Got through the night. New day. "Pack eat, go, eat" i remembered Yeshua saying, in another first century document, "I have food to eat, that you have no knowledge of"
Very cold again at times. Had to jog much of the way. A muesli bar every ~3 km.
Bit of a lull enabled a toilet stop, then rain again. How good to have that break.
A couple of phone calls. Family and close friends are a bit concerned. It's forecast to snow (in Orange?) tomorrow. I said if I can't get a warm bed, and a good meal at Gooloogong tonight (& same for Canowindra tomorrow night), I'll let them come and pick me up. I'll just have to come back to the point where I finish, to keep going.
Walking in the cold and wet provides a good time to sing and recite, and think about that doc I'm trying to meditate on. You have to think of something else, otherwise you shrink inside and feel worse & worse.
Arrived in Gooloogong around 2. Drizzling, biting cold wind. The Pub's new hours: open 4pm Mon-Wed. 12noon other days. Went round the back. Everything was locked. Then a car drove in and a young man got out, and when asked, said Yup, they do still have accomodation, he'd get his mother who was in charge.
His mother came with her man whom she introduced as Peter. Yep, they were on the way up to get the room ready, and dinner was on from 6pm.
So, as I waited I heard some banging from the kitchen (not open for lunch today) that sounded like meat being tenderized. When the key came, I saw 3 hamburgers through the kitchen door. There was a place to hide the trolley, the jug in the kitchenette upstairs had been boiled, there was a nice big heater in the room, and when I asked nicely, they even made me a hamburger with the lot, to match their own lunch. What legends! Thanks.
.
So, shower, rest on floor with feet on bed.
A young mate who lives about 100km from here rang while I was waiting for the key. He's going to drive over and join me for dinner at the Gooloogong Hotel at 6pm. How good eh?
And an old friend from Canowindra just talked with me on the phone. His family now live out of town, but they can take me out home, and I think I've got dinner with them(?), a spot for my sleeping bag on a lounge, and they can drop me back the next morning. Great! I should be able to start then, and when a friend from Orange catches me on the road they'll take my trolley back to Orange for me, and if my wife is up to it, she might be able to pick me up from Cargo on Thursday after work about 4pm. We'll have to wait & see what actually happens by that old method of waiting and seeing.
Well, a great, simple, good night. 2x Chicken Parmas, and some refreshing drinks. And yacking outside in the cold, unofficially, after the comfortable official stuff was over.
After my friend from 100km away had left, I'd gone up to my warm room & he rang and offered to take my trolley and drop it off at Canowindra where I'm hoping to walk to tomorrow.
So, I repacked things with that in mind, and he lifted it singlehanded onto his ute. I couldn't have done it. "Picking up lambs", he said, is what got him in shape.
Well good, and good! A hot coffee, and into bed to write and read. Creative love is still working non-stop, while continually maligned because of the idiots it is willingcto hang out with. I'm one of those. What can I say? Maybe, just, "Thank you".
So, a bit of time reflecting on a psalm as suggested by Aidan whom I stayed with in Bendigo for a few nights. In my 63rd year, ( i.e. while I'm 62, until I turn 63) he suggested I adopt Ps 63. Here's a draft.
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