Gunsmoke. Definitely a classic.

I'm too young to have watched it on television on it's original screenings, and sometimes I like to watch the old westerns. Gunsmoke, The Virginian, Bonanza. Ah, they don't make TV like that anymore.

And it seems that in my last writing I forgot a whole week, and an important event at that! Between Christmas and New Year, Froggy and Dobby came to visit family. I picked them up from the airport and we discovered the joys of a black car interior, non working air conditioning, on a stinking hot summer day. Mouse was with me and we sat in the cool airport terminal and waited. As we sat in the steaming hot car ready to reverse out of the park, I waited for two little old ladies to pass behind us. They were smiling and pointing at my license plate.

We head out to Coffee Club for lunch and drinks. I have eggs benedict. Haven't had those for a while and can't decide if I like CC or Jamaica Blue better. I might have to try them again to decide. We go out to the car. It's roasting inside ... but central locking won't release the passenger doors. The sun beats down while I try to fix it. I give up and call MOTH to see if his key works. And then ... it unlocks. Darned car, playing nasty tricks on me!

The weather for the entire time we stayed there was atrocious. Hot and humid. So hot it was hard to stay dry. In the middle of all this, Ma and Pa celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. It was celebrated with a small gathering at Mouse's place. I worked the kitchen, heating sausage rolls and things. Froggy worked the cake. It looked lovely and tasted great. I think it was a hummingbird cake. Froggy had prepared an album for them, and as part of that, included letters of congratulations from some of our local and national politicians. It was great to see the smiles on their faces.

Jerome spent a lot of time hiding. Occasionally we put the air conditioning on and then you'd find him on the back of the couch, soaking it up. Or in Elder's bedroom where she ran the air conditioning 24/7. Sometimes she would open the door and he would go in. Sheldon and Penny were a bit fazed, they aren't allowed in there because Sheldon won't sit still and Penny hides under the bed.

We were out most every day doing something, usually at the local shops picking up softdrink or food it was that hot. Spending time with family and yet not. As I look back we were there for about a fortnight but didn't seem to do much. At all.

We travelled north a couple of times to visit Teen. It's amazing how we can travel for an hour here and it's nothing. An hours travel up there is a journey. There is nothing to look at and an hour feels like two. On one occasion, Elder came with us in the search for a pair of shoes for a wedding. Not hers, she's bridesmaid. The search for shoes goes on.

We spend some time with Ma and Pa, Rabbit and her children. It has been determined that Niece will come to live with us. I'm still not sure of the timing, but likely at the end of February. Things seem to have sorted themselves with her and deteriorated drastically with Nephew's behaviour. Ma and Rabbit can no longer cope with the two of them so it's all happening. I am not sure how Niece feels about this yet.

Ma and Pa have sold the house and are trying to sort out their belongings. The new place is smaller than their current place so they are trying to give a lot of things away. To the kids. That's us. I come away with some small things including a painted box that I didn't know I wanted *ahem* but I can't get the things I really want. The bookcase won't fit in the car darnit. I don't think I've managed to convince Ma that the camphor wood carved chests would look good in my place. I don't know quite where, but they would look good anywhere. *grins*

Storms have come up on the home base. Usually the storms miss us, we get some of the side events if you want to call them that. This time it passed overhead and power was out for several hours. MOTH decided we needed to come home and check on things. We left a day earlier than planned.

Jerome is sedated. I know it. His eyelid has come across and he can no longer walk in a straight line. It's mean but we can't help giggling. It doesn't knock him out completely but he doesn't cry anywhere near as much when he's in the car and carrier.

Everything seems fine when we get home. Luckily most of the electrical equipment is switched off at the wall and the automatic garage door was switched to manual so any power outages would not have caused it to open. It takes at least 24 hours for Jerome to sort himself out to look and behave normally again. It's kind of scary but there is no other way to travel with him. I've caught up with the washing. MOTH hasn't finished unpacking the last of his stuff yet. Things are back to normal.