Kinglake Australia

I managed to get a cold about 24 hours before I left Bangkok so had to fly with a stuffed up head and chest. I travelled well equipped with medication so it wasn't too bad. I had a 5-hour wait in Ho Chi Minh City on the way here. Interesting airport: you can buy everything from jewelery to designer leather jackets to souvenirs to high end perfumes and cosmetics, but you can't buy a book. Not one piece of literature in the entire building. I guess communism has a stronger hold there than anywhere else I've encountered. My decision to wait and buy a new book at the airport turned out to be ill-advised. I finished my other one on the flight from Bangkok and am still without anything to read. It feels like I've lost my right arm.

Brian met me at the airport with his daughter, Sienna, and we came back to his place. He lives about an hour outside Melbourne in a lovely bungalow in the country. It's almost like being at home for me, except they're in a bad drought at the moment so it's incredibly dry. And no lake in the front yard. That afternoon I managed to catch a nap while he went to pick his son, Jayden, up at school. The kids will be with us until Sunday afternoon and will then go to their mom's. Unfortunately Brian got a call that afternoon demanding that he work next week from Monday to Friday. Someone had just walked in and quit, and given they are so short-handed because of all the fires burning at the moment there is nobody else they could call. It means that he'll spend Christmas in a fire tower. I haven't decided yet what I'll do on Christmas and through the week - I'll spend some time today trying to figure that out. He has some plans for us for the weekend both with and without the kids so we'll do our celebrating then.

Today (Friday) I'm just trying to catch up on some sleep and trying to lick this cold. He has left me a car so I may get out and about a bit to explore the area. Of course this came with the warning that there's a lethally poisonous tiger snake living near where he parks the car, so I'm afraid to leave the house much less get into the car!