Daylesford Dispatch, Sunday, 9th January 2011

Dear Friends, here is a photo taken at Glenn’s birthday breakfast – seated L-R are Gail, Barbara & Glenn, standing are Gillie, Terry, Michael, Judi, Wes & Karen. It was a beautiful venue and we enjoyed our status as Breakfast Group friends of Glenn. We’ve just enjoyed another lovely morning at Café 3460, with lots of laughs.

When I left you last week, we were eagerly awaiting a visit from Danny Millman, who duly arrived in time for Sunday Breakfast – there were 13 of us and we took up the whole of the back room. As Kim had opened just for us, that wasn’t an issue. After breakfast we took Danny to the Sunday Market, and later that afternoon, played golf at Trentham with him, Jan & John. We invited the Smiths back for a barbecue and discovered they hadn’t seen our beautiful view before, so we sat outside with our backs to the Lake, letting them enjoy it all.

The next day we did the early shift on the Farmers’ Market with help from Danny (aka Mate), before he and Wes went to ‘Run for the Willow’ an annual athletics meeting at Cricket Willow, where Rotary usually lends a hand. There were enough helpers so they soaked up the atmosphere and no doubt consumed a couple of snags in bread. That night we took Mate to the ‘Farmers Arms’ for dinner and he was most impressed. We watched some Collingwood footage on our return home, which sent Wes off to bed!

More golf early on Tuesday morning – we met John & Jan at the course and played the back eight, before repairing to ‘Gracenote Café’ for a yummy breakfast. Mate headed off to Castlemaine to visit the ‘Restorers’Barn’and came back with apples for the boys and cherries for us. That night Wes cooked a recipe from the Age, which involved King prawns being barbecued and served on a fennel, apple and orange salad. Very yummy.

As Mate was due to go home the next day, we decided to fit in another game of golf, which was a really good idea, as we are all quite rusty and playing regularly is the best way to get a little bit better as you all know. We enjoyed playing the front ten, then Danny drove back to Northcote, and we came home here to catch up on house and garden duties. That night we had been invited to Rhonda’s to celebrate her birthday with bubbles and cake – there were at least 20 guests and it felt like a mini-Aperitif.

On Thursday, Wes and I really had a taste for golf, so after he had walked the boys we headed back to Trentham and played our best rounds for the week. I shot a 5 on a par 4, which is usually my bête noire and was feeling very pleased with myself. Wes made par on a couple of holes, so he was on good terms as well. We probably went one day too many when we headed back again on Friday as we both ventured  into parts of the course we would rather forget! Afterwards we had toasted sandwiches and hot drinks at Café 3460 and decided we would give ourselves a break from golf.

That night we invited Judi and Michael to a barbecue, as we hadn’t caught up with them both properly since Glenn’s breakfast, and Wes had another new recipe he wanted to try out – this involved chicken marinated in lime juice, ginger and rum. Michael thinks he could use a little less rum next time, but declared the tastes to be a winning combination. We were just settling in when John & Jan rang to see if they could visit as they were worried about one of their sons, who was in hospital with pneumonia, and they needed company. They joined us for the cheese platter, but we made them sit with their backs to the view this time.

Yesterday we had hoped to visit Viva, but she was in the wars and exhausted by the heat, so we postponed our visit and enjoyed a lazy start to the day after Wes walked the boys. I went shopping as we have Aperitif at our place on Wednesday night and I wanted to stock up on party food. I bought some flat head from Peter at the fish shop and we enjoyed that for dinner last night with leftover salads.

Much of the free time this week has been spent listening to and watching the cricket. It is so sad to see the Aussies looking so rudderless, but it is good for world cricket I am sure. We can only hope that Ponting retires, Pup is overlooked and Cameron White stars as Captain in the Twenty20s & gets the Test gig as well. Our friend, Jane, saw very little of the Sydney Test, as her father’s health rapidly declined in the New Year, but the news last night is good. He is recovering well from an operation and the doctors are very optimistic, although he is not out of the woods yet.

We are hoping to play golf again this afternoon, before having a casual early meal with John & Jan & their grandson,Matthew, but the skies look threatening so we might have to play Scrabble instead. Wes beat me very easily last night in our first game for the year, so I need to get back on track. Everything starts up again this coming week – Strong classes, Chess, Mah Jong, Massages, Hydrotherapy etc and we have a house guest, Br Doug Walsh, for about 24 hours in the middle of it all. It will be lovely to see him again. He was instrumental in getting Brunswick Rotary involved in the Phillipines, and no doubt he will be full of ideas for Wes when he is here.