kerravonsen | Brightness fades

Back from Bright.

So, where was I? Ah, yes, Monday, continued.
* they got back after two

* we (S, N, S, T and me) went to The Old Tobacco Shed, which was sort of an art-craft shop tourist attraction, but when we got there, it was like a cross between an antique store and a second-hand shop. A wild mixture, from gorgeous antiques to beer bottles to hubcaps to old Women's Weeklys to matchboxes. There was a room full of second-hand books, and at first I thought I shouldn't look, because I'd come away with stuff I didn't need, but then I did look, and I was very glad I did, because I found a copy of Anne Spencer Parry's "The Land Behind the World" (which I happened to have been talking about the day before, actually). Anne Spencer Parry's stuff is very hard to find -- I'd only ever seen her books once before, in one particular library, which I borrowed and read them from. "The Land Behind the World" is the first book in the series, of which I know of four books: "The Land Behind the World", "The Lost Souls of the Twilight", "The Crown of Darkness", "The Crown of Light". The book is a paperback and rather battered, but I'm very pleased to have it all the same.
I also bought some smaller-than-normal sized matchboxes, which I use for storing beads. So that was also good.
But the junk that was there, really! The other "shed" was even more junky, what with machine parts, chair legs, chair wheels, bits of slate, and the upstairs part was full of furniture: tables, wardrobes, chairs, desks. Some of the chairs were really junky, I mean, the upholstery gone and springs poking out, while others were quite nice.

* It started to rain when we left the Old Tobacco Shed. We discussed dinner in the car, and went to the shops and bought stuff. Well, S and N bought stuff, T and I stayed in the car and read our books.
* We got back, and a game of Settlers of Catan was in progress, and I sat and continued to read my book.
* Then they decided to experiment with a variation of Settlers where everyone started off with a monopoly on a particular resource, with a city in the centre, and see how that went. Unfortunately, when I volunteered to distribute the tokens, I didn't think carefully enough and some sections got better than others. Also, wood is a better resource to start with, so the wood person started winning very rapidly. R dropped out and I took over his hand, then E dropped out because he was so upset that he wasn't getting any wheat.
* Then E and R came back wanting to watch Doctor Who, so I sent E off to find out when dinner was supposed to be, and to fetch L, so she wouldn't miss out, and we rapidly cleared the table.
* We ended up having just enough time to fit in "Dalek" before dinner.
* Dinner was chops and salad and chips, though I passed on the salad (one of those grilled eggplant and grilled capsicum and... well, I don't like that sort of thing, not as a cold salad) but begged some of the rice dish that D and S had brought to the table, and that was yummy. The chips were yummy too. As was the lamb chop.
It was our last meal as extended family together -- again we'd moved and taken over tables in the gazebo.
* I think I mostly packed after dinner.

Tuesday
* Running around packing and clearing up and all the stuff one does when leaving a holiday place.
* S and N planned to leave at 8:30; they left at 9
* D and J (whom I was travelling back with) planned to leave at 9; we left at 9:50.
* Since I'd been ready since about 9, I sat near Reception and internetted while waiting. Unfortunately, the consequence of this was that when I got in the car, J put my little laptop in the side door of the car on his side (on my side it was full of bottles of water and the like), and when we actually arrived home hours and hours later, I'd forgotten it was there, so I still don't have it, since D said she would drop it off today, but she hasn't yet.
* It was a long trip, but not as long as the trip up, since we (a) didn't stop for lunch (we ate in the car) and (b) didn't get lost.

Wednesday
Well, I've just sort of been sonking around, reading LJ and stuff (but I may have missed some things, so do point them out), backed up my entire hard drive of my desktop prior to the change of system (I am typing this from my Big Laptop) and looking at the rainclouds. And stuff.

P.S. My website and email will be down for a few hours as I convert my system from GenToo Linux to Xubuntu Linux.