Driving to Adelaide

Driving to Adelaide has to be up there in the top 5 of "Stupid things done by Vee"

 My car Henry is my one true love! 

He is always there for me when I've needed him. 

He has never broken down on me, (although I must admit that having a Dad as a mechanic and a Mum who will store him in a nice garage had some hand in that!), he always plays me sweet music and has only once let my drivers side window fall down into the door (which then involved taking the door apart to retrieve it!)

But his one little let down is that his air conditioner doesn't work, which is normally fine because I can just roll down the windows (and hope they don't fall into the doors!), BUT my brilliant plan to drive to Adelaide landed on a day that was forecast to be 42 degrees in Victoria and even more in South Australia. Unfortunately the weather man was accurate for once in his life and I nearly melted like the wicked witch of the west.

HOLY MOLY was it hot! What should have taken me about 9 hours took me about 10 and a half, many stops of the way, drenching myself in water to keep cool, singing at the top of my voice to trashy music to keep myself from swerving off the road. 

In short. it was not a fun experience. 

(although in saying that, on a regular day of about 20 degrees it would have been a lovely drive!) 

 Arriving in Mclaren Vale was such a relief! There are vines everywhere

 even out my bed room window :)

Beautiful wineries, sunny beaches and 2 weeks to relax before work kicks off... 

I think the drive from hell might've JUST been worth it!

Home Again

After arriving back from Canada I had 3 weeks at home and they were pretty much non stop!

 Christmas was pretty low key with lunch at Dads and dinner at Mum's- it was a lovely day!

Dad has been waiting for all three of us girls to be at home at the same time so when we agreed to be home for Christmas he jumped at the chance and got married to Julie on the 28th of December.

Although the day was a stinking 36 degrees it was lovely!

We had a spit roast for lunch, I made desserts (boozy chocolate mousse, meringues and lemon curd stuffed profiteroles), and we all enjoyed many glasses of bubbly into the evening.

 

Shortly followed by New Years... Mel and I decided to keep it low key and just invited our nearest and dearest mates over for a small shindig in Moe. Mel made many many cocktails which resulted in about 4 of our guests going off for a sneaky puke at the end of the night! (mind you, not because the cocktails were bad.... mostly because they were too good!!)

 In Mel and Wes's last days in aus we hit the beach with Mum and John, fed some kangaroo's, did some fishing and tried out best to relax and take in the serenity!

Mel and Wes left on the 12th back to dreary London town and shortly after, I jumped in my car to head for South Australia....