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Sunday, 10 June 2012

Daylesford Dispatch - Sunday, 10th June 2012

Dear Friends, it seems ironic that we are celebrating the Queen’s Birthday weekend here, while she gave her other subjects a long weekend to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee last weekend. Perhaps we in Oz didn’t take it seriously enough. I’m taking Black Caviar’s trip to Royal Ascot very seriously and just love this cartoon that Carol sent me from the Herald Sun during the week:


Gillie sent me a very handy link to Powercor - www.powercor.com.au, where you can register your National Meter Identifier (NMI), an 11 digit number on your power bill, so that you can be notified of power outages and when you might expect power to resume. She assures me that we all got a letter telling us that but I don’t remember receiving it and we are pleased to now be on their SMS list.

We’ve just returned from an interesting breakfast – Michelle, the owner of Harvest received a phone call from her chef’s brother to say the chef wouldn’t be coming in today – so she had rung a replacement and our meals would be later than usual. We decided to stay, enjoyed our hot drinks & then were pleasantly surprised when our meals arrived quickly, although there was some confusion over who was having toast & who wasn’t! At least the boys didn’t miss out.


Denise Anderson, Joan Testro & Amanda Testro in 2008

We’ve had a busy but good week – on Sunday, Wes dropped me at the footy, while he visited Joan Testro for a chat and a whiskey! David Lazzaro asked me to get him a Visitor’s Pass, so we could sit together in the MCC and we enjoyed chatting and reminiscing about our many years of watching Collingwood together. One of the first people I saw when we walked in was John Stapleton, a friend from Melbourne Uni days. He hasn’t changed except for the colour of his hair! At half-time, the interview on the big screen was with Teddy Potter, my all-time favourite footballer. He was as modest and self-deprecating as I had hoped and when asked his favourite memories, said he loved watching the champions he played with go about their game. The Pies had an easy win and it was great to watch some of our youngsters getting a chance to show their skills.


On Tuesday, I drove in shocking weather to Melbourne to visit Viva. It was a good 2-hour visit, which allowed Leanne some free time. Viva is looking very well, and her mind is as sharp as ever. Gillie had given me some eggs for her and Viva assures me that Leanne used those eggs to make her omelettes for lunch three days in a row. In the afternoon, Wes and Barbara went to Ballarat where they had a number of things to do and then he shouted her afternoon tea to celebrate the publication of her book about her father. We saw a copy of it at breakfast this morning and it is a wonderful achievement – 110 pages full of history and photos.

While Wes worked hard in the garden on Wednesday I joined Carol, Dot & Valerie for a morning of Mah Jong at Harvest Café. In the afternoon we hosted a very good Rotary Arts Show meeting – Wes and I had put a lot of work into it and we were pleased with the commitment from the other members, all of whom went off having undertaken to perform various tasks. Our biggest issue is sponsorship and I was delighted the next day when Ann Holden, my masseuse, offered a Gift Voucher, to start us off. Thank you Ann – you are very generous.

That night at Rotary, Jan Pengilley chaired a meeting looking at the past year in retrospective. Wes helped her with a power point presentation. He and I were delighted with the unanimous support for the Art Show. We will be handing over editorship of the Rotary Bulletin at the end of this month – it’s been enjoyable but it is a big commitment to be available most Thursday mornings in the year to write an interesting & relevant 3-4 pages.

After the Bulletin on Thursday, Wes did some gardening, while I had a massage, and then attended U3A Morning Tea, where there were 4 potential new members. Judi, who is President until October, was delighted. She got the membership up to 175 in her first year, but a number of people, like Warren & Barbara, have not renewed, as there are no classes of interest to them at present, so new Members are in demand.

We were expecting Josephine Ward to come to lunch – she had made the date the previous week, but was planning to visit on her way home from Bendigo after seeing the Grace Kelly Exhibition. We didn’t know if she had bought a ticket, and if so, for which session, so it was lovely to hear from her at midday, when she said she would be leaving Bendigo and driving to us. She got a little lost trying to find out part of Duke Street, but arrived full of beans and we shared a lovely lunch of soup, followed by Wes’s speciality of steamed asparagus with poached egg on top, and finished with a King Island blue cheese. We finally ushered her out the door at 4.30 pm in the hope she would get home before it got dark.

I have been feeling more energetic this week, so have been trying to walk where possible. On Friday morning Gillie and I made arrangements to meet at Red Star Café for breakfast, so I walked to Hepburn Springs, which takes about 55 minutes from our place. We enjoyed a lovely 90 minutes together, then she and I drove back into Daylesford, where I left her at the chemist and walked back here. Wes and Barbara drove to Melbourne for the Carlton vs Geelong game that afternoon – Wes wasn’t looking forward to the game and he was very disappointed that Carlton, although they started well, didn’t finish off and were beaten again. It was Cheryl’s birthday and I left her a message wishing her a happy day. She rang back and we enjoyed chatting and catching up – Sharyn & Shane and their 3 boys were coming that night for the weekend, as was Andrew, who was staying overnight. She assured me that she has snaffled the middle grandson, Jules, as an Essendon supporter, and enjoys sharing her passion with him.
 Cheryl’s handsome grandsons - Aidyn, Luke & Jules Owen

On Saturday I walked the boys so Wes could have a sleep-in. We walked through town and then to Glenn Mack’s house to check if he had received any mail into his letterbox, which he had; and ditto to John & Jan’s house, and they had as well. On the way we met Marjorie and gave her & Ginnie a surprise as we walked past their home, ditto Michelle and Anthony who were outside Harvest Café at 7am and weren’t expecting anyone to walk past, let alone me with Bilbo & Frodo.

While Wes was washing the cars and later the boys, I walked back into town to replace my gloves and everyday shoes, which had both developed fatal holes during the week, then visited the Spa Quilters display at the Daylesford Primary School. I can only marvel at the beautiful, accomplished work done by some of our local friends.

Wes had invited Georgina Meadows and their mutual friend, Sue Riley, to drinks at 5pm yesterday afternoon, but we hadn’t heard whether they were coming or not. At 4.30pm we got changed, lit the fire, turned off the footy and put on classical music, set up a cheese platter, put the French Champagne on ice and waited to see what happened. Just as we were deciding they weren’t coming and thinking of ringing our friends to join us, in they came with Sue’s husband, Jim and another friend, Robyn, in tow. Wes is responsible for Sue making the decision to stand as Deputy Mayor for the City of Melbourne, something she did successfully some years ago and she is still in that position. She was delighted to see us again and they were obviously all having a wonderful visit and promised to return at Melbourne Cup time for the Art Show, especially now that Georgina is on our committee.

Sue Riley

Jane & David Knox are continuing to enjoy their holiday – Jane sends me photos every few minutes it seems and here is one of the best. They are travelling with another couple at present, who are Essendon supporters, so I imagine things could have been tense after last night’s incredible win by the Swans who gave up an 8 goal lead to nearly lose the match in the last quarter. The Pies are playing tomorrow and I have been unable to give away my spare ticket, so I will be there on my own. I had been going to take John Smith, but he is in Darwin or thereabouts and won’t get back in time!
My favourite of Jane’s photos – this is a view of an Inca Greenhouse

The rest of today is going to be fairly quiet after our busy week and we have lots on over the next 7 days. I’ll talk to you next Sunday! 

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