Christmas in Cairns

24/12/2012
Christmas Eve and it is sweltering, so much more humid than this time last year. Our day started with a torrential downpour which lasted all of 20 minutes then the humidity kicked in but it’s good rain though. The garden needs it.
 A bit of last minute shopping for food brought us up to lunchtime, then the afternoon was ours to do nothing but keep cool. Besides cooling off in the pool, we are pleased to have , at last, caught up with our blog and sent some Christmas greetings, having already received several messages. We also managed to catch our family in the UK for a skype session which is often difficult because of the time difference.
 Our butcher failed to come up with our favourite Wagyu beef but we had some equally tasty steak for our Christmas Eve dinner which I cooked to perfection (luckily)on the BBQ. That, with some nice wine and Janes fizz we fell into bed rather later than we intended.

  25/12/2012
  We have had a lovely day on the beach with Phil and Jules, the Millers and a few more orphans, waifs and strays. We have had our eye on the weather all day as the forecast was for 90% chance of rain with storms. It is now midnight and it has just started to drizzle.
 The food was delicious, which we had all contributed to. There was smoked salmon, oysters, prawns, ham, chicken with lots of salads, then the puddings were to die for. Our Christmas present from Phil and Jules is still a secret, but we have a shrewd idea what it is as she let the cat out of the bag by saying she hadn’t been able to print off he tickets. Looks like we are going out to one of the islands on the reef, but we will have to wait and see.
 Living in this house can be a bit lonely and we both felt a little homesick this morning. Christmas morning is about family and stuff and even with modern technology there was no one to speak to first thing. It can also be funny living here, often I hear Jane say something from another part of the house. I may be down the garden or in another room, so when I hear her off I trot to see what she wants, only to discover she is talking to the bloody cat! Anyway, it has been an odd sort of a day unlike last year when we had Barry staying with us from the UK and we were living next door to Phil and Jules. Having acres of space isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.

 26/12/2012
  A really nice start to the day, we were up earlier than usual to skype our Newbold buddies, before they got completely trashed on their Christmas Night. It all went rather well, most of it made sense and we got our first viewing of Floella, Susie and Gordon’s new baby. It was good to speak to our mates even when it eventually got a little garbled. Next up we spoke to the family in Shipston and again it was going quite well until Swahili took over. One day the boot will be on the other foot. The odd time we have skyped after we have been on it, they suddenly seem pressed for time and have to go and do something else!
 Since then we have been Billy no mates for the rest of the day. I spent a couple of hours on the ride on rearranging the dust and hunting for cane toads ( well, I was bored)
Ginger has followed us around all day, he was a bit miffed about being left on his own all day yesterday.
 We got some more photos away via the shiny thing and had another go at the excellent steak we had left over from Christmas Eve. We also tried a bottle of McGuigans sparkling shiraz, if you can get it in the UK my advice is…don’t bother, it’s pretty ordinary
 So now that Christmas is over it’s time to get our arses into gear and sort out some  sort of a plan for the next leg of our travels.. We have flights sorted but that’s it, need to sort our accommodation, a motor home and get in touch with contacts we have in New Zealand, Australia and Indonesia. Things are beginning to warm up and I’m not talking about the weather.