Dear Friends, like
most of Australia we set our alarms for 12.30am this morning to watch Black
Caviar race at Royal Ascot. We had hoped for her to canter to an easy victory,
but the combination of travel and the soft track conspired to make her win far
too close for comfort! It was hard to get back to sleep after that harrowing
minute or so, and I was very pleased to hear that Peter Moody and the owners
have decided not to race her at Newmarket, but bring her home instead.
Black Caviar just in case you don’t recognise
the colours!
We’ve had quite an emotional week without the drama of Black Caviar, as we
decided it was time to part with our lovely MX5, Teddy5. For the past 14 years we have enjoyed three different versions
of her, but we are finding it increasingly difficult to get in & out of her
and so are most of our friends. We were due to buy new tyres and have a big
service, so it seemed like the right time to trade her in on a new Mazda 2
Genki that I have called Dolly Grey.
On Thursday morning we
wrote and sent off our last Rotary Bulletin, which was also an emotional thing
to do. We have received some lovely comments thanking us for the bright &
newsy Bulletins we have produced over 2.5 years. I think myself that most
people enjoyed the Snoopy cartoons best. At lunchtime we drove to Ballarat to
put Wes’s car in for service. We had hoped to see a film, but everything was
slanted to a different age-group, so we enjoyed a longish lunch at Lekker Café, then spent an hour or so in
the wonderful Ballarat Art Gallery, until it was time to collect Wes’s car
& say goodbye to Teddy. I found myself quite teary, but soon I was in the
new aluminium-coloured car and driving home in the pouring rain, with Wes
behind me.
The next day I went out to see how the car looked in the daylight and
discovered that we had no registration sticker! We remedied that by driving to
Viva via Ballarat yesterday morning & collecting the sticker. By the time
we arrived at Strathmore I felt much more confident with the car and Wes had
set all the radio stations and fine-tuned the sound for me. We enjoyed a lovely
visit with Viva, lots of laughs and funny stories, and eventually we left as we
were due at the MCG at 2.30pm for lunch in the MCC Committee Room.
I had booked lunch
there when it became available and we enjoyed it enormously. We were greeted at
the door, shown to our table, given reserved seats, fed and watered &
offered our table again at half-time. We decided to take this up and arrived
back to find sandwiches, party pies & sausage rolls, scones, jam &
cream, good coffee and tea that was served in individual teapots – all for
$10.50 per head. We had been visited during lunch by Loud Gayle, who kindly
changed our tickets, which were in the open, for seats under cover.
Cloke celebrating one
of his 5 goals
The game lived up to all the hype, and at the end, when each & every
player was spent; someone got the ball to Daisy Thomas, who kicked it as far as
he could, to assure our victory. Wes had his first drive of the car on the way
home & we both agreed it was very similar to our favourite car, Daffodil, which was the much earlier
version of the Mazda 2.
During the week it was too wet to play golf, and the boys were lucky to
get an early morning walk on the odd occasion it was only spitting. We have had
over 100 mls of rain and it is very wintry with foggy mornings & misty
nights. Wes managed to do another Hepburn Voices interview with Jack Walker
with Barbara’s help on Monday afternoon, and on Tuesday they went to Ballarat
for hydrotherapy while I shorted the iron, and cut power to the whole house
every time I tried a different power point!
On Wednesday I collected Carol, who had put her car in for service and we
enjoyed a lovely morning of Mah Jong with Dot & Valerie. After lunch, I
drove to Glenlyon to have my nails done by Michelle, who will be working at one
of our local hairdressing salons next month, which will be easier for all her
clients. Meanwhile Wes had coffee with our friend, Trish Goullet, who has
decided to resign from Rotary and the Art Show Committee as she has too many
commitments. We are very sorry to lose her from both as she is a real
contributor and without her efforts last year, we would not have had as many
sponsors for our Art Show.
We enjoyed a very quiet day on Friday with me having a massage and then
both of us meeting Jenny Beacham at a newish restaurant in Hepburn called Dimagi, where we enjoyed hot drinks and
caught up on each other’s news. Sadly the restaurant, which has a wonderful
wine cellar, including a good range of Italian wines and an interesting menu,
is quite cold and would be very noisy if it was full. However, they offer $1
oysters between 4-6pm from Thursday to Sunday, so that is very tempting!
Today we had a great
breakfast, with the wonderful company of Andrew & Syd, who had driven up
from Melbourne for the day. Kim & Gary remembered them both and Gary &
Syd spent the morning outdoing each other with jokes, while Aileen, Gail, Kim,
Wes & I all contributed some amusing stories along the lines of out of the mouths of babes. It was too
wet for the boys to come with us, so Wes dropped me home with some toast for
them, and he went back to spend more time with Andrew & Syd & then take
Barbara for a big shop. Harvest Café where we have breakfast is across the road
from Coles, which means Barbara doesn’t have to transfer into and out of the
car twice.
Jane
Fonda, 1999 Murder Weekend
