Morse

Morse
Morse & friend

Sunday, 18 October 2015

Daylesford Spring Dispatch - Sunday, 18th October 2015



 Dear Friends, once again our Sunday started well with yummy breakfast and interesting chats at the ‘Food Gallery’. Bilbo scored well with toast from Judi & Margot & bacon from Janine. Our topics ranged from modern weddings (during pregnancy or after the children are born), origins of our first & middle names, and over-servicing (real and perceived) by doctors these days.

As I have been feeling better, I have been making occasional long overdue phone calls in an effort to catch up with patient friends in Melbourne (mostly), who don’t ring because they hope I will ring them. So far, I have enjoyed great chats with old friends like Kathy Lazzaro, which resulted in a visit from Kathy & Ged this weekend; Gayle Gibson; Shar O’Reilly, where I found out that her ex-husband, Jamie, had died earlier this year; and newer ones like Jane & David Knox in Sydney. I also speak with my sister, Leanne, every couple of days, and that is usually 20-25 minutes.


Here is a lovely photo of Marilyn & Robert Preston’s two beautiful granddaughters, Charlotte & Ruby, which featured in Facebook during the week.
As well we received emails from Genevieve and Ava Spiteri (daughters of Matt Spiteri & Sara Lacey) thanking us for their birthday cards. Here is Ava making a wish before blowing out the candles.



And just in case you’ve forgotten what he looks like, here is Bilbo using his friend as a chin rest.


We’ve enjoyed a typical week – me doing gym twice, Wes gardening, each of us walking whenever we can, especially with Bilbo. Wes spending hours on Ancestry.com seeking out interesting information about members of our respective families, as well as working on short stories about various members or events in their lives.




Views of the front with lilac in bloom and the rosemary hedge in full flower – you can just see the dog decking which is covered by Banksia rose, also in bloom

The film this week was ‘Holding the Man’ which was attended by 19 patrons at the Daylesford Cinema. This wonderful Australian film is a bittersweet adaptation of Timothy Conigrave’s posthumous 1995 memoir about growing up gay in the 1970s and falling in love with a schoolmate in Melbourne’s Xavier College. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house at the end.

Daylesford experienced a power blackout just as Warren was about to begin showing the shorts, so he, in consultation with the audience, decided to delay the film until 10.30am start in the hope that power would be restored by then. It was, but I had a 1pm appointment and the film went for just over 2 hours, so it was a near thing to get to Emma at EKO on time for my relaxing facial etc.

Dot was well enough to be back at Mah Jong this week and promptly won most of the games we played, except for one where Valerie prevailed. We were asked by another couple of patrons in the café whether there was a club they could join and we pleased to be able to refer them to the U3A Mah Jong Club, which still plays at the Masonic Centre.

I went along to hear Jude Brown, former nun, talk about her experiences in the Convent, as part of a U3A series entitled ‘Interesting Lives’ on Thursday. This was well attended and we learnt quite a lot about the Loreto order, nuns in general & Jude in particular. Afterwards I had been invited by my friend, Rhonda, for a light lunch at her place, where we admired her beautiful garden, which is full of flowering rhododendrons, and I met her lovely cat, Miss Sharon. Lunch was wonderful as any meal from Rhonda always is, and we chatted for almost 2 hours, before it was time for me to come home.

The Bushwalking Group travelled to Kyneton on Friday morning, which meant Bilbo, Judi & I wouldn’t get back to Daylesford until nearly lunchtime, so we three, plus Judi’s dogs, Maddie & Major, walked around the Botanic Gardens together. Afterwards I drove us all to the Food Gallery, where we sat happily chatting and drinking Jasmine tea and saying hello to all the friends passing by. Wes spent the morning helping Margot with her computer again and she is very pleased indeed.

Later that afternoon, Kathy & Ged arrived to spend the weekend with us. We opened a bottle of Cofield Sparkling Shiraz to celebrate, Wes cooked porterhouse and salmon on the barbecue, and we chatted over cheeses until we were all ready for bed.


Kathy & Ged at breakfast yesterday morning

Yesterday was one of the most perfect days you could wish for, here in Camelot. The weather was wonderful, with the sun shining, but not too hot, and we were able to open all the windows and leave them open all day. After breakfast – Wes’s scrambled eggs & bacon on muffins, we headed off in Kathy & Ged’s lovely new car to visit the Leonard’s Hill Market. This is a tiny little affair, as befits a very small community, but Kathy & I managed to find a few things to buy, including some beautiful irises, which had been cultivated by Ken Rae’s son, Chris.

Then we headed through the Wombat Forest and past the Ashram to the Ballarat Road, where we found David Dawson’s wrought iron showroom and gardens in Blampied. This is a stunning display and his work is shown to much better effect than it ever was in a small plot of land in town. On the way back to Daylesford we detoured into Spring Park Nursery & Rose Gardens, where we bought a very pretty, fragrant, climbing double red rose to go over one of our arches.

Next stop was The Bookbarn by the side of Lake Daylesford, where we had tea, coffee and ANZAC biscuits and enjoyed the serenity of the decking there far from the children’s playground and the Boathouse Café.



We parked in the main street and headed into David Bromley’s Gallery, which I am ashamed to say we had not visited until now. We were amazed by what he has done with a very long narrow shopfront. His work commands big prices and it is very cleverly displayed with a judicious use of mirrors. He has opened up much further and added stairs at the back of the shop and has even moved into behind the newsagency next door. Kathy, Wes and I then popped into the Creswick Woollen Mills shop, which has been further advanced by a boutique space given to Liz Davenport designs. I managed to find a lightweight black vest for Summer, so we all came home happy with our purchases.


The afternoon was spent by Kathy & me knitting & watching the races, Ged walking around the Lake & Wes working on Ancestry. We had a silly quinella on the Caulfield Cup and it came home to the tune of $81. Wes cooked salmon pasta; we demolished another sparkling shiraz and somehow fitted in Eton Mess in front of the latest episode of ‘New Tricks’. This was a perfect day with old friends.....

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