As should be obvious from the lead photo on yesterday’s blog post, Kaz was quite pleased with what we did to her home. There really wasn’t a single room we didn’t do at least something to, and she wouldn’t admit to disliking anything. She liked our color choices, the new furniture arrangement, the repositioning of her wall art, the addition of the kitchen shelf and bamboo screen, and the way Deborah reinvented her furniture pieces. She was also very happy with the spruced up front garden. With the new landscaping plan in hand and some advice from Deborah on how to better approach pruning and the display of yard art, it seems that Kaz is brimming with ideas and newfound enthusiasm to tackle the rest of the yard.
We tagged along with Kaz’s son-in-law Ray who had some errands to run in Tin Can Bay. He took us to the “Tip Shop,” a section of the dump where they scavenge potentially valuable bits from the rest of the debris and offer it for sale to the public. Deborah was in shabby-chic heaven - fantastic browsing. If I were a sculptor instead of a painter I would be drooling over all the interesting chunks of metal and industrial springs and discarded car parts. Maybe construct a giant metallic wombat. If we had known of this place earlier we probably would have dragged countless cast-offs back to Kaz’s to use both inside and out. As it was, we couldn’t resist a shoulder-high metal windmill frame (a whopping $2) to plop in the yard.
Kaz’s granddaughter Kara, 5-year old daughter of Julie and Ray, presented us with an armful of souvenir prezzies (presents) to remind us of our time in Australia. We all enjoyed a nice meal together: dinner by Deborah, dessert (pavlova) by Julie. Nice, nice family. We hope we’ll cross paths again. The following morning we said our goodbyes and were driven by Ray to the Hervey Bay airport to catch our flight back to Sydney. Infant daughter Jazmine shared the back seat with Deborah and kept her entertained.
Back in Sydney we took a long walk through the city and returned to our favorite Indian restaurant for a late lunch. We’re just spending the one night here in Sydney. Tomorrow we catch our cruise ship and start winding our way through the South Pacific, ending up in Hawaii 16 days later, and from there we fly home. I’ll do my best to keep up with the blog during the cruise, but it will depend on the difficulty and/or expense of internet access on the high seas.
