Home again!
Baubles the Cat was standing at the door when we opened it. She just stood there and looked at us and then meowed plaintively, moved aside, and let us in. Then she went to her (almost full) bowl and had some food.
There was a parcel on the dinner table – a copy of Shooting Star by Peter Temple, sent, and autographed, by the author himself!! I was am still stunned. Here I was thinking that the Peter who commented the other day was an employee of Text Publishing (publisher of Temple books), or something. Thank you Peter Temple! What a lovely gift to come home to! I think it’s the first ever copy of a book autographed by the author that I own – I shall read and treasure it – and look forward to your next book.
The second lovely gift was the slab of cake left by (and made by) Juj and Jay the catsitters. Thanks guys! I hope Baubles wasn’t too difficult (besides falling in the bath)!
The third gift we came home to was the SOLD sticker on our FOR SALE sign. Huzzah! Settlement is at the end of this month. (The real estate agent called M to let us know that everything was done while we were in Sydney, so we already knew about it, but it was still very nice to see the sticker – made it real.)
The less-than-pleasant thing we came home to was an infestation of moths in the pantry. I don’t know where the buggers came from – possibly a stray which stowed away in a box of flour from the old house (we had a few critters there, too). M’s blitzed the kitchen. There were ants, too – got in via the ceiling?! And a couple of spiders in corners, plus that horrible insect that begins with the letter C. Did the entire insect world sense that the usual human occupiers were away, or something?
I’ve just played some mahjong while doing laundry and have begun cataloguing the (twenty) books I bought in Sydney while idly looking through my aggregator. I’ve got 111 photos on the camera which I’ll have to sort through. Lots of email to write. It occurs to me that the holiday is over, as I have to go back to work tomorrow.
2 Comments
Welcome back. Good news all around. (Well except for the moths, and I guess you had your kitchen cleaned out as a result 🙂 )
The holiday is NOT over. Not until you walk into your new office….and then not until you’ve opened your first email, or answered your first phone call, or done the first little job. With coffee, a bit of unpacking, some chatting with colleagues and nipping to the loo for some power networking, you could stretch it out an hour or so.
Glad it was fun.
Cheers 🙂 I’ll have to ease myself in today!