Early Wednesday morning I will be flying out of Tasmania to have an adventure.
As a child I devoured the Famous Five books and was eternally wistful at my own lack of adventures in suburban Springfield. Sure we built cubbies and forts and engaged in long running battles with those Glenorchy kids, but there were never any mysteries to solve or smugglers to catch. We had to content ourselves with billy cart races, stealing fruit from neighbourhood orchards and long lazy days at the pool.
But now as a grown up I am embarking on my very own girls own adventure.
I am catching a train from Melbourne to Adelaide on Thursday.
The last passenger trains stopped running in Tasmania when I was a child. I fondly recall the red leather seats and the dark wood panelled interior of the trains we used to catch and so with this romantic nostalgia in place, I booked my train journey.
I wonder how romantic an 800 kilometre modern day train journey will feel by the time I roll into Adelaide. Heh.
I am determined to enjoy my time at the Ceramics Conference, despite the constant thread of worry that is the backdrop to everything I do at the moment. I will be meeting up with old friends, as well as meeting new friends face to face for the first time. The advent of Social media has been wonderful for making new friends, and I am looking forward to meeting ceramists that I had only previously spoken with via facebook and twitter.
I am taking a fat visual diary with me and I expect to take copious notes while I am away, as one of the side effects of worry is that my already dodgy memory falls further to pieces. I lose my train of thought, I become uber-dithery and making a simple decision is extremely difficult. I just hope I don’t lose the diary.
Evelyn is still seizing and sleeping and it will be weeks before the test results are all back, and so we are in a holding pattern. Doctors and Patients stuck in limbo together. I don’t like being in limbo much, I remember the nuns terrifying me with their tales of all these disembodied souls stuck in Limbo forever. Poor souls floating through the grey, grey void because they hadn’t been splashed with holy water the instant they had been born.
At least I am not floating through greyness, my life is still full of colour and action. I am just more absentmineded than usual, more distractable, and more prone to wild flights of fancy as I dream up grand schemes to distract myself even further.
As Evelyn’s medical journey inches along at a snails pace my mind has sped up exponentially and I am dreaming big dreams. Which I suppose I should write down so I don’t forget them. Now where is that diary?
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Kim, I hope you have a wonderful time & enjoy the train trip & meeting all the lovely people! I did that trip (the other way) when I was about 9. I can’t remember much about it at all, except I think we had a cabin (or whatever the train equivalent is) and I was on top bunk & it was very rocky and rattly.
I too bemoaned the lack of smugglers when I was having my Famous Five adventures.
lol We had all this wonderful coastline as well 🙂 You would think the place would have been dripping with smugglers.
Have a wonderful time!!! Those of us that will follow your adventure through facebook/internet will want to know all the details, so I am very pleased you are taking that diary. My memory is hopeless too – especially in times of great stress. If you are as bad as me, it means you could re-read those Famous Five books and have no idea how they were going to end!!! It is a running family joke that I could be given the same book every year for Xmas, and although it would probably look familiar I wouldn’t remember what it was about!!! – so have fun, whoever you are……???
I will post lots of instagram photos on facebook just for you. BUT I will post them as anon. HA! that’ll learn ya.
I am joining in to wish you a wonderful adventure. I also read the Famous Five series and loved them. I am sure that you know we want a detailed post or six about your trip. (I really like Adelaide as a city – and hope you do as well).
My memory is becoming increasingly suspect and that is without the stress you are currently under. CRAFT syndrome I am told it is called (Can’t Remember A F’ing Thing)
My heart is with you all. Sending so much love.
I am not taking the big camera as I cant be bothered lugging it about but my phone camera is very good and I am taking the digicam for the train ride. I am quite excited now 🙂
I know the conference times are going to be so very busy, you’ll be taking notes at the speed of light!
I’ve just seen the weather report on the news, were heading for warmish days with temperatures ranging from 18 to 21 for the time you’ll be here. Mornings and overnights are still cool though.
I have packed accordingly 🙂
The Famous Five – Oh sweet memories of a now politically incorrect world! I was brought up in the country in the days where wondering with a friend, making dens & living in imaginative worlds was the norm – all done with freedom & back in time for tea. The more you worry Kim, the more eloquent your writing becomes.
My wish is that your time away, gives you strength & fortitude to cope with the external worry that is your families world. Perhaps your memory is the onset of menopause eeeeek – mine has improved greatly (albeit peri-menopausal) with HRT. Stress does not help with memory obviously but hormones play havoc. You won’t lose your diary, because it is so very important to catalogue your memories oh & because I said so !!!. The visual I hope reproduced here in wonderful photos, which I look forward to. I am sure that your train journey from the onset will trigger great artistic content & the subsequent interactions with fellow artistes be a meeting of minds that feeds your soul with more strength, for you are a strong woman and despite the current awful stress I have no doubt that this trip will provide months of artistic output to serve as a distraction. I am thinking of you Kim & hope with my heart that this trip is fantastic. Because you deserve fantastic. xx
The only reason I wasn’t a Famous Five wannabe was because they went to places and got into situations where it would be difficult to go to the toilet, after ALL that food and ginger beer. Recipe for disaster. Wishing you a wonderful, comfortable – and I hope restorative – journey 🙂