Morse

Morse
Morse & friend

Sunday, 1 November 2015

Daylesford Spring Dispatch - Sunday, 1st November 2015


Dear Friends, once again, we enjoyed breakfast at ‘The Food Gallery’ and once Aileen joined us, we entered into a serious discussion about her mother, who we discovered, went ‘into service’ aged 13. She did approx 6 years of school from age 7, and by the age of 16 found herself looking after two children fulltime. Warren is dying to interview Dorothy, who is 101 years old, originally from South Australia and a practising Catholic ‘without the guilt’ as Aileen explains it!

I was very keen to see the 2015 Swiss + Italian Landscape Art Prize, which was being shown in ‘The Convent Gallery’, so headed there around 11am and enjoyed wandering around and looking at the 58 paintings on display. Both of us know all three prizewinners and two are friends, so it was quite a thrill to see Valerie Roberts & Brian Nash take out the top two prizes. The Convent is looking good, with some interesting art, and is always worth a visit – I just don’t seem to have made my way there in the past year or so.



More photos from the Swiss + Italian Festa

On Monday, it was a cold day with drizzle – amazing to need the heater on again after the air-conditioner the day before. I went to gym and then walked Bilbo around the Gardens. Wes went to the Writers’ Group and was the only one there, so started on his next short story about ‘Uncle Bill’, who has been the subject of many of his speeches over the years.

Our roses are starting to bloom in earnest and the garden is looking superb at present. Irises are just emerging, there is fruit setting on the various trees, the rosemary is flowering, the seaside daisies are going crazy and wherever you look, little surprises are emerging. Even the ornamental grape is enjoying a growth spurt and the lemon tree has lots of flowers, which we hope turn into lemons.


Our beautiful new Japanese Maple, nicknamed ‘Miss Blake’ after Joan Testro, in whose honour this was bought

Wes and I enjoyed Tuesday morning’s film ‘Ricki and the Flash’ mostly for the wonderful acting performance by Meryl Streep. The storyline was good but suffered from poor writing, the acting fell away after the three leads and the film could have finished earlier without drumming the message into its audience quite so hard.

When we came out of the cinema and turned on our phones, we were delighted to read the news that Ben Lazzaro and his wife, Leanne Meli, have a baby daughter, Olivia May, born a week early.That afternoon Wes spent pulling weeds from the garden, while Alanna at EKO gave my fingers and toes the full treatment.

On Wednesday, I played Mah Jong with Dot & Valerie, while Wes spent the morning helping Barbara in the garden and with the computer. That afternoon he drove to Malvern to check out Joan Testro’s home in preparation for the removal of the remaining furniture and books on Friday. In the evening, he attended a dinner meeting of our financial advisors, First Samuel, at ‘Quaff’ restaurant in South Yarra and arrived back here around 9.30pm. Bilbo and I had been for a walk in the Gardens in the late afternoon, so Bilbo was too tired even to get up when Wes walked in the door.


We had a busy morning on Thursday – Wes and Bilbo walked early, then an electrician from Fells arrived to put in some more power points and replace two fans – one the exhaust in the downstairs bathroom, and the other, the ill-fated ceiling fan in our bedroom that has never worked properly and now doesn’t work at all. Colin is a very pleasant man, who listened and then did what was wanted. While he was working, Glenn Mack arrived with morning tea, for a catch-up with Wes and me.

I had to leave in the middle of his visit as I had a fringe trim booked with Lyndal Conroy at ‘The Cutting Studio’. Much to my amazement, 29-year-old Lyndal is besotted with Glomesh and is buying up handbags and purses like they are going out of fashion...perhaps they are on the way back in!

Wes spent his afternoon pottering away in the garden as it was a perfect day here. I was quite tired after all the socialising in the morning, so I spent time on the computer with Bilbo at my feet.

On Friday Wes left early to drive to Malvern to do what he hoped would be the last cleanout at Joan’s place. Her piano is going to her great-nephew, Kyahl Anderson, and that was picked up on time, which gave Wes a chance to grab a late breakfast before helping the people from Ballan who were collecting the rest of the furniture and books for the Community Shop attached to the Ballan Hospital.

Bilbo and I joined the Strollers for the shorter bushwalk around Sailors Falls, which was very ably led by Rob McDonald. Most of the walkers were staying on for lunch, which they had brought to share. Rob & Marg are very generous hosts as well as being excellent winemakers.

In the afternoon, I planted 25 tomato seedlings, which were more than ready to go into the ground after being nursed through the frosty mornings in our little greenhouse. That took me about 90 minutes, which was the longest I’ve spent gardening for ages and necessitated quite a rest before I tackled the ironing and sundry other chores. Wes arrived home around 3.30pm very happy with the day, but needing to go back again yesterday, as not all the books and furniture had fitted in the van.


So we were both up early and heading to Melbourne in separate cars – me to visit Leanne and Wes to finish off clearing out Joan’s home so that the cleaners can come in and get it looking good for settlement in a couple of weeks’ time. We both drove through heavy rain and we both had successful mornings.

We had invited Judi to share Derby Day with us as her husband, Michael, has gone to Blackheath in the Blue Mountains to spend time with his best friends, Roger & Vicky. I collected Judi on my way home from Leanne after an unpleasant drive with the road full of hoons and people not used to driving regularly. Wes had endured a similar experience and was already back here getting lunch ready. He had asked Gary & Katie, the people who had emptied Joan’s house, if they would deliver a bookcase to us on their way home to Daylesford, so we waited lunch until they arrived. They, of course, had their lunch first, and arrived around 2.30pm just as Wes had decided to cook the fish anyway!

My favourite rose - Friesia


The rest of our afternoon went smoothly and we picked up two quinellas worth $117 in total for $27 outlay – a very satisfactory result, which more than made up for last week’s losses. Wes drove Judi home after the last race and we were all in bed by 7pm and ready for lights out not much later.

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