Apr 1 - Fools, Family & Farewells

  Ah, April Fools Day.  Today's the day that people do silly things to fool one another.  The best fool of the day was Gub who rang Mum to tell her that she'd just got a notification from Qantas that they were bumping her flight home up to tonight.  Even after Gub said "Yeah, it's so weird, instead of April 2nd they are telling me I'm now flying on April 1st..." Mum was still in a flap trying to work out how this could be and what changes they'd need to make.  Nice one Gub.  I didn't try to get Mr Smart as I've come to the conclusion that April Fool's Day has a tendency to get silly between partners.  Mr Smart did send me this gem from Google though.
  It was a pretty quiet morning today.  Gub was out of the house saying last goodbyes to friends before her flight home to London tomorrow morning leaving Mum, Dad and I to peacefully go about our business.  In the early afternoon we headed off to Bertie's to meet up with Gub and spend one final time together as a family for this trip.
  As we headed down Eastlink towards Bertie's place, Mum got a bee in her bonnet about trying to work out whether it was 30 seconds quicker to take Rutherford Road or to continue on PeniLink.  She finally decided that Rutherford Road was the superior option just in time for Dad and I to spot an olden-days car and follow that up PeniLink instead.  It was a beautiful tiny little Austin, even narrower than Mum's little Daihatsu Terios!

An Austin Latrobe 1929 and its friendly occupants.

  We got to Bertie's to find she'd been having one hell of a bake-off throughout the day.  There was Mars Bar slice, three loaves of banana bread (all for me to wrap up and take home for the freezer for future breakfasts), chocolate burned butter honey biscuits (a new creation due to a honey joys gone wrong incident) and a choc-mint slice!  She was still cooking the biscuits when we got there so Gub grabbed a nerf-gun and started a battle with our nephew and Tricky.

Gub getting her Auntie on and Bertie having a bake off.

  After Bertie had finished baking, the game turned in to castle-siege.  One person was walled off in the corridor and the end of the corridor was blocked off with a tower of four large beanbags.  The aim of the game is then to take a run up and throw yourself full pelt into the beanbag wall.  Gub tried it with some trepidation but obeyed the command to really throw herself into it to avoid injury.  She admitted afterwards that it was great fun.  Our nephew is not yet quite big enough to break through the barrier entirely, but he still giggled plenty.

  After an afternoon of fun and yet more indulgences to round out the Easter weekend, Mum, Dad, Gub and I headed back to my place so that they could pack and prepare for tomorrow morning, and I could get ready for work.  There were almost tearful farewells.  Bertie and I will see Mum and Dad again in July, but we shan't see Gub in the flesh again until sometime late next year.  A very sad thought.

  Today's food was:

• Breakfast was a berry smoothie made with a scoop of Jalna low-fat vanilla yoghurt, McCain frozen three berry mix and skim milk.
• Lunch was a toasted sandwich made with two slices of Bürgen wholegrains and oats bread, one slice of Bega So Light tasty cheese, half a 95g tin of Sole Mare tuna in olive oil (drained), two sliced cherry tomatoes, three bambini bocconcini and a sprinkling of celery salt.  And I also had three mini-solid Cadbury Dairy Milk eggs.
• Afternoon snacks were: at least a dozen small pieces of Mars Bar slice, three slices of banana bread, five chocolate biscuits, three small pieces of choc-mint slice, and four dim sims with soy sauce.

• Dinner was a barbecue chicken breast with a small piece of stuffing, cucumber, olives and tomato, coleslaw, pasta salad and potato salad.

  I am not proud of or pleased with the quantities I ate at Bertie's this afternoon.  One of each item would've still been an indulgence and would have been a much better choice.  Tomorrow is a new day and my house will at least be back to normal.  The Easter eggs, hot cross buns and residual Tim Tams are all gone and the banana bread is wrapped in slices in the freezer for defrosting one at a time as required.
  I need to get some routine back in my life again but I am most definitely struggling to settle into a routine with the new job.  The commute takes an hour and a half extra out of my day each day, which I've currently been deducting from sleep to disastrous effect, and I no longer have a fortnightly day off on which to handle housework which means that now eats in to my weekend downtime.  I'm unsure how to handle it all but I will keep trying.
  Jess