10/12/2025 Morning Tea and Terracotta Warriors

On today’s agenda we had morning tea with Mamma Kay and “the boys” followed by a trip to the museum in Perth to see the Terracotta Warriors. 

Morning Tea was at Hilary’s as usual but today Brian was unable to make it due to having some work done at home and Colin was moving house. Huw was already there when we arrived and he’d brought one of Charlene's friends along too. Mamma Kay had already told me that she couldn’t abide the woman, and wouldn’t be going out of her way to be pleasant to her because she’d been so rude to Mamma at Charlene’s funeral. Mamma has a chatty face like me so I was looking forward to the entertainment.  

However, when we got there,  the woman sat with Huw wasn’t the one Mamma was expecting so I was a tad disappointed I wouldn’t get to see Mamma’s face chatting away ninety to the dozen. I needn’t have worried, this woman was just an awful specimen of humanity and my Mamma wasn’t remotely impressed by her. At least that’s what her face said… and I’m not doubting that face, I’ve known it a long time. I think the moment she moved the menu to the middle of the table, effectively putting a barrier between herself and this woman made it pretty clear to everyone the lay of the land! 

Morning tea with the obligatory florentines passed without incident but the woman spent the whole time texting on her phone under the table. Huw even said to her at one point she was like a teenager. Given she was in her 80’s I’m sure she took it as a compliment, mamma just muttered ‘bloody rude’ under her breath. Me? I had to bite my lip to stop from laughing out loud.  

Huw had decided that we’d all go in his car to the museum, so we left Mamma's car parked underneath the Mall in the cool, and jumped in with Huw and the woman whose name was Carol (Not that mamma was ever going to address her by her name) left hers somewhere in the car park too. When we got to Huw’s car Carol bagged the front seat, much to mamma disgust, and we got in the back, thankfully the air con went straight on and cranked up to full blast because it was scorchio as Si would say. 

The trip to the city was only half an hour but there were a lot of road closures in the city itself with diversions and Huw got a bit confused as to where he needed to go. Although he was doing way better at 85 than I would have at 54, bless him . Carol turned out to be really bossy too… 

We eventually found the Museum car park and pulled into a space. Found the lift and went to the museum. 

On entering we were given a magnet that accessed interactive displays around the main display and we were able to keep them as a souvenir. There was a short talk from a guide followed by a film about how warriors once that was done we were able to view the display at our own pace. 

There were information boards spot lit alongside the displays which were really helpful. Although the first one was a bit shit I thought… I don’t want to think of Death as going home, that means Si is home and if the proverb is anything to go by has forgotten all about me. And that upset me. A lot.

I do feel the proverb is incorrect though, because life is axfually a walking nightmare.

The rest of the display was incredible, and I did remember some parts of it from when Si and I visited it in London, particularly the terracotta horse and carriages. It’s something I think everyone should see. Emperor Qin ordered his tomb to start construction when he was 13 years old and it took over 700 000 men to complete it and 38 years. It was essentially an afterlife palace. Emperor Jings mausoleum had a 20 square kilometre walled tomb with a 31 metre high pyramid for himself and a slightly smaller pyramid for the empress.

The area surrounding his tomb has 86 huge storage pits filled with over 100,000 real and replica items.

They included clay model soldiers, servants, buildings, furnishings and domestic farm animals. There were also carriages, possessions, food and real animals interred in the storage pits.  

The size of the tomb reflected the importance of the emperor, which makes me think I need to make sure Si’s grave reflects his importance primarily to me (because yes, it is all about me) but also to everyone else. He’s got Daf at his feet so that’s a good start  but I need it to reflect the incredible person he was. I don’t think I need storage pits for him but I certainly need to give considerable thought to the words I want to use to ensure years from now people will get a glimpse of him. Something to think about.  

It took about an hour and a half to get around the display in total and I found it enjoyable and thought provoking. It was not quite as upsetting as I thought it might be given it was something Si and I had shared in 2019 although there were some parts that had me welling up due to memory flashbacks. 

All in all a nice few hours out. Huw dropped us back at the Mall and we then spent half an hour looking for Mamma's car because neither of us could remember where we parked. There was no hope of me remembering where we’d parked and in the end we had to go up and down every row until we found it. In a completely different place to where we thought it was. I definitely need a ‘find my car’ gadget for my mamma so she can find it on her phone. 

Finally back in the car and grateful we’d parked it undercover we picked up some sandwiches for lunch and then drove down to Carey’s to pick up Mamma iPad and glasses we’d left in Ray's car last night. When we picked up the sandwiches I spotted some meringues for Ray to compensate for him missing out on the bakery ones, and mamma picked up a box of cream donuts for afternoon tea. All I seem to be doing at the moment is eating 17 times a day, which isn’t a good thing at all!  

We had a look around Carey’s garden and admired her fruit trees that are absolutely hanging with pears, lemons, figs and blueberries. The pool temperature is at bath level which is always good and Ray was at the pool shop getting a new cleaning sucker thing for it. The temperature is due to hit 40 this weekend so they need to be able to get in there and cool down. Next door has a tree on the boundary fence that Carey is desperately trying to get rid of as it drops tiny little needles in her pool constantly which is really annoying. They invited us to stay for dinner, but Julie already has food prepared for us so we made our way back. Thankfully the freeway was clear and we had a straight run back without any hitches. 

After dinner we watched a bit of tv which was ok right up to the part on the paramedic show where they had to deal with a patient having a cardiac arrest. That didn’t go so well for me at all and I left the room. The bloke survived. Twat. and the hatred and anger I have towards him for that is completely unreasonable given that he has a family too and I don’t even know him. He’s just part of a tv show FFS. It’s just bloody shit, and unfair. Where’s my punch bag when I need it?  Thankfully my somatic cards proved really helpful in dealing with the melt down, and I’m so grateful to Ali for giving them to me to bring for back up in just this type of situation. 

Note to self tv shows involving paramedics are not to be watched, even in company. You, Mrs Leonard, are not strong enough to deal with that shit . Watch Bondi vets instead and chuckle at the vet measuring and squeezing breeding bulls balls. Yes that actually happened. 

Much Love

Mrs Leonard

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