It's not normally a difficult drive from Newcastle to Canberra because it is freeway conditions for most of the way and I had acquired an e-tag to navigate the toll roads around Sydney. An e-tag means avoiding toll-booths by paying fees electronically as you speed past instead. On this occasion, it poured heavily for most of the journey and the heavy spray made driving a nightmare. Still, we managed the journey in less than 5 hours.
Saturday was a shopping day for Christmas presents, including taking Max to his favourite store: Socrates! Socrates sells mind-bending games and toys for children and he scored a plane which flies long distances when you launch it correctly. And, on Sunday, Max came with us first to the Australian Museum and then the newly opened national portrait gallery. At the first, he designed his own future mode of transport on a computer and this was automatically uploaded to a film about a city of the future which we then went and saw. He had the pleasure of seeing his own 'plane' orbiting this city with a picture of Max on the back! And, at the portrait gallery, he went around ticking pictures off a card as he viewed them.
Later that afternoon, we went to Beck's house and assembled Max's Christmas gift from us, a trampoline, much to his delight (pictured). That evening we had an early Christmas meal and opened some of his presents before going outside to wave some sparklers around. This rounded off a hectic day for the VERY happy little man!
Yesterday, in wonderful driving conditions, Dot and I drove the whole distance from Canberra to Armidale in a shade under 8 hours (plus stops for R & R). That meant a shade under 95 kph average for the 756 km journey - a long way! That's the fastest we've ever done the journey.
AS
1 comment:
It is great to see the photos and to hear of such a happy time when all around us are tales of economic doom and gloom.
Our pound sterling continues to fall against the Euro and we may perhaps only have one trip to Europe in 2009.
Jean and I both have colds so are feeling rather sorry for ourselves.
Helen and Ian are doing Christmas for us and then we go to London for New Year with Tim, Laura and the gorgeous little Harriet who is now 7 months old.
Happy Christmas from Richard and Jean Snow and family.
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