Daylesford Dispatch - Sunday, 30th September 2012

 

Dear Friends, what an exciting Grand Final we watched yesterday. I am sorry for all my Hawthorn supporter mates, but the Swans were amazingly gutsy when the game was slipping away and fully deserved their win. Wes drove me to Ballan station early and I met Jane Knox at European for brunch at 9.45am. She was most impressed that I was wearing red and white. We walked to the MCG through the Fitzroy Gardens which were looking wonderful and I took her into the Conservatory, past Captain Cook’s cottage and over little bridge before we joined the throngs making their way. On our trip around the ground, Jane bought a new scarf – red & white with grey stripes, which really suited her. We spotted lots of celebrities as well as Mick Malthouse, Leigh Matthews & Richard Colless and finally stopped to listen to the Coodabeens before we parted way – Jane to go to the top tier in the Great Southern Stand, and me to the back row on the wing in the MCC.

 

I went for a walk around and was lucky enough to find Loud Gayle, who bought us a glass of bubbles in the Long Room. We found a quiet spot for a good chat, which was lovely. Gayle was looking very well and very excited about the wonderful time her daughter, Gabby, and son, Fraser, are having on holidays in Paris. She and her husband, Fraser, are heading off to Tassie for a few days break on Tuesday. I am quite envious as we are dying to get to MONA, the gallery in Hobart, but haven’t made it there yet.

The game was exciting and the lead see-sawed. It is so good when the two best teams of the year face off and we got a Grand Final that reflected exactly that.  I left the ground after the presentation of the Norm Smith medal as I had to get to Spencer Street in time for the 6.08 Ararat train. I am going to watch the full replay today and see all the bits I missed out. Jane also had to leave early as she had to catch an 8pm flight home to Sydney. She had been driven from the airport on Thursday night by an Indian, who was passionate about cricket and he so enjoyed her company that he offered to collect her after the game. He duly turned up, but when she got to the airport, her flight was cancelled, so Jetstar put her up overnight in Melbourne and she spent the evening watching the replay. This morning her new flight has also been delayed – not a great advertisement for this airline, although she is enjoying sharing the waiting time with lots of Swans supporters.

 

This morning we enjoyed a lovely breakfast with 11 of us there – the best moment came when Terry invited everyone to come and watch the NRL Grand Final with him later this afternoon. Gail nearly collapsed and begged us all not to turn up – Terry had thought it was a safe invitation as no-one else at breakfast is particularly interested in NRL, but we are all very tempted to arrive on the doorstep just to see the look on Gail’s face!

We’ve had a very busy week with the Art Show; the raffle is in full swing with tickets being sold in the main street on Thursday & Friday, and possibly at the Sunday Market today if the volunteers brave the elements. We have Brian’s painting on display on an easel and everyone stops to admire it, which helps the sales. I took a book of tickets to breakfast this morning, but Gary was selling Western Bulldogs tickets, so I’ll wait until next week! Wes and I have been trying to bed down all the sponsors by this weekend, but it will probably take until the end of the week before they are all finalised and we know how our budget is going.

The week seems to have flown by – Wes and Barbara did Hepburn Voices work, went to hydrotherapy and prepared for a Grand Final day party at her place. It was a big success with Carol, Michael, Glenn & Denise in attendance and everyone barracking for the Swans. I suspect there would be enough leftovers to take to Terry and Gail’s tonight to make an instant party there!

I had hoped to visit Viva on Friday, but she rang early to ask me not to come as the weather was so atrocious. I must confess I was quite relieved as I wasn’t looking forward to the drive in hail and wind. When I spoke with Viva this morning she told me she received a phone call from Peter in Paris yesterday. He & Anka are on their way to Milan today, after starting their trip with a wonderful catch up with Leigh in London, and Jeff, Kev and Leigh in Lincolnshire.

Daylesford Dispatch - Sunday, 23rd September 2012

 

Dear Friends, as I write this we are enjoying a hailstorm after a lovely sunny, but chilly morning. Wes had been out gardening, but has beaten a hasty retreat inside with a couple of bedraggled labradors who were helping him with the compost bins.

We had a lovely morning at breakfast – someone had provided Harvest Café with a smallish dog cushion for any dogs whose bottoms were coming into contact with concrete while they sat outside. Eventually the boys worked out they could both sit on it if they draped over each other and we think they appreciated the gesture. Judi was looking good, and counting the sleeps until she finishes her second year as U3A President and gets her life back again; Gail had underdressed, and huddled under her overcoat until she warmed up; Aileen and I had been comparing daffodil bunches at the Sunday Market; Kim shared a lovely story of being given Australian children’s books as a child, which made him give his nephews & nieces similar books; Gary had solved an Austar issue for John & Jan, and Barbara told us that she feels she has won the battle with her new computer and has it under control.

It’s been a big weekend of footy – congratulations to the Swans and Hawks – the two best teams this year have made it to the Grand Final, and it should be an exciting game. It was quite ironic that Sydney should beat Collingwood in Sydney to come to Melbourne to play the GF, and Melbourne Storm should beat Manly in Melbourne to go to Sydney to play their GF. I love Grand Final week, and am looking forward to the Brownlow tomorrow night and all the rest of the festivities.

 

Wes took me to brunch yesterday to recover from the end of Collingwood’s season, and we decided to try Annie Smither’s trattoria in Trentham, du Fermier. We both enjoyed a beautiful omelette with feta cheese, but the surroundings & the service let the place down. Afterwards we walked around the main street and noticed other cafes were doing much better trade. It was a perfect Spring day, which inspired us to buy punnets of pleasure at the Wombat Nursery and spend most of the afternoon in the garden. Wes mowed everywhere, including the verge at the end of the road, while I planted strawberries, coriander, basil & geraniums and tidied up the front beds.

We started the week with a drive to Castlemaine to collect the raffle tickets for the Art Show and I have been distributing them ever since. Wes took the painting to the Daylesford Community Bank, where it will be on display until the Show starts, and they are happy to sell tickets as well. We are hopeful that the local paper will find a spot for the photo of Brian Nash with it, which would be good publicity for him, Rotary & the Bank.

Wes trained a new interviewer for Hepburn Voices and shot the video for another interview, which was done by our Mayor, Sebastian. He interviewed a 92-year-old Polish war veteran who had an amazing story to tell of survival during WWII. He also took Barbara to hydrotherapy; went to Victor & Anna’s Aperitifs; attended a piano recital given by Meredith Borlin in Franklinford, and helped a Rotary Barbecue for Very Special Kids in conjunction with the Commonwealth Bank.

 

Apart from an enjoyable morning of Mah Jong, I attended an Italian Crime Fiction U3A class, where we found ourselves mostly in agreement with each other over the relative merits of the 8 writers we had read in the past four weeks. Next year we are going to concentrate on fictional female detectives, hopefully not all American ones!

Glenn has been camping with his daughter, Catherine, and her boyfriend, and he has sent me some lovely photos of their campsites, one of which is shown at the top of this Dispatch.

Wes found this delightful cartoon on Facebook and I thought I would share it with you – Kathy & Ged will certainly identify with it, and I suspect Joyce & Manny as well! At least I asked permission first and sharing one of my passions with so many others has been a very rewarding element of my life. Thank you.

You have to laugh!

Daylesford Dispatch - Sunday, 16th September 2012

 

Dear Friends, I am surprised I am in any state to write this morning after the double excitement of yesterday. Daylesford Doggies won their 3^rd Grand Final in 6 consecutive appearances in a close fought struggle with Buninyong. Sadly I couldn’t go there with Gillie & Michael, as I wanted to be at the MCG with Danny & David to help get the Pies over the line against West Coast. It was a most exciting game and I am quite sure that our support made all the difference! Wes has offered me a trip to Sydney to see us play in the Preliminary Final on Friday night, but I feel I have done well with two trips there already recently, and will enjoy watching it on TV with him instead. And if we should get to the Grand Final, I have my ticket safely in a drawer awaiting 29^th September.

We’ve had a very busy week with the Art Show … just for a change. We had a very successful meeting on Wednesday which generated more work! The weather has been amazing – beautiful sunny days followed by intermittent rain, just when Alan Barnes came to fix our steps. He and his mate got a third of the way through before they were in danger of electrocuting themselves as the rain poured down.

 Jan & Gillie

Wes also spent time with Barbara doing Hepburn Voices and hydrotherapy. I played Mah Jong with Carol & Dot and we shared a lovely morning together. Carol is in much better health and looking good with a new hairstyle! Dot is in lots of pain, but never complains and always has a smile on her face. We had been invited to the AGM of the Daylesford Community Bank on Thursday night, followed by Victor Szwed’s 60^th birthday celebration. I managed to get an infection, which prevented me from going, but Wes & Barbara joined a good group at the AGM, and then he enjoyed a couple of hours at the Old Hepburn Hotel with Victor and Anna’s many local friends.

Carol Bruce                                       

We decided I should spend Friday in bed getting over the infection and resting up for the footy, and I am pleased I did so. Wes has been fighting off a cold, so he took it easy yesterday, staying in bed in the morning himself. I left for Melbourne at lunchtime and did a delivery of Gillie’s eggs to Viva & Leanne on my way to Danny’s place. Viva got a good report from her doctor on Thursday, but she also has an infection and on Friday the eye specialist gave her 5 injections as part of the process of removing some of the stitches over her right eye. She sounds very fragile today and is spending more time in bed than usual resting up. She didn’t want to be visited, so I dropped off a bag and collected another without disturbing her or Leanne.

Danny took me to dinner at the Grace Darling Hotel before the footy, where we enjoyed a very yummy meal, which could have been the highlight if the result had gone the other way! We then met David, whose wife, Helen, and elder daughter, Jessica, are in England as part of a trip to France & the UK. He has been on holidays looking after Maya & Daniel, but they were sleeping over at Kathy & Ged’s so he was enjoying a night off. I understand that the two had slept over at Ben & Leanne’s place the previous evening, woken early, discovered there was a TV in their bedroom and were playing DVDs at 4.30am. Ben is apparently reconsidering their decision to have a baby in three months’ time!

Danny with Celia & Cory

 We have all been very saddened by the unnecessary and tragic death of John McCarthy, former Collingwood & current Port Adelaide AFL player. Perhaps some of our younger players, who all joined the Pies together with him, and who had remained good friends with John, decided to play out of their skins in honour of his memory. The minute’s silence at the footy this weekend has been a sobering reminder of the fleeting nature of our lives and I, for one, have appreciated it.

Our WA friend, Norma, has been in Melbourne this week, and her son, journalist, Steve Butler, took her to dinner and the game at the G last night. She was very gracious after the game and said she enjoyed the experience enormously. Sadly we didn’t manage to catch up at all during this visit.

We had a wonderful breakfast this morning – Kim’s cousin, Nina & her son, Carl, joined us and were very welcome additions. Carl is only young, but he had excellent manners and coped very well with meeting 7 adults he didn’t know, and held his own in conversations. Bilbo & Frodo received a world record number of pieces of toast, so I am threatening to give them water for dinner tonight!

 

Looking for more food!

 

Daylesford Dispatch - Sunday, 9th September 2012

Dear Friends, we are sitting here looking out at the Lake and enjoying the rare sight of blue skies, which are most welcome after some very heavy rain, wind & hail again this week. Wes mowed the lawns between showers and everywhere is looking very green with the occasional clump of yellow daffodils nodding in the breeze.

We had a lovely breakfast this morning – we were to be a small group of 8, then Joe Rozen asked to join; Terry White came along, and both Glenn & Aileen joined us later for coffee. We ranged along a number of subjects, mostly started by Gail, and enjoyed sharing time together. Shortly I am going with Gillie, Glenn & Michael to Dunnstown to see Daylesford play Bungaree in a Preliminary Final. Our arch-rivals, Hepburn, were beaten yesterday by Buninyong, so we are keen to go one better and get to next week’s Grand Final.

Daylesford Doggies in action

Last Sunday, after sending off the Dispatch, Wes and I went next door to spend a couple of hours with our neighbours, Robert & Dene, who had invited some close friends & family for lunch. They have a very interesting group of friends/family and we participated in a number of enjoyable conversations, as well as being fed magnificent food. We came back here to see if Carlton could beat St Kilda and finish the year on a winning note for Brett Ratten, but it was not to be. The Blues played well, but couldn’t last the distance and were overrun by the Saints in the last quarter.

On Monday we finally played golf at Trentham again – 10 holes, with enough good shots to bring us back again. Wes played better than I did, but we both found ourselves very tired that afternoon & the next day. In the afternoon, while Wes & Barbara were doing Hepburn Voices, I caught up with Trish Goullet, who used to be in Rotary and on our Arts Show Committee, and we enjoyed a long chat over cuppas at Gracenotes Café.

We spent Tuesday morning working on the Art Show, then I went back to bed, and Wes and Barbara drove to Ballarat for hydrotherapy. On Wednesday I played Mah Jong with Carol, Dot & Valerie – it was a really enjoyable morning, even though Valerie & I failed to get a Mah Jong. Wes went off to Rotary that night with the latest report on the Art Show.

Venetian watercraft by Brian Nash

We had been approached by Gallery 247, a small organisation that has designed a website for Art Shows, and their director, Ken Gallaher, came for a meeting and lunch on Thursday. We are quite optimistic that they may be able to offer us what we want so that Wes and I can relinquish our co-ordinating roles on the Art Show without the benefits of all our computer work being lost. Wes made a beautiful prawn & asparagus risotto for lunch and we were joined by Rotary President, Jan Pengilley, who was similarly pleased with the meeting. There is another Art Show programme, also designed by a Rotarian, and we will have a look at it before we decide on Gallery 247. It will be a big relief to be able to hand over the Art Show after three years as my health is not good enough to allow us to fully commit any longer than 2012.

On Friday I went shopping for Viva and Leanne, then drove to Strathmore, delivered the shopping & took Leanne to the specialist for the verdict on her broken finger. The doctor was pleased with progress, but she still has to be very careful for another four weeks, and her finger remains bandaged, but only lightly. She was very relieved, but she and Viva are not enjoying being dependent on others and are dying for some retail therapy themselves.

That afternoon I checked into Rydges Hotel in Exhibition Street, saw a wonderful film Monsieur Lazhar at the Kino and headed off to the MCG for the footy. I was lucky enough to get a good seat undercover in the MCC Balcony,
and then had dinner in the café, sharing a table with three other MCC members who were all pleased to have gotten Grand Final tickets in the ballot. Afterwards I met David Lazzaro for a drink and catch up, while we waited for his best friend, Matt, to arrive. They had great seats, but not undercover…

It was a most exciting Final, but the Hawks finally prevailed and I think the Pies were lucky to only go down by 6 goals. It was lovely to just walk back into town and I slept well in my comfy room. By the time I got back home yesterday, I was exhausted, so went to bed, and am feeling much better today. Wes was wonderful - cooking a beautiful pasta meal, as well as feeding Joe Rozen his special bolognaise sauce with penne for their dinner. Joe’s wife, Glenda, is having a short holiday with a girlfriend, and Joe misses her when she is away, so Wes was pleased to be able to occupy Joe for the evening with the Freo/Geelong game as entertainment.

Now for some very exciting news – our dear God-daughter, Greta, and her husband, Harry, are expecting their first baby next March. Greta is keeping very well and looking forward to welcoming a baby into their world. Congratulations from us all.

Harry & Greta on their wedding day

Daylesford Dispatch - Sunday, 2nd September 2012

 

Dear Friends, happy Spring – let’s hope we continue to enjoy this little bit of sunshine for a change. I emptied 50mls from the gauge on Friday morning, after the deluge of the night & day before.

We started the week with a wonderful experience – on Monday I did supermarket shopping for Viva & Leanne, while Wes had an appointment with Marjorie. We dressed up, drove to Melbourne, delivered the shopping and then headed to the MCG for our first Bradman Lunch in the MCC. We came away feeling we had never been to a better sports function – as always the staff were attentive, without being pushy, the food & drink were an excellent standard & the entertainment was incomparable. Gerard Whateley was compere, which he performed in the Tony Charlton mould, and it was lovely to see Tony there as a guest.

The lunch commenced with the unexpected treat of two beautiful arias sung by Greta Bradman accompanied by a pianist. We were two tables from the front, right in the middle, so we had a great view. She was followed by a tribute to the Don from Gerard, a short witty speech from Paul Sheahan, an even shorter & wittier speech by Max Walker, and finally, after the main course, we were treated to Wayne Phillips, the South Australian & Australian batsman/wicket-keeper. His delivery was impeccable, his timing perfect and everyone in the room was laughing until they cried. He finished well before we were finished with listening to him, and I suggest very strongly that if he is a speaker anywhere, go and hear him.

 

We had parked under the MCG, and got away from lunch around 3.30pm, which saw us arrive home safely before the worst of the traffic. We didn’t stop talking about what we had seen & heard – it was so good.

On Tuesday Wes went to help Barbara with her new computer and ended up spending all day there as she encountered the usual sorts of problems you get and his help was much appreciated. They cancelled hydro and spent 5 hours on the phone to HP instead. He came back home to a good draught of whisky and a yummy mushroom pasta dinner.

The next day Nicole came to do my hair which had been postponed so I could take Leanne to hospital, and then I had my nails done. Meanwhile Wes went to get his haircut in Ballarat, but there was a long queue, so he came home and visited Denise who needed his advice. Then he attended a discussion at Council on what to do to improve Lake Daylesford, and Central Springs Reserve in particular. We had a very successful Art Show meeting, with lots of sponsors committing to us. Wes headed off to Rotary and I went to bed early.

We dedicated all of Thursday to the Art Show as we had lots of submissions to put before potential sponsors, as well as acknowledge those who had already committed. Wes & I are very lucky to have such a great team on our Committee and everyone is pulling their weight. Brian Nash brought the 1^st prize in the raffle to us and we’ll just have to enjoy looking at it on our lounge for a while!

 

On Friday we decided to had earned a day off, so drove to Ballarat (as we have no jeweller in town these days) to get my bracelet & his watch repaired. We stopped at the new London Gallery & Café in the Rex Building, where we caught up with old friends, Donna & Kyle, over hot drinks. The café is very popular as it offers inexpensive lunches, but I am not sure about their choice of artworks.

In the afternoon we went to Barcaldine House Winery for the U3A Film Club showing of Bicycle Thief, a 1948 B&W Italian film that neither of us had heard of, but which is considered one of the best films of all time. It was a compulsive & harrowing small story about life in Rome after the war when there are no jobs and life is a matter of survival however you can.

Yesterday I shopped early for Viva & Leanne, then drove to Melbourne to deliver it to them, stopping in Puckle Street to pick up Webster packs & tablets as well. After a good visit, I drove to Northcote, to Danny’s place, where I had planned to stay overnight after the footy. Danny had a busy afternoon, so I caught the train into town and saw Hope Springs with Meryl Streep & Tommy Lee Jones. It was well-written & acted and I am pleased I saw it.

Danny & I met and enjoyed a lovely meal and chat in the Hugh Trumble café at the MCC, did a quick visit upstairs to see Loud Gayle, then grabbed our seats for a close encounter with the Bombers. We had hoped to win, but it wasn’t easy. At half-time we caught up with David Lazzaro, who, as usual, had an amusing perspective on the game. We were delighted to end up with a win and now face a stern test against Hawthorn on Friday night.

I drove back here early this morning in time for breakfast and now we are about to head into our next door neighbours’ place for a barbecue get-together of their friends and families. Then I think it will be a very quiet afternoon watching Carlton play St Kilda. Wes had a very busy day yesterday with a big shift on the Farmers Market, coffee with Barbara & Annie, then working in the garden spreading manure around the roses etc….no doubt helped enormously by Bilbo & Frodo.