EASTER HOLIDAYS

We decided late on Good Friday to go to Cornwall for the Easter break. My daughter, along with her husband and 2 children, had already booked a caravan on a campsite near Bude. So we booked onto this campsite too.

I was a bit concerned about leaving our house as there had been several burglaries in the area the previous night but my husband told me that we could not let that stop us from doing anything. Anyway we haven't got much worth stealing, we don't have a plasma tv, my husband's computer is very old and we took our 2 laptops with us.

The view from Padstow Harbour

We set off Saturday morning about 7.30 am and arrived in Cornwall 6 hours later, we were towing our caravan so this slows us down a bit. Even so we arrived at the site about 10 minutes before my daughter and her family, much to the annoyance of my son-in-law, who had apparently been trying to catch us up all the way down.

The beach at Newquay

The site was ok but the ground was very muddy, yuk. I put Jasper, our West Highland Terrier, outside on his lead and he got involved in a play fight with another dog and ended up needing a bath. That was the last time he was allowed out on his own.

The little steam train

We had a good week, the weather was very mixed, wet, windy, sunny, but fortunately we had no snow which the folks back home had, much to the annoyance of my young daughter. She hasn't seen much snow and she would have loved to have had the chance to play in it.

Sunset at Widemouth Bay

We visited Padstow, Newquay, Truro and we went on a little steam train from Launceston which took us to a farm where the children could play on swings, slides, bikes all sorts of things. There was also a little petting zoo. We had a really good day there.

We had a good week, I really enjoyed it. It was nice to spend time with my daughter and her family. We are going back to Cornwall in July, I am looking forward to it.

Australia

I can't believe it is almost a year since we went to Australia. I have family over there and last year, about March, we decided we would go visit. Unfortunately not long after we had made this decision my dear dad was diagnosed with a type of cancer caused by exposure to asbestos (it has got a long name that I can't spell). Anyway after much soul searching we decided to go ahead and book our tickets for November.

My dad's health deteriorated and about July 2006 I asked him to come and live with us. I did not want him to go into a home. He was only with us a few weeks when he suddenly took a turn for the worse and had to go into hospital. From here he was transferred to a hospice where less than a week later he passed away. We were with him when he went - I miss my dad so much.

We carried on with our plans to visit Australia as I felt I now needed to see my aunty (my late mum's sister) more than ever.

When the our travel date finally arrived I could not believe that I was going to one of my dream destinations. I was actually going to see Sydney I was so excited. I spoke to my aunty that morning and it felt so unreal saying to her 'I will see you in a couple of days' oh my god pinch me. The taxi arrived and we were on our way to Manchester airport.

Our first flight was to Dubai - somewhere I had heard of but never imagined I would go. We were not having a stopover just spending a couple of hours in the airport, but what an experience. So many people of all nationalities, the clothes, the sounds it was amazing. All to soon our next flight was being called and we were on the second leg of our journey to Sydney.

I will not kid you and say I enjoyed this it was almost unbearable to be on a plane for so long but I kept telling myself 'just remember where you are going'. I think it was the longest night of my life. I am not sure how many hours it took but I think it was 15. But finally we were there, we were landing.

We got through immigration, another tedious queue, but finally we were there, got our suitcases, turned a corner and there was my uncle with a toy emu holding it out for our daughter. It felt like coming home.

The trouble is it was a holiday and now I am back in the UK and once again my thoughts have turned back to Australia and I want to go back. I hope I do - soon.