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Sunday, 26 August 2012

Daylesford Dispatch - Sunday, 26th August 2012


Dear Friends, according to the calendar, we are expecting Spring next weekend, but the weather doesn’t seem to have gotten the message and we have been deluged with rain, hail & sleet accompanied by cold winds during this week. We did enjoy one warmish day on Wednesday, but the sun disappeared again under a foggy sky.

Last Sunday after breakfast, Wes decided to use his industrial ladder, his latest purchase, which has the rest of us all worried silly. He got up on the roof to see why the water was getting in the ceiling, rehung the Collingwood flag, and fastened some wire around the posts to train our ornamental grape. You will all be as delighted as I was when he finished all these jobs without falling off or doing any major damage to himself!

We have not been able to play golf or even walk the boys very much as the rain has been too heavy, and the fog too dangerous to be walking in. So we’ve been working on the Art Show, Wes has been indulging in Ancestry.com and spending time on Hepburn Voices – training new interviewers and encouraging new interviewees.

On Tuesday as he and Barbara were on their way to hydrotherapy in Ballarat, her car began making a funny metallic noise, so they decided to visit Mazda instead and one of the young boys worked out that one side of the roof rack, which holds her wheelchair, had come loose. He very kindly fixed it, checked the other sides and sent them safely on their way at no charge.

That night Viva rang to say Leanne needed to go to hospital as she had broken her little finger and asking if one of us could come down the next day to take her and to mind Viva. We decided Wes would go, as I had arranged a small lunch for Valerie’s 80th birthday and she would be less disappointed that Warren missed it, than if I missed it. So he drove down on Wednesday and took Leanne to John Fawkner Hospital, where they tried to fix her finger but decided she would need an operation instead on Friday.

In the meantime, we four played Mah Jong, then Dot’s husband, John, joined us and we shared a celebratory lunch for Valerie, much to her delight. Wes arrived back home in time to have a late lunch and a rest before going to Rotary, where he took the notes for the Bulletin.
Rotary Working Party

On Thursday we enjoyed a long leisurely lunch at Gillie’s, where we admired her freshly painted walls and new flooring. She cooked a yummy pasta dish and served a salad made entirely from produce in her garden. While we were there Jason Olver came to quote on cleaning her windows – we had recommended him and she was pleased to meet him in our company.

It was my turn to drive to Melbourne on Friday as I had only to postpone a hair appointment, but Wes had visits to make to the vet and the optometrist. It was very Brigadoon in Daylesford so I drove via Kyneton and admired the mile of daffodils on the way into Piper Street. I took Leanne to the hospital, then spent some hours with Viva until the operation was over and I could collect Leanne, who now has two fingers bandaged together and in a sling. She won’t be able to drive easily, so we have agreed to do some supermarket shopping for them and drop it in tomorrow on our way to a Cricket Lunch at the MCC.

I arrived home on Friday night to a yummy meal that Wes had prepared and we watched Richmond easily beat Essendon as the rain and hail rapped on all our windows.

Yesterday we had been invited to lunch in Flemington by Josephine Ward & her partner, Tony. We drove there and the weather improved the closer we got to Melbourne. It was a fun lunch party with a couple from Tylden (shame we hadn’t known as we could have picked them up on our way), plus Tony’s daughter, Isobel, and Josephine’s daughter, Siobhan and best friend, Carolyn. We were served a feast and somehow waddled into our cars to go home around 4.30pm.
 
We arrived back to find two little fat dogs who had spent the day chewing huge marrow bones and even they couldn’t eat the celery and cabbage we offered them for dinner! Sadly our two teams were badly outclassed and we spent a frustrating evening watching our separate games and getting very annoyed with our teams’ lack of endeavour. The good news was that Daylesford beat Hepburn, which had been the best team all year, so we now go straight into the Preliminary Final and Hepburn has to play for its life next weekend.

We were a very small group at breakfast today – us, Kim, Gary and Barbara. It is Gary’s birthday, so we made a fuss of him and enjoyed a few good conversations, before it was time to take the little fat dogs home. They did manage to eat their toast & vegemite, but I have had to sweep up the cabbage and celery, as they showed no interest in them at all. When John gave them big cabbage leaves at the Sunday Market, they promptly sat on them instead of eating them with gusto.

Lucy’s brother Oscar
Our friends, Ian & Robyn, have had some very bad news as their lovely labradoodle, Lucy, as cancer and her situation is not good. She has started on chemo and they hope she will have a few months of quality life with treatment. We all know when we feel in love with our pets that we will outlive them and that losing them is intolerable, but we so value their companionship that we can’t bear to be without them.                                              
 Another friend, Hanna, who was born in Austria and who now lives in Sydney, after some years in Daylesford, sent me a long email and some of you might enjoy this particular extract - The Simone Young weekend was memorable, the concert on Saturday, an all Wagner program, was absolutely wonderful, even if Wagner was not your favourite composer, the chosen pieces were for any music lover. On Sunday at the Wagner Society, we had a packed room over 100 people, to hear and see her. I had the courage to speak and ask when it was question time, first about her success In Vienna since 1993 and that I was in Vienna last December, when she conducted Richard Strauss ‘s “Daphne”,  a most difficult Opera, and that she  had set a new standard for this opera. And I had the glowing article with me. She was thrilled to hear about that and then I asked her what it was like to have been the first female conductor to have been accepted by the Vienna Philharmonics. She had a most interesting story to tell and that she will be lecturing there again in their Autumn and conducting Wagner’s “Mastersingers “in December.  Afterwards quite a few people complimented me for asking her just about that and Vienna. I had the opportunity to speak to her later and she suggested we could speak German, it was very special. Hanna will be in Daylesford on Grand Final weekend & we look forward to catching up with her and her daughter, Rebecca.

 

  1989 – Paun with Mother Doll, Viva’s mother

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