Briefly Brisbane

Just got back from a quick weekend trip to visit my relatives in sunny Queensland. Occasion was my little brother's 5th birthday and just that I was free that weekend and could. Whole trip totally worth it for even just one of the many funny moments - such as busting him sitting at the kitchen table having carefully removed each of the fancy 'letter' birthday candles from the cake (they spelt out 'happy birthday' all together) and sucked the base clean of chocolate. This before they had been lit, song sung or cake cut and after many previous efforts of us recuing the cakefrom his sneaky poking fingers. (the higgeldy piggeldy lettering of his efforts to pop them back on the cake was esepcially cute. hpbir yahdpayt to you too). Silly games on the trampoline (baby teradactil being born from an egg only to chase each other round in circles was the fave), splashing in water, dragging a wonky old go-cart to the park, reading comic books out loud as bed time stories and having to point to each speech bubble to show where we were up to, hearing serious and detailed explanations of cartoon characters and story lines - all lovely. Great to see my mum too and have cups of tea and chats without feeling like it was a special holiday that needed any extra effort.

Probably one of my quickest trips up there ever - only two days - but greenhousegas emission guilt aside (yes I did offset, but still...) it was good. I figure that the casual drop by visit (as opposed to the long, extended holiday) is what you really miss out on when you live interstate from your family, and is one of the pleasures of sharing life together, so have been thinking that a sprinkling of visits of this kind now and then would be a good idea.