By 6:30 this morning, we’d all roused ourselves from bed, got dressed, packed up the camper van and driven out the Melbourne Airport to meet Sarah’s parents as they arrived from the UK. You know how it is – you step off a long flight, and walk blearily through the terminal. But not for the Hirsts, as they arrived wide eyed and smiley after 27 hours in flight! How is this possible I hear you ask? Easy, you fly Business Class and enjoy your flight fast asleep in a seat which lies down into a 6” long totally flat bed. Hearing stories about Business Class luxury really made us look forward to our next Cattle Class flight – NOT.

Anyway, we all piled into the campervan, and dropped them off at their five-star hotel, and then went to the hostel which Sarah’s going to stay in while I’m dropping off the camper van. This is going to take me 3 days – because we’re in Melbourne, and the hire company’s office is in Sydney – 600 miles away. So while Sarah, the girls and her Mum and Dad enjoy time together in Melbourne, I’m going to be enjoying the equivalent of driving from Lands End to John O’Groats – and then coming back. Whoopee!

And then Sarah showed me the hostel she’d found for her three days alone. My jaw dropped (along with my many chins). Somehow she’d found a hostel which had two parts – one part smelly-dormitory-ville, and the other part Boutique-hotel – which is where she’d found a comfortable room, with inclusive continental breakfast, lounge with hi-fi, leather sofa’s – the works. (If you’re coming to Melbourne, then you too will want to stay in The Nunnery)

And off I go, driving the last few hundred miles in the camper van, realising who’d got the best deal. There’s something about being a Hirst (or nee Hirst) that means that luxury just falls into your lap (when your husband’s not looking!) PAH!

So I drove 400 miles before sunset, in the worst rain storms they’d had for three years, and slept in the Yass Council Caravan Park for £3 while rain hammered on the roof all night. In a freezing van. Double PAH!! (How many of you are smiling reading this?). But at least I got out of Melbourne before this happened (about 2 hours behind me) according to MSN: “Boats were used to rescue several motorists from the roofs of cars on the Eastern Freeway, while one man trapped in his flooded 4WD was saved by quick-thinking emergency service volunteers.“