Daylesford Dispatch, Sunday 23rd October 2011

Dear Friends, this will be very short and sweet, but I’ll have plenty to tell you after the Art Show, which finishes on Cup Day with the big clean-up. We are very excited, as, after a slow start, we now have more paintings, more artists and more sponsors than last year. Danny will be staying with us next Thursday and Friday so he can be part of the Opening Night. As well David & Helen Lazzaro are planning to visit during the Cup Weekend with their three children, as the trip to Daylesford from Geelong is a pleasant and easy drive, and their older daughter, Jessica, has shown an interest in going to Art Shows.

Wes has just come back from a final session at the Rotary Shed painting the final screens. We now have 44 screens, which should easily accommodate the 200+ paintings in our Show. He is in the bath recovering from all the hard work, while I have spent the day on the computer, like every other day this past week. Today I have been preparing data for the Catalogue and the Titles to go under the paintings, as well as the People’s Prize voting slips. I’ve had a short break walking around the garden admiring the new growth everywhere.

Yesterday, we woke to heavy rain, which meant the boys couldn’t be walked for the third day in a row, so we settled down to our computers, missed the Swiss & Italian Festa Parade, but were visited by Jon Stephens, who was in Daylesford for 24 hours catching up with friends. Later in the day the rain turned into quite a storm and the water poured in through the dog-door much to the boys’ disgust. We interrupted our work to watch the races at Moonee Valley, had some bets but with no luck. I had picked Pinker Pinker to win the Cox Plate, but we only did quinellas and trifectas. We picked up a couple of quinellas, but mostly gave our money to the TAB. It was thrilling to watch Black Caviar win her 15^th race in a row and frightening to see how well Americain left his rivals behind in a very short space of time!

A few friends have asked about the Sleep Study and I haven’t made time to give a report so here goes. I checked into the Sleep Centre on Sunday night, got wired up and managed to not lose any of the wires during the night. The only drawback was the cold. I have not spent a night in hospital since I was born, and it never occurred to me that I would be expected to sleep under the light cotton hospital blanket! I’ll know better next time and will bring bedsocks and whole visit was that I couldn’t get out of the carpark as the machine refused to spit back my ticket.

                     Karen, Mike, Lauren & Linda- Gracenotes

When I got back to Daylesford, we met the Kirbys for a farewell breakfast at Gracenotes, where Linda got her wish to have a meal in front of an open fire. We left them to drive to the airport following our simple instructions. They, of course, got lost and haven’t told us yet how they managed to take an hour to get to Woodend.

The rest of the week was spent in front of our computers, especially Friday, where last minute entries were delivered, emailed and collected by me. I took short breaks to have my nails done, to get a massage and to have a haircut and henna. We attended the Opening of the Swiss & Italian Festa Landscape Award and picked up quite a few ideas of what not to do at our Show. We hope they will join with us next year, it seems mad to have these two Art Shows in competition with each other.

At our last Committee Meeting, we opened a bottle of champagne to thank our wonderful Committee members, as they have been magnificent. Then on Friday night after the madness died down, we had a lovely relaxed dinner with Jan & Warren Pengilley and drank champagne and decent reds until we collapsed with exhaustion and came home.

Karen & Wes at Swiss Italian Festa

Leanne has rung this morning to say that Viva has been taken to hospital, so we are on standby to go to Melbourne if her condition doesn’t improve. She has been in pain after breaking an eye-tooth and an emergency visit to the doctor and optometrist on Friday did not solve the issue. Leanne tells us that a number of tests have been taken and she is waiting for these results to see what will happen next. Viva had enjoyed a lovely visit from Paun earlier in the week, when she, Brian & Rohan made a quick trip to Lang Lang to help Brian’s parents who have moved into a unit.

Other news comes from Squiz who asked that the following be placed in the Classified section of the Dispatch – ‘If anyone is interested in how the Murray children have turned out so far, the three of them will be featured on a game show called Deal or No Deal to be broadcast nationally on Channel 7 on Wednesday 26th October 2011. It airs at 5.30pm in Melbourne - but as they say check your local guide.’

Finally, I don’t know how many of you are Letters & Numbers fans (6pm weeknights on SBS) but I love it and the Grand Final on Friday night was riveting. My two favourites, Jacob (19) & Jeremy (24), were opposed to each other, with Jacob the better credentialed of the two. With two games & the conundrum to go, Jacob was 27 points down and he won by 11 in a breath-taking finish.