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Sunday, 30 November 2014

Daylesford Dispatch - Sunday, 30th November 2014


Dear Everyone, we started our week with a very successful couple of visits on Sunday. Firstly we drove to Arcare in Kooyong Road, Caulfield North, where we found Joan Testro looking fabulous and very happy and settled in her new home. We spent about an hour with her until she ran out of voice (only because she is on oxygen, not because she didn’t have any more to say) and went away thrilled to see her looking so good and so happy there. It is a beautiful place, with great staff and very easy to visit.

From there we drove to Brunswick to catch up with old friends, Mike Hill & Lorna Pitt, who live in West Wyck Eco Village, which occupies the building and grounds of the former Brunswick West Primary School in Hunter Street. The night before they had celebrated 21 years of sustainable development on the site with lots of current and old participants attending. We were amazed that they were able to butter up the next afternoon and spend some time with us! Wes enjoyed the political chats with Mike, Lorna and Kate Nash, who also joined us for red wine, cheesy biscuits and carrot cake. Eventually we had to leave as we knew Bilbo would have started crying around 5pm when I wasn’t there to feed him, even though he had demolished a bone, some cabbage leaves, celery and toast before 10am that morning.

Mike & Lorna’s kitchen where we sat

Wes made pumpkin & olive pizzas when we arrived back home – possibly his finest combination ever, and we tried to stay awake for the end of the cricket, but failed yet again!

On Monday it was raining, hailing, thundering and occasionally lightning was striking, so we didn’t play golf. Wes started on a walk with Bilbo, but came back home, so I took him out around 7.15am and we lasted about 35 minutes before Wes rescued us from getting drenched. We got stuck into the Christmas cards during the morning and then I went to Gracenotes CafĂ© to meet up with good friend, Trish Nield, who had lots of news to tell me, as well as wanting to hear about our trip. We sat happily until after the second hailstorm and then decided it would be good to try and get home without getting wet, which I just made!

That night Wes and Bob White had dinner together at the Pig & Whistle Hotel in Trentham East and a very fine night they made of it indeed. Wes really enjoyed his meal, as well as catching up with Bob and later had a tour of his garden, which is really looking good.

Bob’s flowering Tulip Tree

Understandably it was a slow start in the morning, so I went off to gym, walking there and back, as I am missing all the lovely walks we did in Scotland, and have decided I just need to take advantage of the fine, or not so fine, weather here. After gym we went to Wombat Nursery to buy some passionfruit plants that are guaranteed to grow in Daylesford....our previous attempt turned out to be those passionfruit that flower profusely, but don’t actually fruit. I had bought Wes a most beautiful rose on Sunday from Ken Rae and he planted it out the front where it looks very happy indeed.

The Golden Child rose with a beautiful perfume to match its lovely colour

I finally managed to get up and go walking with Wes and Bilbo at 5am on Wednesday and we did enjoy watching the sky turn pink as we walked in the half-light around Lake Daylesford. Barry the fisherman had caught a 7kg carp and was weighing it just as we arrived, so we watched him as he photographed it and then gently put it back in the water, where it swam away happily.

Dot, Valerie and I all played Mah Jong in between telling stories and laughing at ourselves and each other. After lunch with Valerie, I came straight home here as the repair-person was due from Barclays in Ballarat. She duly arrived, was named Karen, and declared the dishwasher needed to go into their factory to see why it was showing an error message that of course didn’t show while she was here.

Wes spent the afternoon in bed after working on weeding at our place, then fixing the sprinkler system at Barbara’s and hacking into her blackberries for her. He was exhausted when he came home and may have caught a chill when he got wet while playing with the sprinklers. We had thought about going to Aperitifs, which was at Kyle and Donna’s home, the Old Glenlyon Primary School, but called it off when Wes was so shivery.  

Wes made the very sensible decision to spend Thursday in bed and give himself a chance to recover completely from his unwellness. I went to gym, did a bit of shopping and then came home to make and cook the Christmas pudding, which takes 7 hours in total. Doing this is one of my favourite parts of Christmas preparation and I use a recipe that belonged to Viva. My only changes are to update the quantities to metric and add a little more fruit and rum!

On Thursday afternoon, along with much of the cricket world, we were shocked and sad to hear of the death of Phil Hughes, whose injury was so unexpected and yet so fatal. The Age newspaper has given us some wonderful stories and thoughts from their journalists and from other cricketers. The ABC has treated his death with respect and gravitas both on TV and the radio, and FB has been inundated with photos and videos of his life. I love the celebration of his life through a minute’s silence, through the retirement of his one-day number, through the poignant tributes of flowers, bats and caps, and to the postponement of the start of the 1st Test in Brisbane next week.

                                                                                                                              
Fortunately Wes woke feeling much better on Friday and was able to take Bilbo for a walk, before sitting down at the computer to catch up on his emails and phone calls. I joined the Bushwalkers and we all drove to Nolan’s Crossing, where four of us branched off to do the shorter walk. I had taken Bilbo with me and drove Josie there and back. Bilbo was very well behaved and really enjoyed the adventure, including a couple of dips into some creeks we crossed. We got a little lost on our way back and ended up coming home along the road as that was the shortest distance to travel and we were all tired and needed to be back in Daylesford.

Nellie Kelly passionfruit

Wes was waiting for me to come back as he had to drive to Geoff Howard’s office in Ballarat to collect voting materials as he was opening the Clarkes Hill Primary School election booth yesterday morning. I had set off with keys to both cars, so Wes was stuck at home until I arrived back, whereupon he left and Bilbo and I had a rest. We had a very late lunch of seared fresh tuna and salad from our garden, before resting up again for a couple of hours, as we had been invited next door by Rob & Dene to tell a few Scottish stories, drink a sparkling red or two and eat some yummy serious nibbles.

Yesterday we were both up early – Wes to walk Bilbo and then head off for 3 hours on the polling booth – me to go supermarket shopping and do some serious re-potting of Roma tomatoes, chilies and Italian parsley. We had postal voted last week, so didn’t need to join the long queues at Daylesford Primary School, or even the non-existent queues at Hepburn Primary School.

We were delighted with Labor’s victory, which seemed assured almost from the very start of counting and Denis Napthine gave a very gracious concession speech around 10pm. It was good to see the Greens poll so well and we can only hope that our new State Government is a little less high-handed than its predecessors and that it resists the temptation to blame everything on the previous government – a tactic that never fails to irritate.

We are expecting a very hot day for our last day of Spring and it is already 20°. Wes has taken Bilbo for his early walk and now Bilbo is sitting at my feet in case I think of visiting the market without him. After that we will meet up with Judi, Janine, Barbara & Aileen for breakfast and later in the day we are off to Sailors Falls Estate Winery for drinks & finger food to celebrate Rob McDonald’s 70th birthday.


Sunrise over Lake Daylesford yesterday morning

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