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In the morning from about 8-11 mostly domestic stuff. Sweeping, dishes, checking the food stores, making sure the gifts were under the tree and the washing up and so on. Mum was working from 7 till 11 so I told my adorable younger sibling (who had plans for later that day) to turn up about 11:30 odd. (Mum's work is two girls short and therefore everyone is running late) I had just enough time to wish the people on three of my Gaia accounts merry x and then she turned up.

She turned up at a 1/4 past in a hurry to do stuff and impatient. Good thing her twin rang from Italy to distract her huh.

My sister is very full of Grrr! Bah! Humbug! towards traditional stuff this year. She's just bored with and sick of everything. So she decided that for x mas lunch, we're going to travel out to the Ada tree (biggest surviving tree in the state we live in, Victoria.)

So, once mum had come home and rested a bit, and I knocked together a quick salad to tide us over till the picnic at the tree, then packed the food and drink. We did the presents thing (which reminds me... must go check on my mystic garden, it should be doing stuff with crystals by now.) and then we set off.

A rather nauseating, country mountain road of twisty turnies and an hour later we arrive at the car park. (should have brought the travel ginger but didn't think of it.)

Mum brought a wheely thing to help me along but it didn't do much good. ten mins up the track I left it behind. It was more work to push it that it was to carry my pack. We planned to collected it on the way back.

At one end the track said 1.5 k... at the other 2. It took us an hour of trudging and while the scenery was magical. (I saw a tree that looked just like a cliche fairy tree, holes and gnarls and moss all over it in a supper shady part of the woods).

The path was alternately marshy or climbing up roots in the track, with small chunks of board walk over the worst bits and by the end I was seriously beginning to puff. I'm a bit like our three, legged dog. I don't realize how much stamina I don't have until I try to go out and do things.

My sister was snap happy all the way along but forgot to recharge her camera batteries. We were going to snap stuff on the way back but oh well. She spent a lot of time dodging spider webs and trying not to brake them.

Everyone else recovered once we reached the tree, sat down and had our picnic and played a card game mum brought and took pics with as much of the tree as we could fit in. (which isn't much. Is a very big tree and there's a rail and board walk all around it to protect it.)

To our surprise about 20 mins after we arrived, one of the local library techs turned up with a tourist they're looking after and word that her husband was bringing his mum along the easy rout...

Easy rout? Apparently it seems there's a track with a pair of gates that can be opened to allow access for the elderly and disabled... but you have to ring up and organize for the key....which no one had but we didn't find that out till later. it reduces the walk there to about fifteen minutes and all on boardwalk.

I was full of grrrr, cause I was still knackered. No endurance in me at all.
The first gate was open and about twenty min of trudging along the road my hip really started to hurt and I began limping. Shortly after that we came to a spot where mum could turn the car around if she was careful and the other two walked on while I waited with the stuff (and helped myself to more left over food)

It didn't take long. Ten, to fifteen mins later, the car came tootling up the track and I was helped up and the stuff loaded in. It seems no one had opened the top gate, mum (and the others too) had just maneuvered their cars through trees and stumps and footpath to get around the gate. GO MUM!

I kind of wondered how the other two cars managed. Our cars a little car and the other two were four wheel drives... big things. Mum barely managed to squeeze our car out with it's bits in tact...no clue how the others did it.

Anyway, it was a lot quicker coming back (mostly down hill) and my sis packed her stuff and took off home to get in touch with the mate she was going to have come around and play computer games with. (major prob with being in the back of beyond is that there's no reception out there and no towers to carry it)

Mum and I both crashed out for an hour or two and woke up just in time to watch the dancing (latin, ballroom and stuff) on t.v., feed various pets and then crash.
I did take my pet rats out for an hour or so and let them crawl around on her bed... good thing she likes rats. Beyond that, that's pretty much how my x mas went.