It’s a short and sweet blog post today, as we travelled to Rockhampton on the weekend.
For those not in the know, Rocky is more than 7 hours’ drive north of Brisbane – yet we still managed to pack a lot into just two days, including a lovely walk around the Botanical Gardens and a visit to the Rockhampton Zoo (which is free!).
We made the trip specially to catch up with the husbear’s aunt, a (retired) nun with the Sisters of Mercy. Although she is still going strong, she is well into her 80’s and no longer able to travel and missed my mother-in-law’s funeral last July.
Here are three things I learned on the weekend:
1. Meerkats are smaller than what I expected. The star attraction at the Zoo was the new meerkat exhibit (though we also saw kangaroos and a koala, dingoes, crocs, monkeys, chimps and emus. No sign of the wombats however – they must have been snoozing in their log!). Meerkats aren’t much bigger than a squirrel or rat – definitely more petite than my dainty feline, Miss Fleur!
2. Mass has changed. We only go to church for weddings and funerals these days and the parts that are recited by the congregation have changed. We both used to be able to say the Apostles’ Creed and various prayers word for word, but now it’s more like “mumble mumble mumble” LOL.
3. My mother-in-law’s Christian name was actually Midia. That was a shock for both of us! She was known as Enid, which we always thought was short for Enidia. However we’d taken some old cards and letters to share with Aunty, and discovered that they were addressed to “Midia” – and aunty confirmed this was my mum-in-law’s given name. She was the youngest child of Italian immigrants and we think her name was “anglicised” when she went to school; Mum once told Aunty that she had no idea how they’d arrived at “Enid” from “Midia”!
What’s the furthest you’ve ever travelled (by car) for a weekend getaway?! Or is it just us mad Aussies that drive crazy distances?!
