Back On The Road

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Big Fluff and the Cat settled into comfortable life with us: Big Fluff harassed Roger regularly for walks and every night Cat jumped up onto the armrest of my lounge chair and trembled there, reaching out a paw in a tentative attempt to come onto my lap before her courage failed her and she settled onto the arm rest instead.  We sent regular photos to their owners, to provide proof of both animal life and our excellent pet-sitting skills.  Life was drama free.

Away on the other side of the world our home owners had drama enough for everyone, taking a quick tour through the health system of a very small African country and thanking their lucky stars that they had taken out adequate travel insurance.  Once it was assured that both of them would, indeed, survive they emailed to let us know that they were really quite tired of the Holiday From Hell, and would be arriving home as soon as medical certificates and the vagaries of international plane travel allowed.

That being the case, I'll take the opportunity to show you around Strathalbyn before we leave.  Here is the old flour mill, sitting in picturesque disrepair at the end of the main street.

We prided ourselves on our flexibility when it came to plans, so we descended into a flurry of cleaning and packing and sorting and getting ourselves all in order to finish up several weeks earlier than what we had expected.

The Strathalbyn Uniting (originally Presbyterian) church is the oldest Presbyterian church building in South Australia.   The bell tower was built when a certain Mr John Stirling donated a 2-tonne bell to the church, necessitating in 1869 the construction of a bell tower big enough to hold it. Then in 1895 a clock was added, just because everyone thought that would look nice up there too.  If you would like to know more about the building, just look here.

All the packing and cleaning tipped Big Fluff off that something was going on. He didn't let us out of his sight.

By the time our owners dragged their jet-lagged selves through the door the house was sparkling. Big Fluff went into raptures of delight at the return of those he had thought gone forever, and ran around shedding hair on the freshly vacuumed carpet. The Cat took the opposite approach and disappeared behind the lounge chairs, watching household events with deep suspicion.  We had a cup of tea and listened to travel horrer stories before handing over the keys and, with rain splattering on the windshield, setting off on our next adventure.

Farewell Strathalbyn.

Autumn leaves in Strathalbyn's parklands on our way out of town.


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