I’ve recently come across this saying which I think would be perfect for a sticker on our campervan. Not that we necessarily travel slowly, but sometimes we are well under the speed limit, for example, when driving down a steep hill in driving rain, and it might make other drivers smile instead of getting too exasperated. We don’t have our call sign on the van which means that truck drivers don’t know they can contact us. The difficulty in pulling off to let a truck by is that you have to slow down to get off the road, and it would be unwise to do that without giving them notice of the slow down. Owing to trucks having a much longer braking period that mere cars.

We’ve had a few days out for picnics in our campervan, plus a very nice evening walk at Tomato Lake.

I’ve taken photos, but it wasn’t until we had a picnic day at Pt Walter that we struck it lucky with a pretty amazing sunset. I’m on a Facebook group with other Perth photographers and other were posting their photos of the sunset and I put one of my photos up as well.

It was Tuesday 21st July and the weather was supposed to be fine, with a maximum over 20C, which seemed ideal for a picnic. We hadn’t been to Pt Walter in a long while. When we arrived in the late morning there was a cold north easterly breeze and persistent grey skies, which didn’t auger well for an enjoyable day. The wind dropped later in the afternoon, but the skies continued to be grey and it felt rather humid. Still, we stuck around, just in case, and were rewarded with a deep orange sunset with a cloud dividing the sky and wonderful relflections on the river.

The image at the top of this post was taking looking out over the spit with a lovely curving path. Others were taken from a jetty and have some beautiful firey reflections.

We’ve had a busy time lately with buying new clothes for Mum. She is suffering from fluid retention, unusual for her, and needed new trousers and slippers to accommodate the swelling. We had a guess on sizes and return things that didn’t fit, plus taking up hems.

We’ve been a couple of times to standing concerts at Government House. The concerts are free, but we have to book. The singers are all young, upcoming stars, and have varying levels of voices. It’s interesting, but not always enjoyable. Each little concert runs for 15 minutes, with a 15 minute break before the next one. We thought we might be busy this Friday morning, but when we found out we were free we booked in. We could only get into one concert, but will go in time for the earlier one because there is often extra room. We stand 1.5 metres apart and Stephen and I wear masks.

I’ve also had a lot of my mind with Matt’s transfer to NDIS funding. I am supposed to just be his contact person, but have found that this has involved a lot of calls and decision making on my part. We also had to work out what he wants to do for his Opportunities program. There are four categories of activities, the names of which obviously make sense to the people doing the planning, but which are a bit confusing for the rest of us.

I spent time working out a plan and on Sunday when he came to lunch Matt and I went through it and made amendments. One of the things he enjoys is when staff involve him in household chores. I thought he might like to use some of his funding for ‘household chores’ but he nipped that one in the bud! Thinking about it this morning I realise that, like the rest of us, he has been in a lockdown for quite a few months and just wants to be able to go out. So far, I haven’t had any feedback on his choices, but hope to hear about it soon.

At this stage I’m very pleased with his funding allocation and it seems to have all bases covered. However, we have yet to see how it works in practice.

Another issue is that the horn on our Fiat doesn’t work and a part was ordered from Italy by the previous owners. Six months later it has arrived, but we had to go to Rockingham to have it fixed. We booked in for a service in Welshpool prior to going to Rockingham and on our next picnic outing, the horn started to sound at odd intervals, totally out of our control. We assumed that the way to stop it sounding off was to take out the fuse. We couldn’t get the toolbox out and phoned the RAC. It got dark whilst we were waiting and we were able to have a snack to keep us going, the campervan advantage in action. The RAC man was pleased that we had identified the location of the particular fuse which he easily removed.

We had a pleasant day in Rockingham, but the Fiat dealer was unable to fix the problem. Turned out that it wasn’t a problem with the part, it’s a wiring issue. We have now booked the van in at Welshpool this Monday for repair. Fingers crossed that they will be able to fix it. This is a warranty issue and doesn’t cost us anything but our time.