Wes has been putting some wonderfully nostalgic photos on Facebook, so I thought I would start this Dispatch with one from 1989. I was initially confused as I thought it must have been a Murder Weekend, but The Pirate aka Louisa Mitchell, is in the photo, so I checked with Wes and discovered it was one of those weekends, where we had to dress up – Wes thinks it was ‘Dress Up as Your Mother’, not sure what Nice Michael thought he was doing. Perhaps he couldn’t be the base of the pyramid in a dress.
Our thoughts this week have been very much with all the people in Queensland who have been suffering through the most incredible floods – the footage is unbelievable, especially when we see places we visited less than 2 months ago are under water or completely destroyed. I contacted Tim & Rachel at ‘The Collingwood B&B’ and was pleased to hear that they have had no damage and reported that the community spirit is very high and everyone is pitching in and helping. Everyone else we know in the affected areas is OK, and Viva tells me that all her relatives, many of whom live in Warwick, which was in strife, are all OK as well.
Closer to home, it has been very worrying that all the towns around us have been affected – Creswick again, Clunes, Trentham with trees over the roads, Ballan with loss of electricity, Hepburn with water over the roads and loss of water supply (!!), Woodend, Malmsbury, Castlemaine and Kyneton all with flooding. Our biggest issue, apart from being marooned in Daylesford on Friday morning (which is no hardship), has been the arrival down our concrete driveway of other people’s pebble driveways.
In spite of the rain, we’ve had an amazingly social week, which started with a barbecue dinner with John, Jan & their grandson, Matthew, last Sunday night. Wes put Jan & Matthew on Skype and helped John with some computer issues, before we enjoyed a lovely indoor barbecue out of the rain, eagerly watched by their dog, Gypsy, and Matthew’s dog, Rockstar.
Plus fours were de rigeur for this golf day – Wes & Terry looking splendid
On Monday, Gillie, Judi and I all started our Summer Strong programmes – I couldn’t remember a single one of my exercises and Judi was all set to help me out, when we discovered we did very different things, even though we are on the same level. Wes & I had hoped to play golf while Sandra cleaned the house for the first time this year, but the rain was incessant, so we had breakfast at ‘Gracenotes Café’ and then bought him some new jeans at ‘Daylesford Clothing’. He and Barbara were able to play Chess that afternoon as the rain wasn’t as heavy.
There has been no chance of golf any day this week, and even hydrotherapy at the Hepburn Bathhouse had to be cancelled because of the rain. However, I was able to have my first massage for 2011 with Ann Holden, and Carol, Dot, Valerie & I all made it to Café 3460 for the first Mah Jong. While we were having fun and catching up on news, Wes was working down here in the study and noticed that the force of the water had knocked the back fence down. Fortunately the boys were asleep at his feet, so he locked them in, and armed with a hammer and rope, took himself out in the rain to get the fence upright again. You will be amazed to know it is still standing, after all the rain we have experienced since Wednesday morning and he is very proud of his efforts and offering to do more handyman jobs around the place.
Our old friend, Br Doug Walsh, had chosen that day to visit us and he arrived at lunchtime, so Wes brought him to Café 3460 for a meal and a catch-up chat. Doug is a member of Brunswick Rotary and instrumental in the establishment and ongoing support of the Bagong Barrio health clinic in the Philippines. Doug is also a very passionate Collingwood supporter, so he spent the afternoon watching the replay of the second Grand Final.
We had offered to host Aperitif at our place when the original hostess couldn’t honour her commitment, and this was the day. It absolutely poured down just before 5.30pm and continued to rain steadily for an hour, during which time, around 50 very hardy souls made their way to us armed with their glasses and bottles. We plied them with party pies and sausage rolls, pasticci, chips, nuts, cheeses etc, and thanked them all for coming out in such dreadful weather. After everyone left we went to ‘Ruben’s’ with Doug & Glenda, so that they could renew the friendship they had made when Glenda went to the Philippines with Wes three years ago.
Glenda & Joe Rozen
On Thursday, Wes and Doug went out exploring in the rain and ended up at Çricket Willow’ having a cuppa with Ian & Trish Tinetti and talking history and Collingwood in equal quantities. Doug watched some more Collingwood footage, while we prepared for an impromptu Games Afternoon. We had been due to go to Ballarat Races, but they were moved to Geelong, so we invited Judi, Michael, Carol, Barbara, Gail & Terry, Di & Jeff to join us for cards, Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit. We ate the leftover party pies etc, added some chicken wings and cheeses and demolished great quantities of wine and beer over about 6 hours. Gail bought pizzas for dinner and told us it was worth getting out of her pjs to come over! The afternoon really occured because I found trays of party pies and sausage rolls after the Aperitifers had left – I had put them in the drawer under the oven for safe-keeping as they wouldn’t all fit in.
We had hoped to go to the Twenty20 on Friday night, but the situation near us was not looking good and the rain continued to pour down. Eventually we decided to go, as we were keen to see Cameron White captain Australia, and we had a safe trip there and back, avoiding the Calder Highway in both directions. We are so pleased we went – we got a car park within 5 minutes walk of the ground, had a lovely meal at the Hugh Trumble café in the MCC and had good seats, undercover, on the ground level. It was a most exciting game and we were thrilled to see Australia win when the Poms couldn’t hit a 6 off the last ball of the match.
Cameron White after effecting a runout on Friday night
Yesterday was a very quiet day spent catching up with chores, cooking, listening to the radio for updates on the floods everywhere. Wes has been enjoying Facebook and his Family Tree projects, and I have found a new Blog site that I like much better than my 2 previous ones. I am able to put photos into the Blogs and the quality is great. I also joined Twitter, so that I can get updates from the MCC, Collingwood Football Club and Paul McCartney – how’s that for a trio!
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