Daylesford Dispatch - Sunday, 5th February 2012

Dear Friends, once again, we have just returned from Café 3460, where we had a most enjoyable breakfast – Aileen helped Kim as Gary is recovering from a cataract operation. Kim had made the vegemite toast for Bilbo & Frodo, which I gave to them on arrival – the end of the wonderful succession of good things that happen to them on Sunday mornings. Now they are counting down the hours and minutes until dinner-time.

The weather is doing all sorts of weird and wonderful things, and any minute now the skies will open and vast quantities of rain will fall. This is wrecking the Rotary Garden Party that Meredith has organised at her new property in Bullarto. Hopefully she can transfer everything indoors as the wind is springing up as I write this and no-one will want to be outside, let alone in Garden Party finery!

I’ve had a fairly quiet week with not much energy, although I am starting to feel better today. Wes drove to Melbourne last night to see John Anderson’s oldest son, Kyahl, perform in a wonderful musical comedy, called ‘Pageant’, at Northcote Town Hall. He was most impressed with Kyahl and enjoyed the show immensely. I would love to have gone, but would not have been able to get out of bed today with the late arrival back home afterwards. That’s Kyahl as Miss Deep South doing a ventriloquist act as well.

Much to the boys’ delight, I walked them through the main street, instead of around the Lake, as it was quite dark at 5.45am when we set off. There are always lots of goodies to tidy up after Saturday night, and if that isn’t enough, there are big bones waiting for them on their return. Then we went to Coles to collect a few goodies & off to the Sunday Market for our fruit & vegetable supplies for the week. Yvonne gave them apples to eat, while they sat patiently tied up to the O’Toole’s Honey Stall. I also bought a week’s supply of dog bones from Geoff the dog treat man, and 8 yellow carpet roses from Ken at Spring Mount Nursery. Wes doesn’t need 8, but Ken offered me the lot for $50 and I couldn’t resist!

Wes has been busy with Rotary activities; Hepburn Voices; Barbara; the Family Trees, and Family History. Yesterday we did the early shift on the Farmers’ Market, where the big problem was that no-one’s key would open the Rotary Shed, which is where the tent, tables & chairs, and shopping bags are all kept on a trailer ready to be towed when needed. Eventually Gordon’s key did the trick and we got our act together by about 8.45am. We were all a bit flustered and managed to put up the Rotary tent with the signage in the wrong position! Afterwards, Wes and I had breakfast at Gracenotes Café, something we both enjoy. Barbara & Gillie were there as well, so we joined them and had a great chat with Gillie about libraries and their future.

We had been invited to the opening of an Art Exhibition at The Raglan the night before and hadn’t been able to attend, so we went in to have a look and were quite delighted with the beautiful work by two local artists who travelled to Hong Kong and came back with their impressions. I meant to tell Michael about it at breakfast, but got into a good conversation with Judi and forgot!

We had also been invited to celebrate Dot’s 70^th birthday yesterday afternoon, but we were committed to helping set up for the Garden Party, so popped in with some flowers & a card on Friday instead. We also visited Gillie on Friday as I had spotted the perfect retirement present for her in the Sunday Age – a British Bulldog, and it was available through the sister shop of one of our long-standing and beautiful shops, Ex Libris. Gillie is delighted and her bulldog is already on guard.

Apart from watching the cricket and catching up on episodes of ‘Midsummer Murders’ that I haven’t already seen, I have been reading the Sjowal & Wahloo series of Martin Beck books set in the late 60s & 70s in Sweden. They are so good – I really recommend them – you get a great idea of what life was really like for the ordinary people, plus an amazing insight into police procedure and thinking at that time.

On Thursday, Carol & Valerie & I met at Café 3460 for our first game of Mah Jong for the year. It was lovely to be together for a couple of hours, catching up on news & playing a few games. Our friend, Jane, has been back at work.but finding it difficult to concentrate for long periods. She is the opposite to me – no good in the mornings, but OK at night, so we aren’t often on the same wavelength. Her husband, David, and I are enjoying WWF – he is an excellent player with a good vocabulary. I am playing a game with Carol at present, and getting all the breaks, which isn’t fair. She is dying to gazump me with a 7-letter word.          

            

Hong Kong 1984 Wes, Jan, Viva & Karen