Not my strong point.
Planning is is not one of my strong points. Although, I prefer to think of myself as spontaneous. This doesn’t always work so well since having children – trips have to be planned, routines have to be vaguely followed. Right now, I can’t even walk out my front door without checking the gate is closed, checking where the dogs are, letting the children come after me or facing a tantrum from one or both of them.
So tonight I hadn’t really planned ahead when I loaded the children into the car. A was languishing in bed with a flu, so we left him behind. The car had plenty of petrol, so I thought I’d head out to Parra Wirra Recreation Park. The children and I had burritos for dinner and it was about 6.30pm by the time we left.
Problem was that the park had moved. Or my memory of how far away it actually was, was incorrect. Most likely the latter. So by the time we got there it was about 7.15pm. My memory also failed me when it came to the actual charges to get it – $7.50 per car. I had about two dollars in silver on me. The signs also stated that the park closed at sunset – while it was about half an hour off, I didn’t really want to be locked in a park with the kids, on my own, without having paid to get in, in the first place. So we drove off again.
Part of the reason I wanted to go was because the last time I was there, we saw some tame kangaroos. Willow and Dexie are old enough to appreciate them now, although I suspect Dexie and possibly Willow would be scared of them. An adult roo of either gender would be taller than them so I can’t blame them. Willow and I saw a mother (presumably!) and a big joey on the way, so she was excited about that.
About 3km on there was the Humbug Scrub Wildlife Sanctuary. It closes at 5pm, but I thought I’d see where it was. It was $10 for a family, $4 for adults and $2 for children. If I’d kept driving down that road, we might have ended up in the River Murray by midnight, so I turned the car around and went back, except this time I kept driving south instead of west and went home via Tea Tree Gully. A would probably be glad he wasn’t with us, this road was twisty, windy and narrow. There were a couple of fake plastic flower tributes along the way.
Willow saw one on the turn off from Main North Road and asked what it was. Usually I’m quite upfront with her but I don’t think there is any need for her to know about people dying in car accidents. My explanation – someone was trying to make the pole pretty. She was happy with that.
