In which Emma nearly misses the bus, and nearly misses the bus, and nearly misses the bus...

Well, for the weekend I decided to go home to my parent's place.
"Why?" you ask, well because I actually like my parents (and they also have custody of my cat).

That and the fact that I was specifically invited up by my brother to go for a road trip up to Gladstone on Sunday with him, our cousin, Clinton, and our friend, Moose.

And Moose invited me to keep him awake while he drove back down to Hobart on Sunday evening. Which meant that I had to find a way to get up to Mum and Dad's without taking Barry (my Barina) so I took the bus. I booked in my ticket at uni so I could get a cheap fare a couple of days beforehand, but when it came time for me to leave uni on Friday and get home to pack my bags I nearly forgot to pick up my ticket and had to find somewhere to turn Barry around and then find somewhere to park him for 5 mins (a major feat on the uni campus) while I picked up the ticket. That was the first way in which I nearly missed the bus.

The second way in which I nearly missed the bus was because I had to catch a bus from my house into town to catch the other bus up to Launceston, and it was late. This meant that I didn't have very long at all to get from the bus stop at one end of Hobart to the bus stop at the other end of Hobart. This directly links in with the third way in which I nearly missed the bus- they moved the Redline bus terminal without telling me! Thankfully they only moved it a few doors away from where it was before.

I got there just exactly when the bus was supposed to leave and met reason number 4 that I nearly missed the bus-my name wasn't on the manifest. I would have been extremely offended by this but there were another 6 people who weren't on there either. There were enough seats for us all, and we all had tickets, but for some reason the computer had just decided to cancel us all off the manifest. After several minutes of discussion between the bus driver and the manager they decided they would let us all on the bus and update the manifest in Launceston.

So eventually I made it on to the bus. And about 3 hours later I was finally in Mum's car on the way home.

Friday and Saturday were both normal days at Mum and Dad's- enjoyable but not really anything to write about.

On Sunday, Clinton was being annoying and didn't come with us to Gladstone, but Robert and Moose (who had both arrived at Mum and Dad's the night before) did. Well, actually I came with them- Rob was driving. He is still furry, yuck!

We got up to Gladstone (about 2 hours drive) in time for the beginning of the last ever Southern Presbyterian Church service in Gladstone. We are retiring the preaching station because our preachers have all retired : ) We took some photos of the historic moment and the pretty old church and went on to Tommahawk for a picnic lunch. I forgot to mention that it was ridiculously windy at Gladstone (almost couldn't stand up), but it was a little less ridiculous at Tommahawk (I keep accidentally typing Tommawhak). Then we finished the 2 hour drive back to Mum and Dad's just in time to see them and Uncle Nathan and Auntie Julie (apparently they had been having a party without us) leave in time to be late for the afternoon Church service. Walking in the door we discovered Clinton (the annoying one) spending some quality time with our TV (apparently he had been part of the party as well).

Anywho, Moose and I decided we should pack up and head back down to Hobart. I had been wondering if we were both a little insane volunteering to be stuck in a car together for the long drive down south because we have managed to have arguments in a 5 minute car trip down the road. But we didn't have any fights at all- we were far too busy complaining about the wonderful skills of all the other drivers on the road to complain about each other- that and the uselessness of all the little towns along the way (Campbelltown is not useless for example, but Perth is because you never want to stop there but you have to slow down for the speed limit).

Moose did, however, make the fatal mistake of letting me out of the car at Campbelltown to buy coffee and I don't think the caffeine has worn off yet...