Having just revisited my last offering, posted over a month ago on 11 March, I noted that my closing comment was to the effect that I now had some 'clear air' and would be back at the keyboard in no time to resume the tales of our travels.
Well, what a nonsense that statement proved to be!
Like everyone else on Planet Earth, our lives and plans were totally overturned a few days later. There can be no doubt that 2020 will remain burnt into our individual and collective memories as the year in which all our lifestyles and social norms dissolved and we had to embrace a new reality.
I do plan to complete the story of our return to Adelaide from Queensland, starting today, but decided that an explanatory post was necessary to make a rational link.
As the bleak cloud of Covid-19 began to descend on us, the degree of social distancing and self-isolation recommended by the Government had not reached the stage where we felt either morally or practically obliged to alter our immediate plans to go ahead with the van repairs and to spend a couple of days with our old neighbours in Oleander Street and a couple more with close friends on their cattle property in the southern Adelaide Hills. This had all been arranged weeks and weeks before.
Mind you, by this time handshakes and hugs were verboten, and I must comment that of all the changes to my personal lifestyle I've had to accept and put into practice in the past weeks, that which I have found to be the most difficult has been the inability to stretch out my hand or open arms to greet old and dear friends......and with some of these being of European backgrounds, I was not alone in the struggle to put a clamp on the effusive manner of our usual greetings.
But before we temporarily left Windsor Gardens, the Mobile Marshies took another significant step in their lives, so dear readers, buckle up for the news.
We are 'trailer trash' no longer...........WE HAVE BOUGHT ANOTHER HOUSE!!!
As of 30 April, we shall be taking up residence in the smallish town of Goolwa, about 80 kilometres south-east of Adelaide at the eastern end of the area all we locals know as the 'South Coast', a string of coastal towns which include Victor Harbor (no this is not a typo...there is no 'U' in its spelling!), Port Elliot, Middleton and Goolwa.
My old friend Google Earth provides a better picture. As you can see Goolwa virtually abuts Lake Alexandrina, with the Murray mouth and the long line of sandhills of the famous Coorong but a short distance to the east.
My old friend Google Earth provides a better picture. As you can see Goolwa virtually abuts Lake Alexandrina, with the Murray mouth and the long line of sandhills of the famous Coorong but a short distance to the east.
Our new abode is a modest home compared with the expansive two storey edifice in which we spent 15 wonderful years at South Brighton, but it ticks all our currently required boxes.
Aside from a comfortable interior layout it includes a large enclosed outdoor entertaining area, a guest room with its own facilities and a driveway large enough to house not only our van, but those of two visitors as well. We are very much looking forward to being able to repay those many friends around Australia who have welcomed us onto their driveways or front lawns during our nomadic life over the past eight years.
But a home base does not mean we have abandoned our travelling life.....quite the opposite.
The very easy care garden....it is mostly paving...means that we can now become a 'lock-up and leave' couple, still chasing the sun during the winter months but returning to spend spring and summer in South Australia. So the 'Grey Nomads' are about to transform into 'Silver Swallows'.
And this is the new 'Chez Marshies', pictured here with the Goolwa Channel, which is part of the 'lower lakes' complex of waterways and separates the mainland from Hindmarsh Island, in the background.
Apart from the limited furniture we retained when we sold up ten years ago, our huge storage shed is piled high with dozens of cartons and boxes. We are confident that we shall have more than enough to keep us occupied during the coming winter of relative social isolation. Diving into these large cardboard containers is going to be akin to a giant sized luck dip........I would venture we are in for some interesting discoveries!
Before we left to visit our friends and have the van repaired, we had the good sense to book our site here at Windsor Gardens until the end of April. So here we shall stay, in what is now an eerily deserted park compared to its normal level of occupancy, until we make the big move.
I have set myself the task of completing our travel tales by then.........!!??
Before we left to visit our friends and have the van repaired, we had the good sense to book our site here at Windsor Gardens until the end of April. So here we shall stay, in what is now an eerily deserted park compared to its normal level of occupancy, until we make the big move.
I have set myself the task of completing our travel tales by then.........!!??
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