A rundown in brief

• When we left for the airport, we were still stressed from rushing to organise ourselves and a recently uber-defiant Miss 2.4. Oh the joys. The stress will just wash off when we're on the plane, we said to ourselves. It didn't. It kind of fell away the most it was going to only the day before our final day.

• At the terminal, we realised why Tiger Air is called No Frills. It was really rather putrid, to be honest. But I still couldn't really understand why people call these sorts of setups cow sheds or tin sheds. If it was a portable building, it was hard to notice.

• Browsing for a magazine to take on board, the overly simpering store attendant complimented me on my neck pendant. Standing at the counter being served to buy my trashy mag, the guy says my necklace is beautiful. Thanks, I reply. It's really stylish, he continues, adds to your sense of style. Buddy, I want to point out, I am standing in a tin shed out the back of Melbourne Airport because I'm flying a tincan airline because I'm a tightarse. Does that smack of style to you? Enough about the necklace already! (can you tell I take compliments kinda poorly?)

• We got all the way to our destination without any real hitch. Had to collect the keys from the rental office a few suburbs away but it was on our way. No dramas. Get into the (Fort Bloody Knox and that was with a keypass) carpark and someone's parked in our bay. Great. So we hastily park in one close to it, scribble a note and leave on our dashboard saying something about moving first thing in the a.m. Get in the lift. The LGBB fading fast. It has been a massive day for her and no arvo sleep to break it up. We can't go any higher in this lift than ground floor. HUH?? Get out of the lift, walk around outside in the dark, completely disoriented, and realise there are two towers to this complex. Ah. Steve goes and investigates. The LGBB and I distract ourselves (she from her desperate need to sleep and me from my desperate need to pee) by making friends with a local cockroach that scuttled past. What is it with Queensland and the cockroaches, pray tell? Eugh.

• Finally find our room after much flailing and faffing about. Fall into bed and promptly drift to sleep.

• Wake up time on the Gold Coast is 5.30am! Thanks to an exciting "holiday bedroom" and the lightest of sunlight beams streaming in the room (even with heavy drapes, it seeps in around the edges). Yes, the LGBB woke us every single morning at 0530 hours so we learned from day 1 to go to bed straight after her and were in bed by 9pm every night. Which kinda cut the night short for any decent Mummy Daddy Adult Time.

• Speaking of Mummy and Daddy... we have made one big decision whilst away. We're going to call ourselves by our first names when talking to each other from now on. We began while still in Southport and it's already begun to make a difference to our frazzled and challenged relationship. Hearing my name from the person I am in partnership with, rather than being referred to by That Name I so often hear (and so often have to ignore because it's said about 1,497 times any given day... before lunch), is refreshing and seems to be separating the Mum me from the Me me.

• Gloria Jeans in Australia Fair was looking to hire a store supervisor. And boy, did they need one. Took nearly ten minutes to get my coffee and there was only one order ahead of mine. Gahhhhd. It's only coffee! It's not a sponge cake you're making there, love. Snappy, snappy. Urgh.

• Friday night was girls' night out, which consisted of me and some very dear Brisbanite friends catching up for hours straight over dinner - how quaint was the restaurant... it was kind of like the Fawlty Towers of the food world, the way they served us dry toast (yes, toast, and just plain ordinary white bread toast) with three plops of dip for our starter. And then broke a glass over me and in my bag. And fumbled over, well, virtually everything (perhaps the girl was new... hey, perhaps she was dazzled by my necklace), before closing up at 10 o'clock - must be a Qld thing - and leaving us outside sitting in our chairs in the semi dark! Nobody even came over to advise they'd be closing soon. Perhaps they thought we'd get the hint when they stacked some of the chairs around us (some, not all, oddly). It was funny. That is, until spiders and leaves and geckoes and drop-bears n' shit started falling down all over and around us *shuuuuuuddder*

• We went to Currumbin Sanctuary. A MUST if you're up on the Gold Coast and have very small kidlets. It's an interactive native furry (and feathered and scaly) animal day.

• We did two of The Worlds. Seaworld (which the LGBB rechristened Sesame Street) and Dreamworld (a great day out with friends we caught up with whilst there - more on that in my next post). I don't think I've ever delighted so much in sharing new experiences with Lolly than those days, possibly because I've been torn about my feelings towards her these past few weeks as she's changing and challenging and stretching her boundaries with me (us). So it was beautiful to see her face lit up like a beacon and thoroughly enjoying herself.

• At the end of the trip, I found out why these cheap airlines get their "tinshed" name. We were literally carralled into a carport lined with chain fencing to collect our baggage. While waiting for the carousel to start up (an agonising wait, isn't it? It just. Won't. Start. Spinning those bags around! Teasers), Steve leaned against the fence, arm above head, nightclub pickup style, and said to me, "So, how long have you been here in detention?" I nearly wet my pants.