June 13, 2015

Wow! I'm finally getting away to Europe for the first time in over fifteen years. So long overdue. I'm excited because this time I'm sharing my journey with my two sisters and my Mum who is 86 now. It will probably be her last trip OS. She seems to be quite ambivalent about this one even. She's not sure about her health. I'm not sure about her fitness.

One sister, Barb lives 2000 km away in Melbourne and she has been my team-mate organising the trip. As for Mum and our other sister, Laura - they've contributed nothing to the planning. We pushed shit uphill to get them to commit to a destination and neither of them had the resources to help with the organising. But you get that. As long as they enjoy it. That's all that matters.

I did a teaching session this morning. I teach primary school children English and Maths in a coaching college mainly made up of ABCs (Australian Born Chinese). Most of them go to private schools and they are only doing this extra learning so they can go for scholarships. They're so easy to handle compared to the normal Aussie school kid.

But my bag is packed and I'm ready to head out within an hour of getting home. First stop is Sydney. I'm flying on Qantas Award Points to London, and Qantas don't fly out of the Gold Coast. I'll get to visit my gorgeous son and his little eight month old IVF daughter. It's such a pity that he'll only have one child. He'll make the best dad. But he has three step daughters that he's been able to practice on.

My flight doesn't arrive into Sydney until 6pm which is very late, because it will take me ninety minutes to reach his place by train. His fiancee is out and he is left holding the baby. Literally. There's no food to eat when I arrive, but not to worry, some cheese on toast will do for dinner. Little Olive isn't settling and these guys haven't trained her to self soothe yet. They call this type of rocking a baby to sleep "accidental parenting". Leading to trouble, in my books.