Breakfast last Sunday at Larder was most enjoyable & afterwards Barbara & Wes headed
off to the MCG to see Carlton play Melbourne. They hadn’t been to the footy for
about 3 years & it was a shame that they chose a game where the Blues went
home after quarter time, leaving the Demons to do what they liked!
Bilbo & I had a quiet time together, catching up on
cooking, knitting, footy & a bit of gardening in between showers. Wes was
pleased to arrive back to home-made minestrone & a fruit cake on his
return.
Bilbo looking smug
after managing to get up on Wes’s knees – with some help
On Monday, I caught up with Judi for a long chat over pots
of Jasmine tea at The Food Gallery. She
had arrived back after settling her mother in a lovely nursing home but had
hurt her back just before catching the flight home & had been out of action
waiting for pain-killers & anti-inflammatories to take effect.
Meanwhile, Windows 10 did an enormous update & my
computer was OK, but Wes’s went haywire & he has spent most of the past
week speaking to people on the other side of the globe, who would prefer to
make appointments to chat at 11pm our time. He did one of those & refused
to do any more, opting for the friendlier 10am timeslot! The upshot is that his
computer is too old to take these Windows 10 enhancements & he has had to
revert to Windows 7.
The last of the Autumn
beauty – this maple was given to us some years ago by Denise Robinson & it
never fails to look stunning all year round
Also, during this week, our niece, & my God-daughter,
Jessie, moved into palliative care, which will be more comfortable for her. She
has had some good sleeps, and has been given the drug, Avastin, which should
improve her quality of life. The cost of this drug is $20,000, which has been
raised by crowd-funder, Chuffed.
We had been invited to lunch on Thursday with Gail &
Terry White. Our original starting time was midday, but it had to be pushed
back as Wes was finally finishing the reversion of his computer to Windows 7
& if he didn’t do it then, he would have to chat to someone around midnight
(not our best time of day ever!)
Gail had gone to heaps of trouble with hot & cold
nibbles, salmon for her & me & steak for Wes & Terry, accompanied
by mashed potato, exotic baked zucchini, blue cheese butter for the steak &
avocado mix for the fish. We had provided the cheese platter, courtesy of Dos, the café offshoot of Wine & the Country. I went in to
pick some cheeses & accompaniments only to discover Bronnie Liddelow
working there & able to provide an interesting platter for a very
reasonable price. Dos will be my
first port of call in the future for cheeses!
The next morning, we finally saw the sun after a week of
grey skies, so Wes & I both got into the garden. While he pruned &
mulched & filled a bag of clippings suitable for the fire, I emptied three
of our planters in preparation for Winter. We moved our dwarf lemon tree from
the dog decking to the main decking, where it will benefit from the sun &
less wind & rain & it is already looking much happier. All this work
was done with kookas & maggies in full voice.
Juvenile kooka on
Fawlty Towers watching on
We had hoped to get to the footy on Friday night, to see
Collingwood play the Western Bulldogs, but I didn’t feel I could cope with the
late night, so opted to watch it at home instead. The Bulldogs put in a great first
half, but the Pies rallied in the second half & won – something we haven’t been
able to do against them for some years.
Yesterday we started with breakfast at Boathouse Daylesford, where we sat at one of the windows looking
out at the frost & mist over Lake Daylesford. We love eating here – Claire &
Susanne are both so very welcoming & our hot drinks are ready by the time
we sit down. We had different breakfasts from the usual – roasted mushrooms on
brioche for me & savoury waffles for Wes.
It turned into another beautiful day, which meant Wes got
some more gardening & painting done; while I washed the cars & swept up
Autumn leaves to strew on our garden beds.
Carlton played Geelong at their home last night. The Blues
weren’t good enough to win, but only lost by 28 points, which was a big improvement
on the previous week.
Bilbo has had an early walk & now he is sitting under
my feet waiting for me to stop typing & go to the Sunday Market, which I
will do very soon. As I look out the rosellas & magpies are busy eating the
seed I have put out & some little birds are investigating the pile of soil
that came from the planter boxes, where they occasionally strike it rich by
finding a worm!
My uncle, Kevin Hoolihan, is back in hospital & having
an operation on his foot tomorrow. Our thoughts are with his wife, Jeff, &
her daughter, Leigh, & son, Mike, as they worry about this latest setback
to Kev’s health.