he was working at a mine in Newman, for Rio Tinto and was just making ¼ million bucks, I nearly wet my self laughing.

We had a few beers on the plane, the lights had been dimmed and me and Steve, were having our own private party in seats 5 E & F, which was great, I think the whole plane was asleep apart from me and this fella, having a great couple of beers, or more.

The plane touched down and we shook hands and wished each other a happy Christmas, I went to collect my bags and found Caroline waiting in baggage collection, and it was great to see her.

It was only 06.30 in the morning Sydney time, I jumped in to the truck and fell straight to sleep, the last time I slept was over 24 hours ago, and I was finally back with Caroline, heading towards Wollongong for our Christmas.

I was gently woken by Caroline, at a house that I had no familiarity with, I just arrived here without any knowledge of the journey, my surroundings or anything.

I dragged my luggage out of the truck and as soon as the door was opened a very excited Laboradoodle greeted me.

Two years have gone by since I have seen Nala, she was only a 6 month old puppy when we last met.

Our charge, was absolutely full of fun and we have great memories of her when we last puppy sat for Faye and Graydon when we met them last in Port Stephens at Christmas 2008 when we had only been in Australia for 6 weeks and it was the start of the adventure.

If you want to look back at the blogs for this then it wa s blog day, 21/12/2008, chasing little girls.

I had a date with my bed before I did anything else, and was herded by Caroline to the correct bed, which I dutifully accepted and slept for most of the day.

When I woke, I felt like I had been in this bizarre dream, but soon realised where I was and things still had to be done.

Nala was standing looking at us, in anticipation of being taken to the park, with her ball, and launcher.

Her ball launcher, just cups the ball and is basically a long arm that amplifies the throw, she just can’t get enough of her ball and will just keep on chasing it, without surrender, until she is so exhausted she can hardly stand.

The whole Christmas thing came and went in the blink of an eye, we had a great Christmas dinner together and it was just great to stop and catch up with all our friends and families over skype which is just so important to us.

We did a special Christmas dinner for Nala as a treat and she seemed to love the gravey.

Considering I didn’t have the opportunity to buy Caroline a single present or even a Christmas card, she did very well, and so did I.

As soon as boxing day arrived, we were itching to go and do something, so decided to go and take a drive to see the Tree Top walk the Illawarra Fly, which we had seen before, when we were staying in Shell harbour back in February 2009.

On the journey back, I kept sneezing and I thought it was just my hay fever, but little did I know, what was coming next.

I spent the next 4 days in and out of bed, feeling dog rough only surfacing in the evenings to take Nala for her daily ball throwing session.

I am sure that as we have been constantly on the go, when we stop our bodies have to catch up, Caroline and myself have flying all over the place with our jobs, living out of suitcases and spending so much time away, Christmas was the only time we got to stop what we were doing and rest, and this is when it catches up with you.

By the time we got to New Years Eve, I was feeling better and Caroline had swopped places and was feeling rough.

We just managed to stay up and watch the new year in before, getting off to bed and awoke to a new year.

I just have to tell you about Nala and her sleeping habits, she would slip under our bed when we got in and you could tell when she was nodding off to sleep as she let out a big snort, as if she was expelling her oxygen that she had stored up

In the morning you would find her, sleeping in between us, lying on top of the bed, on her back with her paws in the air, similar to what we consider the ‘Joan Collins Look”

I would get up early and go down and have a cup of tea, the dog would get off the bed come down for 10 minutes then go back to bed, keeping Caroline company for another hour or so.

We did have a fantastic time, with her, she is such a gentle and fun loving dog, even though we both felt rough we did have a good time and it was nice to be by the sea.

We had prepared the house for Faye and Graydons return, the dog was looking decidedly fed up as she new we were leaving.

In all honesty I think she just worries about who is going to throw the ball for her.

Fay and Graydon arrived back at 3.00pm, it was great to see them again, as they had already left when I arrived, we down loaded all the information about Nala and how good she had been, past on our new years pleasantries then felt it was only good manners to get going as I’m sure they just wanted to settle back in to their home, after a long journey back and we also had a long journey ahead of us.

With regards to the blog, I know we have been slack in producing it, but we new this would be a consequence of (A) getting back to work, and not travelling, fortunately with our jobs we have been able to work and travel which has been awesome.

For the end of 2010, our web site (The Blog) has had just over 81,000 hits which I think is pretty amazing really, though I think, if we had still be travelling we would have produced well over 1 million words, where as we have only typed 750,000

Caroline was feeling really ropey, and just wanted to sit in the truck and do nothing, we headed out of Wollongong on our way home and were driving through the Southern Highlands, which is an area where the film Babe was filmed, but as the cloud was so low over the mountains, visibility was down to about 15 mtrs.

We stopped in Robertson at the pie shop, which I can honestly say are the best pies we have had in Australia and can remember we stopped at this pie shop back in possibly February 2009 to pick up a pie on our way to Woodstock for the every first time, see blog day, 89 04/02/2009 Woodstock.

We eventually got home at around 6.40pm, and I had to whizz out the Woolworths to pick some bits and pieces as we didn’t have much in.

We are back at work on Tuesday ad will do our best to continue our blogging.

I have to say that the 2 year adventure has been amazing, we have achieved so much and appreciate it all.

Again, it has been the people in our lives who have made the biggest contribution, everyone has been just amazing, which we appreciate.

So looking forwards to being back to work, on Tuesday, just to see what challenges lie in front of us, Caroline said today that she wondered who out of the two of us, would be the first to fly off somewhere, so we shall see.

All the best.

Andy

---