As you can see from the location of this post, I'm back home. Again I will have to convey to you two days in one as time has been tricky.

Yesterday morning was rather non eventful . Chilling at B&Ps place.... Did my washing, worked out what I was wearing for the next two days and attempted to pack the rest.

The idea to revisit the RC Grand Prix arose. But alas Bernard was having charging problems with his newer car.... So that put the kibosh on that.... We'll sort of.... The car I was using was working well so...... Playing chasey with the dog and the car became my entertainment. Well until I found how well the car did circle work on the gravel. Messed around with that for a while, while Bernard took his car back to the shop....

Once bored with the car.... Well the battery was dying anyway. I messed around with the virtual world again. I visited Egypt, Rome, some South Pacific islands. I even finally found Uluru. Mum had once said she would have loved to go and see Uluru. I tried a couple of times to convince her to take a trip with me and go see it but she always came up with the same reply. " I'm too old for that now!" She would say . Well now maybe I can take her to Uluru, be it only virtually. It's the best I can do for my Ol' mum. A hell of a lot cheaper too, mind you. Lol.

Bernard returned while I was surfing the net and facebooking. Well trying to but nodding off for a second or two every other minute. We had made the mistake of staying up late last night, watching a movie on Netflix, the Martian. Not a bad movie. A little far fetched in some places... And other places I missed completely, again nodding off. It must be an old age thing.... Well I am turning 48 soon, only two years off a half century.

The plan for this evening was to go to the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. That was the whole reason for the trip east in the first place. The idea was to get ready, pick Phoenix up from work then make our way to the stadium.

As I think I have mentioned previously B&Ps house is a fair way out of the centre of Melbourne . if we were going to make it in time I needed to start getting my shit together. Shit,shower, but we were going to leave out the shave. And then throw the glad rags on.

I had finally got all the items of apparel I wanted to wear sorted in my head. It had only taken me the complete week. I Kept changing my mind... I had a rough plan, Then I bought the waistcoat. So ideas changed. I was contemplating wearing shorts at one stage.... Then I bought the Docs.... Ideas changed again.

Gee and they say women are bad..... In my defence I was brought up by my mother with limited male input..... And what's wrong with wanting to look good and caring about your appearance.... Rant over.

Dressed up, pimped up, beard waxed ( only way to keep it in control), hair up and in the car. It didn't take us as long as anticipated to reach the event. Ok there were a couple of navigational hiccups.. But we got there, and early . Ok, dinner, we discussed looking for somewhere to eat out side the stadium or just try our luck with stadium food. Stadium food won, but we thought it best to find our seats first. So we found our way to our seats, climbing what seamed like a million steep stairs in the process. Almost to the roof we found them. It was very high up. Well what do you want for cheap seats? You could see the whole arena from here, and the angle was such that you were looking down diagonally so we would be able to see most things at once. The only problem I can fathom was the players may be too small to clearly see from such a distance.

It reminded me of once when I was young. Mum had taken me to the Perth Entertainment centre to see ABBA. ( probably my first ever concert, now I think of it) I remember I had a brand new camera, I had gotten for my birthday. I had insisted in taking it along so I could photograph the band. I must have taken a whole roll of film. ( for those not old enough to remember . Cameras used to use film. It came in rolls and you had to wind on each frame as you took the photos. So unlike today's multiple photos in a split second all digitally recorded)

Anyway I had taken almost a whole roll of photos. The problem was that we were quite away up the rows of seats... And when I got the film developed ( that was what we had to do to get the photos. Send the film away and about a week or two later you could go pick up your photos, printed on photo paper. Yes I know sounds prehistoric compared to today's instantaneous gratification.) when I got the photos back all I could see was a big area of black, with a tiny smudge of colour in the centre which apparently was ABBA performing.

Once we had found our seats it was time to go hunting for some dinner. Back down the million stairs to the concourse and the food outlets. There was not much variety... And to my dismay very little to no resemblance of even vegetarian options let alone vegan . It is a glorified football oval I suppose. The usual slop served. Meat pies, hot dogs... Junk food, etc. I did find some hot chips.... That would have to do. So with hot chips in hand I traversed the million stairs for a second time to my seat and sat consuming my kill, overlooking the vast arena that lay out before me.

It was getting closer to kick off ( well it is a footy oval) and we still hadn't seen any sign of Emma and her date. I had made sure I gave Emma her tickets before I left her place in Albury. As trying to meet up outside somewhere in all the crowds, I envisioned to be a nightmare. Just then I received a text from her.. They were still on their way, almost here. Good. ( they actually arrived 45 minutes into the performance... Apparently they also had navigational hiccups)

He tattoo started on-time. The view was fine. My worries about distance were not as bad as imagined. If anything being high was an advantage as looking down on the performance enabled you to see more . Things like the poor dressing of the federation guard. Their rear rank was like a Mexican wave. Oops I let the drill instructor in my out.... Sorry. In all honesty though the drill and bearing of the Australian forces did pale in comparison to the other nations. It was a little embarrassing.

The tattoo had a very Australian flavour to it. More so than I expected. I wanted to hear the pipes and drums and wrap myself in the pomp and circumstance of it all. I think that's what I liked most about the airforce cadets... The tradition and the regimentation. It's also probably why it was so easy to leave as a lot of that has been watered down over the years. The politically correct crowd has enforced their ways onto the services and in the process we had lost a lot of what had made the organisation good in the first place.

Anyway. All in all it was an enjoyable performance. Culminating in the best part of the tattoo. The Lone Piper, standing high on the castle ramparts, bringing the event to a poignant conclusion, then the majority of the cast vacating the field leaving the glorious pipes and drums to end the night .

Well I can say I have achieved one thing off the bucket list, seeing the Edinburgh tattoo. I think it's only a half tick though as it was very australianized, if that's a word. I still would like to travel to Scotland and see the "real" Edinburgh Tattoo.

We made our way home after bidding Emma and her beau goodbye. I never did get his name... They probably said it but it didn't stick. He was a nice enough fellow.

Home and bed were the plan. To make it to the airport in the morning on time ( my flight was 09:15) we decided we needed to be leaving by 06:30 at the least. That meant getting up at about 05:30 to get dressed and set to go. {and that's 02:30 Perth time} so quick sorting and packing of all items not needed in the morning tie the hair up and hit the sheets.


Monday morning

Well alarm did its job. I was up dressed and packed by 6 am. We were in the car and on out way by 06:30 just as planned. First stop to drop off.a very tired Phoenix to work. As she had left her car at work last night to go with us to the tattoo.

The rest of the ride to the airport seemed to take forever.... My bladder started asking me too hurray up about 10 minutes out... We seemed to catch every red light.... And at each minute my bladder got more desperate. Finally Bernard dropped me at the departure terminal. I bid him a quick farewell and hurried off to the bathroom.

Boarded and settled into my seat for the next 3 hours. Flight was unremarkable. Walked out of the terminal at Perth and did the bus hustle to collect the car. One bus from T2 to t3 then the second to the long term car park. It wasn't long before I was walking into the front door of home and being greeted by an extremely happy poodle.

Hung around a while chilling, waiting for mum and the girls to get home. Got to a point when I needed to go to work, so drove down to where mum was getting her injections said my howdy dos and then legged it for work. I am now sitting typing the end of this blog. It has made it to 11:52, I've been awake for just over 21 hours.... So I think this is a good point to sign off... Until the next holiday. Ttfn.