Dear Friends, last
Sunday’s breakfast was small in attendance, but we ranged over a wide variety
of topics including the Paris massacre, parental denial, the IRA and briefly,
cricket. We came home and Wes went straight into the garden while I composed
and printed this year’s Christmas letter, and tried to get started on cards as
we are off to Adelaide on Tuesday week for 10 days, and I will have lots to do
when we get back! We have tickets for the first 4 days of the 3rd
Test, which is the first Day/Night Test Match in Australia. Jane & David Knox
will be there for days 1 & 2, so it will be fun to catch up with them.
View from our study early on
Monday morning – it pays to look up from the desk every now and again!
We’ve had a mixed
week with George’s funeral on Warren’s birthday; early morning walks; gym;
Ancestry.com; rose picking; a visit from Terry Borg, and the aftermath of the
Paris atrocities to digest.
We are both
thrilled that Australia is finally welcoming the first of the Syrian refugees,
and we hope it won’t be long before more arrive. We live in such a big country
with so much land to spare & so many of us willing to help refugees
assimilate into our communities.
I drove to Ballarat
on Monday for my annual check-up and, post x-rays, was given the all clear. A
trip to Ballarat isn’t complete without a quick visit to the Golden Nugget
Bakery for the perfect vanilla slices, which I duly did. Wes attended another
Writers’ Group meeting at Wombat Hill House, where he and Fiona spent a useful
90 minutes or so chatting about their projects. That night was the AGM of the
Daylesford Cinema, which Warren attended. It was a good, successful meeting
with some positions on the committee changing and everyone very positive about
the future of the cinema here. Of course, it all depends on volunteers, and as
long as there are plenty of those, the cinema will survive.
Wes turned up to
set up at the Cinema before the funeral on Tuesday and was greeted with a cake
& candles organised by his lovely co-workers, Lauren & Jeanette. Judi
dropped by with a gift as well, so he was feeling very loved by the time I
caught up with him.
George’s funeral
went well. It was a great celebration of the life of a very interesting, but
simple man. At least half the mourners were past and/or present members of the
Bushwalking group and all the males bar one was wearing a jacket and tie in his
honour. Vera, Jane & Paul would have been very proud indeed of the turnout
and they had put much thought into making his service memorable.
Afterwards we came
home here, where Wes cooked a seafood pasta dish which we washed down with a
bottle of Charles Melton ‘Rose of Virginia’ his favourite rosé, which I had
managed to track down in time for his birthday. We were both feeling quite flat
after the funeral and it was good to sit quietly together and raise a glass to
George.
On Wednesday, Wes
took Barbara on a big shop at Coles to tide her over while we are away, and did
some garden chores on their return. Dot, Valerie and I enjoyed a fun morning of
Mah Jong as usual. During the afternoon, Jane Knox sent me a lovely photo of
herself and Terry McDonald, when she made a surprise visit to his local pub.
We were quite busy
on Thursday – early morning walk, followed by our own shopping, then I had a
haircut and a facial, while Wes did pruning in the garden and managed to fill
the green bin before it was emptied. We had an unexpected visit from David
Castles, who had driven to Daylesford to sign a contract on a property in Porcupine
Ridge that he and his wife, Sandy, will use as a weekender to begin with. They
are both very excited and we will enjoy their company as I am sure they will
become regulars at Sunday Breakfast.
During the
afternoon, our friend, Terry Borg, arrived to spend 24 hours with us. She had also
enjoyed a facial with Emma, so we had matching shiny faces for the rest of the
day. Wes went to visit Warren Pengilley aka Secundus, while Terry and I drove
to Spring Park Nursery, as she was keen to pick up a couple of their roses
which she had sourced from their catalogue. Ken was very helpful and she came
away with five plants in total. That night Wes made his seafood pasta and we
watched the excellent BBC programme entitled ‘P G Wodehouse in Exile’, starring
Tim Pigott-Smith & Zoe Wanamaker.
On Friday, Wes and
I were up early – he to walk Bilbo and prepare lunch for eight, and me to do
all the things I had planned to do before our unexpected visitor the day
before. Wes, Bobby, Tom & Danny all met at Hepburn Golf Club to play nine
holes on a lovely cool morning.
Marilyn &
Deborah went in search of Art Galleries and coffee, while Terry & I did the
walk around the Botanic Gardens and collected some tiny pinecones for her
Christmas table decoration.
Lunch was memorable
– everyone had plenty to say and was most amusing in their delivery –
especially Bobby Preston, who had an unforgettable Melbourne Cup story. Wes had
excelled himself with barbecued rump steaks & salmon; a huge dish of baked
vegetables, and enough peas to feed an army. He then produced Eton Mess and we
all agreed that cheese was superfluous and that we would move on to coffee
& chockies.
Eventually, after
about 4 hours, our visitors decided to leave as they all had long drives home.
We set about clearing up – it was a four dishwasher load lunch, and were in bed
quite early, happy to lie quietly and read after a very enjoyable time spent
with old friends.
Yesterday Wes had a
sleep-in, and I walked Bilbo around the Gardens once the early morning rain had
stopped. We both caught up on computer work before setting off to Geof Brown’s
funeral at the Daylesford Masonic Centre. There was a big turn up as Geof was a
much-loved very popular man. Interestingly, the service was led by Fr Kevin
Maloney, who used to be the parish priest here at St Peter’s Catholic Church,
which hosted a huge non-Catholic funeral this week, as there was nowhere else
in town big enough to hold everyone. We live in a very ecumenical town!
A lovely recent photo of Geof
& Theo
We popped into ‘The
Food Gallery’ afterwards, as we needed a hot drink and the chance to think
about Geof and what he had meant to us, especially when we were new arrivals to
Daylesford. We had enjoyed dinner parties with Glenda & Joe Rozen that he
and Theo threw when they owned ‘The Balconies B&B’; I had shared shifts at
the Info Centre with him, and whenever we bought a special gift for someone, we
always asked Geof to wrap it, as he was a master in presentation. This probably
went back to his days as a florist in Camperdown and later Port Melbourne. Geof
had also taught me the best way to mulch garden beds and helped me turn a patch
of grass into a flowerbed when we first moved across the road to no 77.
This morning Wes
has walked Bilbo early, put a henna on my hair, given Bilbo a bath, and is now
enjoying a cup of coffee while he catches up with emails and Facebook. As we
are leaving for Adelaide on Tuesday, I won’t be doing the Sunday Market (much
to Bilbo’s disgust), but we are going to breakfast and Gillie has promised to
turn up, which is a lovely surprise as we don’t see her very often these days.
If I don’t get time
to post on Facebook while we are away, I’ll catch you up with our trip in a
fortnight’s time, as we should be home sometime on Friday, 4th December.
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