Antipodal Adventures: Parental Edition #1

Right, it's time for the first instalment of the excitement of having my parents here. They arrived at the end of September, looking dazed, bleary-eyed and slightly shellshocked by the joys of long haul travel. "There was just so... much... orange juice". But they had had a nice stop off in Singapore for a couple of days to break up the journey. And, just to make them feel really at home from the start, it solidly rained all day on their arrival. Thanks, Sydney.

The first few days were spent recuperating from the jet lag and processing the whole 'being on the other side' of the world thing and also discovering the wonders of a couch with a chaise longue*.

* If you're short like me and my dad, you can stick your legs out ALL THE WAY and you still don't reach the end! Wheee! Needless to say, that became "Dad's spot" very quickly.

Then it was time to go out and explore.  We took them on a mini road trip down the coast to Botany Bay to show them where all the crims first washed up:

It turned out that the fleet arrived at Botany Bay on the recommendations of a previous ship that had stopped there. However, the first ship had arrived in the Australian winter and had marked it down as lush and liveable.  By the time the First Fleet got here,  it was summer and an arid wasteland again and they were like, "What the heck were those guys thinking? Eff this schizzle" and moved on up the coast to Sydney Harbour. 

But as we were visiting in early spring, we got the nice version too:

Full disclose: Jan hates this top I'm wearing with a passion. Well, ok, he strongly dislikes it. But I am NOT getting tan lines for my wedding dress, dammit, and I don't care how awful I look in the meantime, 

Then we took them along the Grand Pacific Drive to see the sea bridge and the beautiful coastline. In the face of such beauty, my dad remained the most impressed by how much taller Jan is than him:

So that was their first few days!  In the next edition: it's cake-for-breakfast day!

Confessions

I am lazy.  Not just a little bit lazy, like, oh I can't be bothered to <insert whatever task> right now, but BIG FAT SUPER lazy, where even getting up sometimes can be a problem. Sure I can get ready to leave the house for work in 10 minutes!  In fact I can probably do it in 8, so maybe I will snooze for an extra two minutes! *Arrives at work stupidly late because no-one can get from bed to work in 8 fecking minutes*.  And then I do it all again the next day.

Mainly I waste spend most of my time on the internet.  And I sit there reading about all these great things and really getting excited, like, yeah! I am soooo going to do that*, it sounds fantastic. In fact I'm going to start right now! And then three hours later, I am still sitting on the sofa mentally compiling all the great things I'm going to do, whilst not having moved an inch.  Even now, I have stopped writing this to buy a voucher for yoga classes and check Facebook (even though most people I know are asleep on the other side of the world right now) because, also, I now have the attention span of a 3-year-old child.

* that = anything from actually eating breakfast in the morning, to doing regular exercise, to being more organised and responsible, to swimming with crocodiles...

It's the same with the blog.  I'm driving to work, or sitting on my arse doing housework and a great idea comes into my head, and it's frikking hilarious!  And then I sit down to write something and forget it all instantly and write complete rubbish instead.

AND I HAVE TO HELP ORGANISE A WEDDING OCCURRING IN LESS THAN 8 MONTHS. AND IT'S OVERSEAS. AND IT NEEDS COORDINATION AND PLANNING AND THINGS. Hahahahahahahahahaha *faints*

Hence why it's only now, a week after they've gone, that I'm telling you about my parents being here for six weeks.  Six weeks! And only now do I sit down to, I don't know, perhaps mention it at all?! It being so very important and huge and all?! Good job, Cate!

Haaaanyway.  So yeah, my parents came to visit. It was great fun and we had lots of adventures, which I will tell you about soon.  You know, I mean, soon as in maybe possibly at least before next year.  Well, if I get round to it.  Cos... you know... I have all that important Facebook lurking to do. Oh, and I suppose I should use that yoga voucher. Maybe. Let me just check what's happened on Imgur first, then I'll definitely go. Definitely. In a minute.

In the meantime, have a picture of my dad, the intrepid explorer, who is ready for anything at all times:

The quintessential Englishman abroad...