60th Birthday and Blue Mountains trip

 Hi all!

Can you guess what I am doing today? I am turning 60! Right this minute in fact.

Turning and turning until I’m all 60ified. By midnight I’ll be all done. 

It’s quite something this moment. Apparently if you and your spouse make it to 60, at least one of us has a 90 % chance of making it to 90, according to our Superannuation expert. So now Cris and I fight it out?

I remember turning 50 and it felt super old. Almost older than this to be honest. I’ve got used to being semiretired and menopausal and all the ailments starting to creep up. It doesn’t feel nice, but I’ve got a bit used to putting myself in the older bracket now. I think menopause really changes things, duh!

The fun part of today has been receiving a flute. I used to play quite well as a teenager, and then it was put on the back burner while I learnt the violin which I received for my 21st (notice a trend here?)

So now I get to revisit old times like an old timer does. It’s amazing how much it has stayed in my fingers.

I managed to get through the whole first book in one day, reminding myself how all the notes are played. And now I just have to become better at moving between them. My emboucher could use a little work!

Now to the Blue Mountains.

Aiden and I went off for a jaunt a few weeks ago, so I thought it would be nice to record the moment for posterity in the old blog.

I’m not sure how I will choose the photos to show because it was one of those times when you couldn’t take an ugly shot.

We stayed in a cute BnB, with leadlight doors to the kitchen (which blocked the front door, but who’s counting?)

Super cute overgrown garden (Aiden looks happy to have arrived)

Built in verandahs with mad vintage items

A toilet and bathroom down stairs. I felt like I was making a great dramatic entry every time.

And cute little ‘Adventure Island’ chairs, (as we used to call them after a favourite TV show), sitting on a pint sized verandah overlooking the bush.

While there we spent our first day at ‘The Three Sisters’. It has grown dramatically in tourist numbers since I was last there. I can’t say I enjoyed that part of it, but the scenery can’t be faulted.

We climbed down some very steep stairs to explore the first ‘Sister’. Pushing past people on a steep precipice with a back pack on is not my idea of fun. We decided to leave and move on to other areas, where we found some quieter but no less enjoyable beauty.

On our way home we explored Wentworth Falls from a lovely lookout we had all to ourselves, just arriving when people we were leaving, and leaving when people were arriving. Such a treat to feel all that majesty in silence. We may or may not have carved our initials in the railing paint. Amazing we could find a blank spot!

The next day we headed off down the end of our street to explore the pathway in our local ravine behind the house. I thought we would take 20 minutes but we arrived home three hours later!

But what views we had. We could have happily just done our local valley and called it a successful holiday.

And with that we were on our way home again.

A swift break from our daily routines which we plan to repeat throughout the year, introducing Aiden to the wider world. (At least the world we can fit in between trampoline lessons)

Til next time,

Keep on creating!

Love,

Jazzy Jack