Daylesford Dispatch - Sunday, 11th November, 2012

Dear Friends, I’m having a break from post Art Show paperwork to let you know that we are both still alive (just) after an amazingly successful and exciting Show. We ended up with 114 artists providing 393 paintings, of which 56 sold. We had over 1,600 visitors including Danny & Kim; David, Helen, Jessica, Maya & Daniel Lazzaro; Andrew & Syd; David & Deanna Redfern; Warwick Leeson; representatives from at least 2 city Rotary Clubs looking for artists, and Chris Lazzaro and family. Thank you all.

Wes and I are quite exhausted after spending all day every day at the Town Hall, but we are very pleased with the support we received from nearly every Rotarian in our Club. Some were on holidays, a couple are quite unwell, but everyone else did something, with quite a few going over and above the call of duty. We were also helped by Barbara Simpson, Carol Bruce & potential Rotarian, Annemarie Borsboom. We are very lucky to have a brilliant President this year, Jan Pengilley, as she filled gaps when someone forgot to turn up for their shift, as well as being there for all the dirty jobs such as mopping, sweeping & cleaning. She was also there when the artists brought their works and when they returned them. She spent hours folding raffle tickets; kept her speech to a minimum on Opening Night; hosted a lunch for our two judges, who had never met and played God when the occasion arose, as well as buying paintings & sketches.

       Brian Nash painting screens pre Show

While Wes has been composing various reports to send to Artists, Sponsors, Rotarians and Committee, I have been writing cheques to pay the artists who won prizes and who sold paintings. Our study is still in some chaos, but we hope to have things back to normal by the time Sandra comes to clean on Wednesday.

We would have loved to have been at the Gabba with Jane, David, Norma & Terry, but our decision not to go have been vindicated as we could not have processed all the post Show stuff before we had to fly to Brisbane and I suspect we would have been very unhappy. As it is, we are being sent lots of photos of them all, and of course, we are listening to the cricket as well as occasionally just sitting and watching as well.

Jane, David & Norma

This morning we enjoyed a lovely breakfast with everyone at The Food Gallery, where we entered from the back lane, tied the boys up and were seated at a long table just for us. We have given up on Harvest Café, as now that the Ice Cream Parlour side is turning into a Health Food Shop, there is nowhere easy for us to sit and in spite of all the time we have been eating there, no-one on the staff other than the owners, has bothered to learn anyone’s name or remember what they like to drink.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jan Pengilley

Last week, a small group enjoyed breakfast at Gracenotes Café, which we also love, but it may not be suitable to meet there as a large group on a regular basis. So next week, the Red Star Café is having its turn – one small problem – you can’t book a table there, so Judi & Gillie are going early to push a few tables together for us.

Wes and I will be missing as we have been invited to lunch with Terry Borg that day and we hope to visit Viva beforehand. Viva was disappointed not to win the Art Show raffle main prize of an original Brian Nash painting of Lake Daylesford, so Brian has framed a large print for her, which he will give us today. So even if Viva thinks I still shouldn‘t come near her, she is dying to receive her print!

Wes drove our friend, Marjorie, to hospital on Wednesday morning and popped in to see Viva & Lal on his way home. She reported they were both looking good and he spent a happy 90 minutes or so there, no doubt making them laugh. He has also looked after Barbara for three mornings when she had bathroom renovations & had to cancel her carers, as well as take her for a swim and help collect Bobby the cat from Eureka Kennels. I got to Mah Jong with Carol & Valerie, which was a lovely antidote to work!

Opening Night Barmen

Our dear God-daughter and cousin, Leigh Hoolihan, and her fiancé, Simon, have set 6^th April as their wedding date in London and we have decided to be there with her, which has pleased her very much. We were lucky that Qantas has been having a wonderful sale, so we picked up some very reasonable fares, after making sure that Eureka Kennels could accommodate Bilbo & Frodo, while we are away. Our fares don’t allow us to do much other than fly to London & back, so we have decided to spend some time in Wales after the wedding as we have never been there.

This afternoon we are hosting a thank you for all our Art Show committee members and their partners, with catering to be done by Bronnie & Lee (two Rotarians, who catered for the Opening Night with aplomb – they made 1,900 pieces of food for the 220+ who turned up). Wes found time between showers of rain to mow the lawns, and hopes to do some weeding in the front before everyone arrives. While we were at the Town Hall the garden took off – roses & irises leapt into bloom; spinach & silver beet grew so fast & went to seed, and the weeds took hold wherever they could!!

Some of the Opening Night food

 

 

 

 

 

I may not get a Dispatch to you next weekend as it is a very busy one, but I’ll be back in touch as soon as I can. In the meantime thank you all again for your support during this busy period in our lives. It’s been great to receive Facebook messages of support as well as the occasional email.

Finally a word about the Spring Racing Carnival – I picked Green Moon to win the Cup a couple of months ago, but jumped off after the Cox Plate fiasco and that just about sums up our Carnival. We had occasional bets which usually meant those horses didn’t feature in the winners, I managed to forget to print out what we had backed so we watched some races blind, and all in all, we learnt more about what happened by reading the following day’s Age newspaper.