I'm BAAAAA-CK!

A comment from Ling two days ago reminded me that I've been very quiet of late. Whoops.

I'm just over two weeks away from my big Swedish sojourn. Despite having known about it for 6 months it seems to have crept up on me rather suddenly. All of a sudden I've gifts to buy, things to plan, handover documents at work to write and friends to see before I disappear for 2 months. Oh, and did I mention that for various reasons I've been interstate for the past three weekends? The poor blog ends up being a bit neglected.

But never fear! I - and my ego - cannot stay away for long.

Last weekend the whole family went to Sydney for my cousin's wedding. As the extended family lives all over Australia, it was the first time that we had all been in the one place for almost 12 years.

Between the ceremony and the reception Tom and I had everyone back to our hotel room for drinks. It isn't that we're supremely generous beings - more that the ghost of Conrad Hilton was smiling on us and we were upgraded to a suite (sweet!). We had more than enough room for the 18 family members in need of thirst quenching.

And quench thirst we did. By the time we left for the reception, it looked like the room had been used as the green room for a rock concert rather than for a family reunion. Empty champagne bottles and remnants of doritos littered the coffee table, bags of ice slowly melted in the bathtub and the contents of the mini bar had been deposited in the coat cupboard so as to keep a dozen lemon ruskis cool.

It was fantastic. We reminisced, we told jokes and we all gagged on the trick flavour jelly bellys Anna thought it would be fun to try.

Evidently Tom fit right in as I was swiftly sidelined by my three female cousins and asked when we were getting married. Sigh. But the best was yet to come.

Brave on a few Boags, my Catholic grandfather sidelined me.

Him: Oi. When am I going to get some great grandchildren?
Me: Splutter cough cough. Erm, why don't you ask Dan? You know, your grandson who got
married today?
Him: Well, I'm talking to you now. When are you and him (nods in Tom's direction) going to
have some?
Me: Gramps, Tom and I aren't married. Nor are we going to be any time soon.
Him: You can always get married later. Come on, I'm not getting any younger!
Me: Shocked silence

Later in the evening he sidled up to me and told me he was sorry about what he'd said earlier. Of course, he'd prefer it if Tom and I were married before we have kids, but he doesn't mind if we never get married. Really.

This is the man who still goes to church every Saturday and has a giant - quite gruesome actually - picture of Jesus with a bleeding, barbed-wired heart opposite his front door. The man who held back permission to marry his daughter until my Anglican-raised father swore that they would marry in a Catholic church and the kids would be raised Catholic. And all of a sudden he's encouraging me to go get knocked up without so much as a ring?

Bob Dylan had it right. The times, they are a'changing.