Dear Friends, We’ve
finally enjoyed some rain this week & the ground is very grateful for it. Green
shoots are sprouting out of our lawn, the roses are in bloom, the tomatoes are
ripening & even our dwarf red beans are almost ready to be picked.
Last week’s Dispatch
attracted quite a few comments – everyone seemed to love the ChillOut photos
plus the one of Bilbo & Bam Bam together. Thank you so much for finding
time to give me some feedback & let me know that you are still reading
& enjoying after all these years.
I thought I should let
you know how well I am going these days with my chronic fatigue. The regular
early morning walk around the Lake energises me for the day, as well as being a
lovely thing to do with Wes & Bilbo. I try to make appointments in the
mornings, when I have the most get up & go, and if I can’t, then I make
sure I have a quiet morning before an afternoon commitment. I used to need to
rest after lunch, but I now find I can usually achieve up to 4pm, by which time
I am ready for a pot of tea & a sit down.
At breakfast last Sunday as the sun peeped out from
behind the clouds
I can’t face large
crowds of people I know any more, but that is manageable & I am grateful
that I am not in bed for half the day as I was at the start. There is no
medication I can take, but I am doing my best to avoid infections, have the flu
injection each year & keep the pneumonia prevention updated as well.
Apart from the rain,
this has been a fairly normal week for us, with a few extra highlights thrown
in. Normal for me means a walk every day; two sessions of gym; a fringe trim or
nails or both; a few phone calls with my sister, Leanne; catching up with a
friend or two over a pot of Jasmine tea; a morning of Mah Jong with Dot (year
18 of playing this wonderful game); cryptic & normal crosswords daily;
logic problems; online Scrabble games with Jane, Lyndall, Wes & Moshe; a
few hours sitting at the computer; as many hours as possible reading books, and
quite a few hours watching footy, cricket & favourite TV series (usually
crime).
Wes spends most of his
time on the computer with his various projects – the main one is the ‘Villages
of the Hepburn Shire’ with Brian Nash, where Wes is providing the words to
Brian’s paintings. They visit a spot
each week and find something special that identifies that place, which turns
into a painting.
The First Annual Kingston Rodeo with the stolen
grandstand in view
Wes also spends many
hours on Ancestry & is often consulted by people from cemetery trusts, as
he seems to know more about his buried relatives than anyone else they can find
to ask.
He is also kept busy
in the garden and has been mulching the roses lately as well as plants heaps of
geraniums that he has propagated. And finally, he spends time each day planning
& then cooking exciting meals most lunchtimes. I have been known to create
interesting salads to go with fish, or to bake cakes suitable for visitors or
afternoon tea snacks, or to turn a few different fresh fruits into yummy fruit
salads, but that’s about it these days.
Bilbo’s life is very
governed by what day of the week it is. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday & Friday
follow a regular pattern – early walk, bone, sleep, get anxious around 4pm, eat
dinner at 5.30pm, sleep, get anxious around 8.30pm, have an apple & go to
bed. On Sundays, there is no early bone, only an apple, as he gets fed again at
the Sunday Market & at breakfast. And on Wednesdays, there is no early
bone, because Sandra arrives at 7.30am, gives him a 5-minute cuddle, and then
another apple as she leaves around 10.30am.
We’ve had some
wonderful highlights this week – on Monday evening the Hepburn Shire Council
agreed unanimously to keep the Daylesford Cinema in the Rex. The Cinema will be
moved upstairs to a new location & will be totally refurbished. This will
occur as quickly as possible and the Cinema will stay in its current spot until
the new one is ready for occupancy. With any luck the Cinema will only be
closed for a week or so.
We received a surprise
& very welcome morning visit from Ted Bailey (89), an old friend from
Brunswick Rotary days, who was on a trip from Castlemaine to Ballarat with his
good friend, John (90), who have been friends forever through their membership
of Powerhouse. Fortunately, I had baked a fruit cake & they both got stuck
into it with gusto.
Bilbo can relate to this!
We had been invited to
join Gayle & Fraser Gibson, their daughter, Gabby, & her son, Fraser,
Fraser’s friend, Terry, and his brother, Fergus, to lunch in the MCC Committee
Room to celebrate Fraser’s 70th birthday. It was a wonderful
occasion & we were so thrilled to have been included in this group. Our gift
to Fraser can be seen in this photo!
L-R Gayle, Fergie, Gab, Fraser Jr, Fraser, Wes
& Karen
Yesterday was the
Grand Final of the AFLW & what a great match it was. We were barracking for
Brisbane, but the Adelaide girls were just more determined & fully deserved
their win by 1 goal in front of 15,600 fans at the Gold Coast. We were in tears
watching the presentation, which was done with all the pomp & ceremony of
the men’s game, including young children giving the winners their medallions.
Wes & I both had a
country experience yesterday morning.
He & Brian Nash
were at Woolnough’s Crossing, when they met a farmer, who invited them onto his
property. They ended up standing on the back of his ute as it bumped around delivering
hay to his large cows. When the farmer rang his wife to tell her why he would
be late for lunch, she reminded him that she has a Brian Nash painting that she
absolutely loves!
Meanwhile, I went with
our friend, Janine Hawker, to Lyonville Hall for the inaugural Lyonville
Harvest Festival. It was a delightful thing to attend & we spent a happy
hour there chatting over tea & scones, after we had surveyed the fruit
& vegetables on display.
It
was no surprise to us when this won the best Basket of Produce
Footy
has started again and both our teams lost their opening games. Wes was very
disappointed that Carlton weren’t able to match it with Richmond on Thursday
night in front of 70,000+, whereas I was thrilled that Collingwood, which led
at one stage, only went down to the reigning premiers by 14 points. We watched
as much footy as we could over the 3 days and there is still more to come, but
we are trying to juggle seeing the 4th & final Test as well
& were thrilled to see Steve Smith make yet another century, his 7th
in India. We are not sure that 300 is a big enough total to worry the Indians
when they come out to bat this afternoon our time. The game is being played in Dharamsala
with the Himalayas in the background.
A most picturesque site
for a cricket ground. This is the first time Test Cricket has been played here.
No comments:
Post a Comment