A Visit to Newcastle and a Brief Description of Motive

I absolutely adore the sound of heavy rain hitting a tin roof.
I am sitting in the back part of my house listening to the rain. To augment the beautiful pitter-patter I am also playing Claire de Lune by Debussy. The two engage me on a level sometimes otherwise unachievable.
Today’s events were nowhere near as hectic as yesterday.
I woke at roughly 8.15AM to the sound of my alarm and got dressed quickly and hit the road for Newcastle. I arrived roughly 10AM to spend time with Monica. She was staying at Cherie’s (her older sister who has just bought her first home in Cardiff, just outside Newcastle), and was headed home to Wauchope later today.
We sat in Cherie’s garden and just talked. We don’t talk all that often without doing other things, like shopping or seeing a movie or going for a walk etc, but today was nice. It was great to just lie under a tree and talk, caring about nothing else.
Eventually it was time for Monica and her Mother to head home to Wauchope so I too hit the road and headed back to Sydney. I arrived home about 3:30PM and just watched TV. I’m still exhausted for no reason so I’ve done very little this evening.

The lack of events from today leave me with time to discuss the purpose for this blog.
A few evenings ago a ‘family meeting’ was called. These are usually called for a chance of the old ‘flank attack’ from the parents, usually in regards to something I have or haven’t done, or sometimes my sister Andrea in a similar situation.
To my surprise however Mum and Dad wished to discuss their plans for a European Holiday at the end of the year, leaving boxing day (Dec26) and going away for about a month. They both agreed they would love for me to join them, but only if I was able to afford my own airfare. They want to fly into London, spend a little time in England then move to continental Europe, travelling through France, Holland, Spain, Italy. I can’t wait. They said they were happy to pay for accommodation, though assistance there would also be helpful. When I thought about it later I realized I also wanted to see Germany Austria Switzerland and Prague, so I think I’ll stay on for another two weeks when they leave, travelling back up from Italy.
When I told Mum and Dad of this they decided they would like to offer me a tour for those two weeks as my 21st present. I haven’t accepted that offer yet as I want to look around and see what my options are.

Anyway I guess I’m writing all this here because I miss my writing, and I really enjoy it when I am doing it. When I go away I want to keep an online journal of my travels if not daily at least every 2 or 3 days, whenever I can get to an internet café and write a few words and upload a few pictures.
So I’m training myself to get into the habit of putting away a bit of time for it every day, and I also want to document the year. Document what I get up to, how it affects me and how I am going with my planning for the trip, also how I am going with the saving. I’ll keep you posted as I save more and more.
I have begun the preliminary stages of planning for the trip, using Frommer’s Europe from US$60 a Day as my guide. Things are looking pretty nice so far, but more on this later.

Within the next week or two I hope to speak to a few travel agents and get some quotes on custom trip packages.

Although its only ten to 9 I think I’ll hit the hay. I’m absolutely buggered for no real reason.


Signed,

Cam