Spoiled for Choice

I had a wonderful few days with Tracie and Darryl. Their home is an oasis of calm with a sprawling house and extensive lawn and gardens. Darryl is a lawn mowing contractor and, unlike some specialist tradesmen, is proud of his lawn. Despite lots of recent rain and perfect growing conditions, his yard is immaculate.

Tracie and I spent our afternoons sitting in what is probably called a conservatory, an enclosed area of the verandah, drinking wine and enjoying the serenity of the garden. We also managed to catch up on several years of chat. She teaches at a small school with about 70 students and has the Prep/Year 1 class. I had a day with her at school and did a bit of testing for her.

I managed to catch up with Annie and Les. They were supposed to be sailing to Sydney last year but didn't get any further than the Mighty Clarence. When I met with Annie, she motored across from the boat in a rubber dinghy, totally at home on the river. They like the area so much that they have bought a home, in a lovely spot with the river wrapping itself around two-thirds of the property. There is a large house, a fair expanse of lawn and garden and a small jetty. When not doing domestic things ( and studying for Annie) there is plenty of opportunity for messing about in boats, to quote Ratty in Wind in the Willows. 

So now, when I am travelling through, I will be spoiled for choice - being able to stay with Tracie and catch up with Annie, or stay with Annie and catch up with Tracie.

One problem I have when I am moving about is that most of my fellow travellers are early to bed and early to rise. As I don't bother much with TV (though I would this time if I could work out how to connect it), the evenings can be long. However Annie has joined the Yamba Yabbies Toastmasters club and I attended with her on Monday night. There were ten apologies for the meeting so several spaces on the agenda had to be filled. I was lucky enough to be given a table topic (my favourite part of the meeting), evaluate the other topics and evaluate one of the speeches. Inspired by this, when I moved on to Glen Innes, I went to their meeting on Thursday night and again managed to be given a table topic. What a great way to spend an evening, among like-minded people and given uninterrupted time to talk.