Just for once it would be nice to actually sleep the night before travel day. Unless we're heading off at 11 am or later, I invariably sleep badly, if at all, the night before we travel - be it from one side of the world to the other - or just an early departure and a 3 hour train ride to the Blue Mountains. Tired or not, having clung to our neighbourhood for almost 2 months, it was nevetheless superb to be on the go once more.

Whilst Mount Victoria is a high point in the mountains at all of 1100m, theoretically altitude sickness isn't possible - and yet, possibly due to big trip up on almost no sleep, I felt utterly rubbish the next day. Having copped altitude sickness in Park City, Utah and also in Cuzco, Peru - we both know the signs. If in doubt, lie down, relax, do nothing and wait for it to pass - which it did of course.

We invested in membership at Mt Vic Flicks for this extended stay as $11 tickets are so much better than $13... and the discounted choc tops at the candy bar were gravy - fancy two adult tickets and two icecreams for only $27. Well worth it. First movie we caught was Penguin Bloom - Australian and very sweet. Neither of us can look at magpies the same way again

Our movie membership paid off again on Valentine's Day when we trundled over for an anniversary screening of Breakfast at Tiffanys - including a coupe of bubbles and heart shaped chocolates. Add in the fact that neither of us had ever seen this classic movie and it was a splendid outing altogether.

Early in the new week, Tuesday 15th, it was finally clear that the housesit would continue to completion. We had been on tenterhooks until our owners made it safely to Tasmania and had their feet on the ground. When it was confirmed, we could finally do some grocery and booze shopping (yippee!) We had a day trip down the hill to Leura and Katoomba, including Chinese for lunch in Leura. Seriously old school. We both felt it was a mind flip into the time slip... the restaurant has been open since the 1980s and nothing has ever changed. The weather was all over the place in the time we walked around Leura - rainy and cool to sunny to hot and back to rainy and cool. In this case, four seasons in one place. We explored the thrift store offerings between Leura and Katoomba and found a hand-painted, four panel silk screen from China at the Cat's League. We weren't 100% sure about it, so bought some homemade lime marmalade and put the screen on the mental back-burner. We were amused by the house-label for the marmalade 'Grabbit & Runn' - having seen a cat haul a steak off a benchtop - we get it. Hmmm. Thought about the screen overnight - we're not prone to impulse decisions - in fact, thinking about a purchase for 24 hours or so is our equivalent of an instant purchase. We had been looking for a piece that resonated to put over our bed - this was definitely it. The following day we trundled back to Katoomba and took the plunge - luckily the had a great big plastic bag to protect it from, you guessed it, the rain. Really loving the climate though - on average 7 degrees lower than in Sydney - and cool, crisp nights - doona weather - pretty rare for us these days.

In the usual course of affairs, housesits don't change once underway. House - same, pet - same, owners - same. This time around we were asked to take on a new addition while family members moved house, so we acquired a kitty cat just a few days into the sit. We love cats and weren't bothered - can't entirely say the same for the incumbent, Clancy. Not a huge fan of cats as it turned out and no fan at all of young Gnocchi who had a lot of investigative spirit - and treated interfering with Clancy and his business as a feline Olympic sport. Once Gnocchi was installed into her new quarters, we went for a scenic drive to Lithgow and enjoyed fish & chips at Hassans Walls lookout. 1000% nicer than when we visited on the 10th - cooler, no bugs, very little sun. Just perfect.

The end of the week saw some serious shopping success. We've been hunting online for small, ceramic Chinese garden stools to use as side/end tables for our sofa. It took quite the journey through coffee tables and side tables to figure out the exact 'small tables' that we wanted, but we finally got there. We saw a pair of handpainted ones in Leura. $850 each. Ridiculous. Presumably handpainted by vestal virgins on the side of an Italian mountain during a lunar eclipse for that price - and then shipped here in a first class suite. Nice, but ridculous. We figured that the little antiuqe shop here in Mount Victoria would probably have what we wanted. And 'lo - right out the front, there it was. Good price and we tucked it under an arm and walked it back to the house - now sitting next to our silk screen ready for the trip down to Sydney to pick up Joan in a couple of weeks.

Having joined the local movie loyalty club, we were determined to get our money's worth. Our next movie adventure was 'The Bagnold Summer' on the Friday night - easier to justify the 2 small choc tops when it can be termed 'dessert'. Very happy that the walk home takes about 3 minutes. Feels strange to even be out at night in these Covid times - glad we didn't have far to go.

In this part of the world, between bush fires last year and then Covid, a great many businesses seem to open just on weekends - and even then, blink and you'll miss them. On the off chance we wanted to visit any shops or fruit farms we figured we'd better head out on the Saturday - just to see the mountains at full tilt. 20 Feb saw us take a big(ish) drive - 2 hours at least. It was a glorious trip to Bilpin and wild white lilies were bursting into flower along all the verges. We bought honey from one farm, figs and apples at another. It had rained all week so the day was quite humid, but fine and quite warm indeed.

The warm humid weather continued into Sunday and we took Clancy for a long walk around the Mt Vic neighbourhood. We are holding out for cooler weather on Tuesday and the chance to enjoy a walk around Katoomba and Leura (and a Chinese lunch of course). Luckily (and averting disappointment), Tuesday did dawn rainy and cold. We revisited an emporium in Leura that we have christened 'the shop at the end of the universe' and James picked up a badge from Macau (visited in late 2005) and I found a shell etui/thimble box to add to my collection. I had two, with the third, it's officially a collection. Lunch was comfort food at the Chinese joint. Yum.

Mid week saw us visit Mt Vic Flicks for a French movie - a year or so old now, called 'Only the Animals' - insanely good - we talked about it for ages afterwards and have found it on French Netflix so will watch it again soon - beautifully crafted and hugely entertaining. Thursday brought with it more unsettled weather and there was a massive storm in the morning - huge, monstrous, ginormous.. Fined up at lunch time though and we took off for our weekly fish and chips in Lithgow (and investigated the thrift stores - a new pair of boots for me and some gold plated hoop earrings for a couple of dollars).

A bit like only skiing Monday to Friday when we were in Whistler, in the mountains it behoves us to visit lookouts during the week - weekends are scrumlike and that's just in the carparks. On Friday we went to Evan's Lookout for a coffee & cookie - wow - just stunning - and so easy to get to - only a short-ish, flat-ish walk from the carkpark. We followed it up with a cruise around Katoomba where I managed to buy some more winter boots - Australian made leather for only $10 - irresistable. We spent far too long walking around and ended up having very late lunch at 4 pm (!) and a snooze - all prior to going to a movie. With only eight of us in the cinema, it meant we didn't need to use a mask - lovely. Rosie - Roddy Doyle's Irish movie - Depressing beyond belief. Sad. Likely true. Not the Ireland we know and love. Enjoyed our choctops - had late dinner at 9.30 pm. Very continental.

With Joan arriving in a little over a week we made a determined start on a day of housework on the weekend - between Gnocchi and Clancy the house was already ankle deep in fur - no way it could go another week without serious seeing-to. We continued our exploration of local scenic lookouts on Tuesday and visited the Gordon Falls Reserve which had very practical man-made mud huts / hobbit huts - very handy on a hot day (and undoubtedly handy in pouring down rain). We had a fairly quiet week altogether. My long-suffering Osprey pack has been recently having intermittent trolley handle issues. I had a look online to see what the future damage would be to replace it (you know... before international travel launches into gear again) - and found one on sale. It was delivered up to the mountains just 3 days after I ordered it. We tested a new (to us) Chinese restaurant in Lithgow - best yet and this week's movie was 'The Nest' with Jude law. Yet another movie where it feels like it should just be starting when it reaches the end.

We broke our own rule on Saturday, just needed a change of scenery, so went for a drive to Leura. Pandemic? What pandemic? Crowds, nice buzz, checked out the CWA market, strolled around the shops. Truly find it hard to see a day like this and read the news coming in from the rest of the world - deaths, lockdowns, hospitals at breaking point. Leura on the other hand - queues for the gourmet kitchen at breaking point. Weird.

So here we are in April 2021. We've been back in Australia a little over a year and it looks like the government is aiming to have all Australians vaccinated by the end of October 2021. Yippee!!! Can't see it actually happening, but it seems better to live in hope than denial, so we booked some flights to Dublin for the end of October. We're tired of only seeing the airport concourse in Doha, so have booked a 19 hour connection in order to have a few hours in a hotel and then get a car and driver for the day and a tour of the city. That's the plan at least. We booked the perfect flights on Sunday 7 April and, WTAF... they were changed on Monday 8 April - to something like a 1 hour connection - which would be evil and almost impossible at the best of times in Doha airport - that place is huge! We gave AA a bell and rebooked to a few days later to get the same long connection. We have no doubt at all that it will change many more times in the space of 8 months. No point fretting at this stage - though we did have lovely seats booked. C'est la vie.

The rest of Monday passed in a blur of housework and packing (and more housework and more packing). We had a grand plan for Tuesday 9 April. Get up well before the crack of dawn (4.30 am ish?), load up the car with 90% of our stuff, plus the ceramic stool and the folding silk screen. Drive down to Sydney, specifically Darling Harbour to pick up three stunning Chinese stools bought on Gumtree then deliver our 4 stools, 1 screen and tonnes of luggage back to the apartment. Have breakfast and a snooze, buy some Thai takeaway to have a late lunch in the mountains, then head to the airport to collect Joan. We all know that plans never survive first contact with the enemy - the trip went well, the stools were even better than they looked online, we got everything unloaded without damage, we grocery shopped and had a cooked brekkie at our fave local cafe and completely ran out of time to have a well deserved snooze. Suffice it to say, by the time we collected Joan, drove up the mountains, had lunch at the Gordon Falls Lookout and eventually got to Mt Vic, it was around 4 pm - was much too long a day by the time the evening drew to a close. We slept like the dead. It was a resurrection worthy of Lazarus when we lurched out of bed the next morning.

Once up and at 'em, we drove to Govett's Lookout in Blackheath to showcase the stunning local views for Joan. Having been scoping out the many and varied thrift store offerings since we came up, we went on a shopping marathon throughout Katoomba (Serenity scented candle, a signed art glass paperweight by Edols & Elliott were the highlights) then off to Leura for a Chinese and home via Evans lookout. If there's one thing the Blue Mountains isn't short of, it's lookouts (and Chinese restaurants).

We were definitely running on empty by Thursday, so it was a perfect day to be driving up to Lithgow. We travelled via historic Hartley village, walked the high street, picked up fish and chips from the amazing Greek fish and chippy and then took Joan up to the Hassans Walls lookout before heading home via the very scenic route through Hartley Vale. Pretty sure an afternoon kip was involved upon our return but have no conscious memory of it.

Altogether it has been a superb stay in the mountains, however almost 6 weeks in the one spot has definitely been enough - especially with the weather still so warm. Our final day was (for a change) exhausting. We love our housesitting as it's meant we've been able (and will be able again) to see the world - and we have become expert housecleaners - but when it's a 4 bed house with 2 animals determined to moult their body weight in fur... 3 lots of bed linen and endless mopping... who'd a thunk the 3 hours home on the train would be the best rest ever. Still with the masks. Yay.

Finally back to base and we unpacked a bit, changed and headed off to local fave Thai joint - we were settled in and dining when the monsoon struck - luckily we were undercover - but wowee! That was some storm - soaked to the skin by the time we walked back around the corner. Gotta love a change in the weather!