The thing with having the clock ticking towards something very exciting is that it’s increasingly difficult to find a topic for the daily blog.
Sure, today I visited the metropolis of Darfield to replenish the vegetable bin, pick up the week’s fish quota, uplift a prescription from the chemist and advise the vets on who’s minding the store in our absence but that’s barely newsworthy. I also spent way too much time balancing the books (I’m still not sure what horrendous error I made but the clouds suddenly parted and it all made sense) and writing a manual for Cousin Lucas before walking him around the Homestead imparting way too much information, way too fast, for the poor bloke to absorb. Lucky he has the crib sheet to fall back on.
I now know, beyond reasonable doubt, that all my grand plans of a Garden of Eden-esque vegetable garden and herbs being easily accessible rather than sourced by threshing the way-too-tall weeds to one side, are not going to happen. What a pipe dream that was and, more worryingly, who am I trying to impress?
Yep, the clock is ticking and, if I’m being honest, all I can think of is that in 6 nights none of this will matter that much. We’ll be off on another adventure, the menagerie and Homestead safe in the care of our chosen proxy…
and I can’t wait!
Union Homestead 
Hi I really look forward to your daily diary and will miss it when you are away, could cousin Lucas fill in do you think 🤪. I guess you are not coming to Canada as you needed saddles, maybe next time .
Have a wonderful trip with your family.
Lucie
Hi Lucie and thanks for taking the time to comment. Canada is definitely somewhere we’d love to check out one day but not this time. I won’t repeat Cousin Lucas’response to your suggestion that he take over the blog in our absence 😊
We called them op orders from our Navy days, and i always put a lot of work into them, starting with the daily chores/animal feed and care etc, expanding to weekly tasks (buy more feed with the funds provided), a page or so of troubleshooting, and winding up with who to call in an emergency. I don’t think any of my farm sitters ever got past the first page…sometimes because they had tons of common sense and didn’t need hand holding, sometimes because they thought they were that kind of person. I learned in the end to keep it to 1 page of care and feeding and one for emergency contacts. It took me a decade…I’m a slow learner. And in my defence, some of those op orders included the care and feeding of our children, who I suspect preferred the farm sitters who threw my instructions out the window! So exciting to have a grand adventure looming! The garden will wait it’s turn.
Looking for our power adaptor thingos (which I still haven’t found grrr) I was rummaging through our box of travel momentos and came across the novel length instructions I left for our housesitters for the 2017 grand tour. The poor folk having to wade through that 😊 They did leave an equally long handover sheet, though, and the Homestead was sparkling clean and very happy in their care. It feels very different, with video calling and instant messaging, leaving the menagerie this time.
Such excitement! The time always drags when a looked-forward-to event is planned; that is, it drags until a day before it happens and all of a sudden there are more jobs to do than can be fitted into the time left to you. At least that is how it was with me when we had adventures!
So true. Currently my phone has numerous unintelligible notes in it of things I have remembered in the middle of the night that need doing before departure or must be packed.
Nothing is more satisfactory than when the accounts finally add up, so well done for getting that out of the way.
Frustrating, though, as I still have no idea what I a: did wrong and b: rectified but youre so right. I love a balancing speeadsheet!
I was a specialist in creating two large but contrasting errors which cancelled each other out leaving a tiny discrepancy for which I would search in vain.
So annoying, time gobbling and guaranteed to remind me that I didn’t actually pass accounting 😊
I did two years as an apprentice chartered accountant before I gave up.
Eek..really?? I don’t know what to say…😁