In just 14 days, Justine and I will be jetting overseas. How exciting! Our plane tickets, train tickets and insurance are settled, as are the first week or so of accommodation.

Excitement, nerves are building, as is the sense that we haven’t done enough planning. Of course it will all be OK but anyone who has ever planned something big like this (a trip, wedding, etc) understands exactly what I mean.

8th August, 2007

That’s the date we have set for our overseas trip; we already have our tickets paid in full. It’s something we’ve been working towards for a very long time and finally we’re at the point where we’ve decided to jump in with both feet.

Originally, our plan was to move, live and work overseas, but we both weren’t really prepared to commit to it. The return date is September 26th, and the cities we’ll be travelling to are still not set in stone (but will likely include London, Paris, Amsterdam, Munich, Prague, Rome, Bern and Barcelona) but we’ll be flying both in and out of London, so it will obviously have to be a circular pattern of some sort. Or maybe oval.

We may also have a two-night stopover in Bangkok upon our return. Other details are not yet fully fleshed out but I’ll let you know as they come up.

Well, we made it back in once piece. I hadn’t seen where my mother and grandmother live before, so it was a good opportunity.

WhereIs‘ estimation of 4 hours 19 minutes was waaay off the mark; as was my mother’s estimation of 3 hours (well, that wasn’t “way” off the mark). In all, it only took us 2 hours 40 minutes to travel the 200km or so down to Seaspray.

As I pointed out in my other post, I hadn’t seen the place since they moved in. Well, I made a slight error in the amount of time they’ve been there. I’ve been corrected by two people that it has only been 1.5 years or so, and not “3-4″ as I mentioned. Eh, elose enough.

Seapsray is a dinky little place. Tiny full-time population (most of the population have holiday homes or caravan lots), no full-time police, not really a full-time fire presence and one petrol station (honestly, I’m surprised that’s even there — not sure if it actually had any fuel). There is a surf club, though, so it can’t be all that bad.

Managed to get there and back (about 580km in all) on around 3/4 of a tank of fuel which was good — most of the trip was made using cruise control which obviously helped. At the moment, in traffic, I’m getting around 480-500km on a tank.

Weather was terrible the whole time; it was like someone knew we were coming and decided to turn on the worst possible weather for a beachside town. Seemed to get better when we were almost home, though. Strange. On the way home, we detoured through Leongatha (where I grew up for a few years) — actually, it was around 100km out of our way.

I managed to find the two houses we lived in while there. The first house we saw was looking pretty good; in fact it was probably better kept than when we lived there. The second house (and not-so-good house) hadn’t fared very well; it was a bit disappointing to see somewhere that I had spent time in such a crappy condition. Ah well, life moves on.

Summary: Long drive, good to see mum, saw old houses, good to be home. The End.

Justine and I are going to be out of town for most of this weekend; we’ll probably be back Sunday.

Seeing as I haven’t seen my mother or grandmother since they moved from Caulfield to Seaspray (around 3 or 4 years ago), we decided it might be good to check out their “new” place.

I think it’s going to be a long haul. WhereIs says the trip takes almost 5 hours, but dear old mummy says it only takes 3. I suppose we’ll see, won’t we?

Still, most of the roads we’ll be travelling on are major highways (some with 110km/h zones), it’ll be like travelling on an autobahn — except not. I don’t really have much else to say; it will be interesting to see the place but it’s so far away from civilisation — what will we do?!

Justine just called me to ask what time I’m leaving work. I told her “When I can”. Her reply? “Well, leave earlier.” Classic.

Here’s some reading while I’m away — I know you can’t live without me:

• Vacation ‘58

  This is a short story which appeared in the US National Lampoon magazine. It was written by John Hughes (of Ferris Bueller fame, among many other 80s hits) and was turned into National Lampoon’s Vacation a few years later.

• Christmas ‘59

  The “sequel” to Vacation ‘58. This also appeared in National Lampoon magazine and was later turned into Nation al Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

• The Night of the Seven Fires
  The National Lampoon short story that heavily influenced Animal House. Note that there are few disgusting sequences in this particular story.
• Digital Sundials! I don’t know if these are a good idea or not.