MONDAY 4 MAY     CAMP BLACKMAN

I got up about 8.30 after a very solid night’s sleep. John slept later. We both felt much better than we’d expected to – very impressive. However, a quiet day in camp was called for – walking to the toilet was enough activity today.

John spent much of the day doing things on the lap top.

The currawongs of the Park were very enterprising. Yesterday, it was surprising to find a pair way up high on the top of Lughs Throne, trying to part us from some of our lunch. We were not so silly as to leave food unattended on the table at camp, but this morning discovered one thoroughly investigating the contents of our grey water bucket. Yuk.

For me, today was notable as the day I actually started work on my first-ever patchwork quilt. Cutting out the pieces at home, before we left, didn’t really count……Today, I sorted the pieces into 96 little piles, that would eventually become 96 hand sewn pattern blocks and then a whole quilt – all made by hand. There were little heaps spread all over the bed, bench and stove cover. After gathering them up systematically and stowing them safely, I sewed part of the first patch. Momentous event!

John decided he would cook us a BBQ tea. We spread baking paper on the metal plate of the fireplace near us, and he cooked sausages, tomato and zucchini on that, and spuds in foil in the coals under. It was all very nice.

Today was son’s 35th birthday, so we phoned him with birthday wishes. Each year at this time, I muse on how he nearly got to be a month older. My doctor, roused from sleep in the early hours of the morning to attend the imminent birth, arrived still dressed in his pyjamas, did the necessary – including the paperwork – then departed. It was just luck one of us realized, later that same day, that the date had been entered as 5th of the 4th.

I wrote postcards, checked my emails, and read till bedtime. John played computer games till late.

We discussed whether we wanted to stay longer and do some more walking. There was no shortage of interesting seeming tracks, but we decided that we’d mastered the best walk of all, and after the Grand High Tops, others might be an anti climax. Time to explore elsewhere.