Monday 9th August

For those in the know – Monday was Vacaville Day. I tried to hire a couple of cars to take all the visitors to Vacaville Outlets.

When I got tom the car rental place, they had no cars, and then I thought of a bus – none, what about some recently returned dirty cars – yes ….. then no, then the bus suddenly materialized. The Ozmeister returns. For those ignorant of the Ozmeister, we rented a 20 seater back in 1999 to take 15 of us to Yosemite.

This version was only a 15 seater but it stood 7 feet tall (sorry can’t do the metric conversion).

Prior to boarding, Ben decided to buy a bottle of water at the local drugstore. It would have cost $2 but he declined and paid $4 for 2 dozen bottles of the same water – such are the vagaries of the American system of food distribution and economies of scale.

We all boarded, with Colleen and the most genteel of the group in their car, we were off and hit the Vacaville outlets.

Once the doors opened, everyone disappeared in a different direction. We had a meeting set for 2 hours later, with much running to and fro across the vast expanse of the parking lot. After the lunch appointment was finalised, another hour was given to those who still hadn’t visited the other outlets across the road. It was a bewildering array of purchases and assorted bags that were placed in the back of the Oz and Colleen’s car.

We returned to Colleen’s and had a cuppa, sorted out which bag was which and we went back to the hotel.

We returned to C and K’s for tea with Kathryn’s relatives and all the Vacaville troops to celebrate Maria and Ray’s birthdays. Dinner for 8 turned into dinner for 22 adults and 5 children – as it does when the Dixons and Fehons gather. It was the full nine yards with birthday cake and the full works.