This was supposed to be the day on which we flew out of Melbourne, but unexpected events have disrupted the start of the barging year for us. In early May, Rita’s 96 year old Dad, Frank, passed away after an accident involving a fall on steps at the Bern railway station. A fractured scull and brain bruising put him in hospital, where he died a couple of days later. Rita had already changed her flight plans to go to Bern to be with him, but received news of his passing a few minutes before we left the house to go to the airport. In retrospect, it was lucky that she found out then, rather than when she next checked her email while in transit at Singapore Airport. Frank held a special place in our hearts, as an inspiration for not using age as an excuse to stop doing what you enjoy. He also played a special role in our barging life, as he was on Kanumbra on the first day that we went solo in 2011. Rest in peace, Frank.

With Rita gone early, I was left at home to do renovations and painting of our house, in preparation for a potential sale while we are away. While I was confident/hopeful of getting everything done by the end of May, some unexpected complications and wet weather (which prevented me from doing outside painting) meant that as the day of departure approached, I was still nowhere near finished. I had given up any hope of selling, and so with only a week to go, I went to see our estate agent to tell her that we would wait until we returned in September. However, she told me that the market for our type of property (mountain views, river frontage) was strong, and that we should still consider listing if I could get it in a reasonable condition. With this encouragement, I returned to the fray with renewed enthusiasm and determination. But enthusiasm and determination can only get you so far, and with 36 hours to go before the flight, I was sitting in the partly-painted loungeroom crying with frustration - so near, yet so far. It was at that time that I heard a radio interview with one of the players in my football team (Hawthorn) explaining that the melanoma he had removed from his lip last year (before playing in our winning Grand Final team) had returned and spread to other parts of his body, requiring a more intensive 12 month period of treatment. He was therefore going to have to change his assumptions about when he would return to football after the knee operation from which he was recovering. It was then that I realised my problems were not so bad at all, and that we often create problems for ourselves by assuming unrealistic deadlines for certain events. So, I decided to try and delay my flight by a week, in order to get the painting completed. I jumped on the phone to the Singapore Airlines service desk, and an hour later I had a flight one week later for a modest fee of a couple of hundred dollars (a small cost, considering the value of selling our house over winter).

So another frantic week of repairs, construction and painting saw me moving the last piece of furniture back into place (after pulling an all-nighter on the final night) as a friend drove up the driveway to take me to Lilydale railway station to start my journey to Moissac.