The past four months.......

It really has been an incredibly busy and emotional time for me over the past four months, culminating in mum's passing.  Settling mum into the nursing home and then emptying her unit to get it ready for sale, was challenging to say the least.  And just when I was ready to put it on the market, mum passed away.  

Toowoomba in winter is really not a great place to be.  The temperature drops to the very low numbers and the wind seems to blow right through you.  Because Toowoomba lies high on the mountain range the fog is another thing to have contend with and I can tell you that driving in it at night is a nightmare.  We are staying at the Toowoomba Motor Village, that feels like home after this length of time, and have enjoyed our morning walks/cycle along the West Creek walkway.  I think it was the walks that kept us sane and even though I don't like the fog it can be quite beautiful early in the morning.

We have enjoyed catching up with family over the past few months and have seen quite a bit of my aunty and uncle who live at Pittsworth.  They invited us to join them for lunch at Picnic Point to help them celebrate their wedding anniversary.  It was a lovely meal and we have been back a couple more times to enjoy the food and views.

After mum passed away, Philip and I decided to get away from the Toowoomba chill for a few weeks while we waited for the paperwork needed to sell mums unit to come back to the solicitor. We were lucky enough to get into a caravan park at Golden Beach (Caloundra) for four nights where we enjoyed long walks along the waterfront and then taking a drive to Kondallila Falls for a long circuit hike through the rainforest.  It was invigorating and something we have been missing.

After Golden Beach we shifted camp to Hervey Bay.  Once again we were lucky to score a site for a week because it is the middle of their peak whale watching season.  The caravan park was close to the jetty and each afternoon we would walk the almost 1km jetty and then head to the tavern for sundowners to watch the sun setting.  It was idyllic and if anything is going to rejuvenate you it is this place.  Some of the restaurants we ate at were excellent, some not so good but the seafood platter below was one of the outstanding meals. We really like Hervey Bay and have booked a site prior to Christmas when we will be returning.

From Hervey Bay it was Tin Can Bay.  Wow.  We really, really like this little town and could easily make it home.  I can't recall being in such a friendly town where everybody greets you with a smile and hello. There are certainly a lot of grey headed folks living here so that is probably what attracts us the most.  Crime seems to be almost non-existant and even the young are polite to the elderly.  We were there for nine days and also drove to Rainbow Beach a couple of times.  It is the polar opposite of Tin Can Bay with a lot of young people and very busy.  The beach here though is beautiful and even though the weather was not great for our visit you can tell that it would be a wonderful place to be on a hot summers day.

One of the tourist attractions of Tin Can Bay is the dolphin feeding each morning.  The morning we went, there were eight dolphins (including a baby) quietly splashing around in the shallow water.  Gee I love these creatures (who doesn't!) and there beautiful eyes seem to look right into your soul.

We ended up staying in Tin Can Bay nine nights as the weather turned into very wet conditions and our planned stay at Marco's place would mean us plowing through mud to get to the house.  As it turned out we still had to negotiate a few muddy spots even after the rain had gone.  But it was lovely to spend the night with Marco and Suzie.  We enjoyed a delicious Lasagne, packed full of vegetables, and conversation that flowed for hours.

The next day we drove to Leyburn to stay with our friends Michael and Wendy.  It was the weekend of the Leyburn Sprints that we have been eager to get to for years.  I must admit that I wasn't all that keen but OMG, I am now totally addicted.  It is a timed 1km course, where competitors line up on the start line one at a time and are waved to start around every minute. There were 200 competitors and each driver had four starts.  That's 800 cars over the course of two days. It was non stop action. 

Michael and Wendy have been our friends for almost fifty years and every time we visit is like we only saw each other yesterday.  They cooked breakfast and dinner for a large crowd over the course of the weekend and it seems almost effortless for them, but I know it takes a lot of planning to feed a crowd.  It was a real treat to be at the Leyburn Hotel on the last night to see Michael and John being awarded "Volunteer of the Year".  They put an enormous amount of volunteer time into the event and even though Michael hates being the centre of attraction his smile says something different.

So we are now back in Toowoomba and have laid the groundwork to place mums unit on the market.  Toowoomba is a well liked area and mums unit is in a sought after area.  The agent seems to think that it will sell very quickly with most units selling within seven days.  Fingers crossed, as we are really missing our home in Palm Cove, but we can't really leave until we have an unconditional signed contract.  Time will tell.  On the bright side, the weather at the moment is glorious with lows of around 15 and highs of around 25.  Perfect.....

The last goodbye

When we arrived at Toowoomba on Mother's Day in May,  I had no idea that we would still be in Toowoomba four months later.  It has been a roller coaster of a ride.   It started with mum having a fall shortly after we arrived.  This was the beginning of the end.  We found mum a placement at Beauaraba Living Aged Care in Pittsworth in a lovely north facing room that was actually a double room.  The room had lots of wall space for photographs and other memorabilia so the room very quickly looked homely.  Mum seemed to enjoy Beauaraba and we visited her almost every day in between emptying her unit to get it ready for sale.  But just five short weeks later mum was admitted to St. Vincents Hospital with pneumonia and just two weeks later, on the 16th July,  mum drew her last breath.  

The funeral followed one week later and there was nothing for the family to have to agonise over because mum had planned it down to the very last detail.  Around 50 friends and family gathered to bid mum farewell and I'm sure if she was watching from heaven she would have loved it. So, goodbye mum, until we meet again in the room next door.