Slow locals, suicidal birds, a wedding and a whole lotta driving

My cousins wedding was this weekend, in Bright!

I am absolutely wrecked now and have driven about 700Kms since setting out yesterday morning at 7:30. My first order of the day was to collect my brother from the Airport as he was flying in from the Gold Coast. I pulled to the side of the road just before the turn off and in a stroke of brilliant timing about 30 seconds later baby brother called to say he had disembarked. I shot around to arrivals, grabbed him from the bus stop and we hit the open road.

I am not a very good traveller due to my tendency to get bored very quickly, you know it is going to be a long trip when the driver starts chanting “are we there yet? are we there yet? are we there yet?”, and yes, I was the driver

Got to Bright at about mid day and after some mucking around found mum, little sister and her fiance. Apparently in a coffee shop opposite a bakery, do you know how many bakeries there are in Bright!? A mad dash for the 2 bedroom unit we were staying in as 5 people tried to get ready in under an hour. We get to the ceremony just before 2pm and to my stunned surprise discover that my cousin, in her infinite wisdom had decided that an outdoor wedding, IN BRIGHT, AT THE END OF AUTUMN was a GOOD idea Ok, not quite outdoor, but in a very drafty gazebo type affair, so we sat there, knees a knockin’ and teeth a chatterin’ hoping like hell that the bride would suspend with the traditional late arrival. It wasn’t to be and the ceremony did not get underway until 2:45pm, 45 minutes late, aghhhhhhh.

Anyway, a weddings a wedding, it was all very nice, mum and aunty bawled, champagne was consumed, rose petals thrown and bridesmaids dresses bitched about. The reception was at Brown Brothers and was a highlight as the food was the best I had ever had at a Wedding.

However the venue had a stone floor, I was wearing very high heels for the first time in ages (and a rather fabulous dress I might add, though in black) and the legs were definitely not up for boogying the night away. As a result I did spend most of the time on my butt after a token dance with my brother and brother-in-law to be. A rather large contingent of very sweet boys and assorted male relatives kept trying to get me to dance, while I repeatedly said that rather than being a sad little spinster type character that needed looking after that in fact I was very happy sitting down and wasn’t able to dance because I was looking after my poor battered legs. Never mind that fact that even without Stress Fractures I am an appalling dancer anyway. One guy, whom I didn’t know, must have been on the grooms side, said that it was the worst excuse he had ever heard, sorry mate, lame as it may have sounded, it was still true.

After renacting my childhood and sharing a room with my brother (but I got the top bunk after my brother fell asleep passed out, on the bottom bunk) I was up early(ish), grabbed a rather good take away coffee and hit the road on my lonesome to head home. Brother, Sis and her finance were on the same flight home so I didn’t have to go via the airport.

I had never done such a long journey alone and until I hit the traffic lights in Lilydale it was a pretty pleasant trip. Some pretty funny road signs in the county though, my two faves, “Mind Slow Local Vehicles” (as opposed to Mind Slow Locals) and “Trees Close to Road”. As far as I am aware Trees are not in the habit of jumping randomly into on coming traffic, but maybe country trees are, who knows, luckily none of them bothered me. There were plenty of suicidal birds though, Galahas in particular seemed especially thrill seeking.

Bright was beautiful though, as always. And here it is, I had my first little cry driving home, it was a cool drizzly morning, the mountains looked stunning, I was tired and emotional and was thinking how absolutely perfect it would have been to head out for a long run and have a good explore before driving home Hopefully one day I will be able to get back and maybe spend some time at Falls Creek, that would be perfect.

Rambled on enough now, I have so much to get done now.

Monday sees the start of my intensive “Keep Em fit while injured” plan, I have some stuff planned for this blog to document my come back, starting tomorrow, stay tuned……….