Leaving the girl at home

I previously blogged about wondering about packing my girly stuff to travel, because I was going to Canberra for a few days with family. Sadly, work got very hectic and before I had a chance to even choose outfits for the trip, it was time to go. Consequently, I didn't even end up attempting to pack my girly stuff. When we'd packed the car, there was a little discussion about how empty the back of the car was, and I jokingly remarked that it was because I hadn't packed Alice's stuff.

Our first night in Canberra was Friday. We went out for dinner and to do some grocery shopping in Gungahlin. While we were in the supermarket, a comment was made about the back of our car being fairly empty, and our son took it upon himself to inform my mother in law that it was because we hadn't brought Alice's stuff. She didn't say anything at all in response, and the topic of conversation soon changed to something unrelated.

While in Canberra, I finished up having 2 days where I had most of the day to myself and could have dressed and gone out, if I had had the stuff with me to do so. It wasn't supposed to have happened like that, but our son was sick in the car on the way there, and decided that he didn't want to go in my car for the first couple of days there because the car smelt, so he went with my wife and inlaws instead, leaving me on my own.

I knew where a few of the op shops in Canberra were, thanks to the handy web site opshop.org, which not only provides a list of op shops in Australia, but also provides the locations on a google map. While in Gungahlin on the Friday night, we drove past the local Vinnies op shop, which was where I started on the Saturday morning. After finding nothing of interest on the dress rack, I had a look at tops. An orange top caught my eye, so I tried on and, being happy with the fit, bought it.

I then drove to Belconnen, where I visited a Salvos store and another Vinnies store. While I didn't find anything of interest in either, I was struck by how busy these stores were. Where a typical store around Newcastle might have up to about 10 shoppers at any given time, these had 20 or more people in each!

Because I started my outing rather late, I decided that it was close enough to lunch time, when most op shops generally close on a Saturday, and since there was no usable internet service where we were staying, I decided to instead go and find a shopping centre food court where I could access free wifi. By the time I'd caught up on facebook, blogs and emails, it was too late to go to any other op shops, so I made my way back to our accommodation.

On the Sunday, I did some chores including cleaning the back seat, windows and lights of the car, and doing a little bit of the rather large pile of work that I'd taken with me.

Our final full day in Canberra was a public holiday Monday. I spent the day with my son, visiting a couple of tourist attractions, with a brief stop in between at the food court at Belconnen to again use the free wifi.

By Tuesday morning, I was several hours short on sleep due to the fact that I wasn't sleeping well, and was being woken consistently around 6:30am. The drive home was fairly uneventful, but by the time we'd unpacked the car, I was exhausted. I lay down on the bed intending to get about half an hour of rest before preparing to go out for dinner. Over an hour later, I woke up and thought that there was no way that I was going to go out for dinner. I was simply too late getting started. In spite of that, I started getting myself organised and just kept plodding along. In the end, I arrived at the restaurant right on time. I was really glad that I did go, because not only does it mean that I haven't missed a week this year, but several other people came along including one who I've known on line for a few years but I'd never met in person before.