Daylesford Winter Dispatch - Sunday, 14th July 2019

I missed a very entertaining breakfast last Sunday. Janine was back from her trip to Queensland meet her son’s partner; Jan was back from a wonderful Vietnamese wedding in Sydney; Judi & Sandy both divulged family secrets, and a good time was had by all at the Food Gallery.

The U3A Hepburn Shire community was very sorry to hear of the death of Dr Russ Wilkinson on 2^nd July. Russ was responsible for teaching us all Mah Jong over many years and we will always be grateful to him for that. His wife, Peppa, held crochet lessons as well, until Russ’s bad health required a move to Ballarat to be closer to specialists. Russ will be missed, but never forgotten.

On a lighter note, Danny sent me this lovely photo of him at Flemington on Saturday for an annual boys’ day at the races. It encouraged me to look at the horses & have $1 each way on Dogmatic (why not), which was well beaten & Reykjavik (because we love Iceland), which romped home at good odds in the feature race.

On Sunday afternoon, I got out of bed in a show of solidarity to watch the Blues play the Demons in a must-win game for both teams. The Blues started slowly yet again & stormed home to take the lead with 2 minutes to go. Melbourne managed to score and won with seconds to spare. A couple of players we have been berating put in good games, while Liam Jones played his worst in ages (& for some reason played 100% game time).

I took this delightful photo of the boys giving their support to Wes during the 1^st quarter.

On Monday morning I woke feeling much better, and although I was still too asthmatic to do anything much, got up & dressed & sat around enjoying the sunshine. I think all three boys were pleased to see me.

I was finally able to pull my weight on Tuesday by making a big pot of minestrone soup, which we enjoyed with local sourdough olive bread (courtesy of Matt & Sara). The boys found a secret cache of plastic foam packaging & distributed it around the garden, the decking & their bedroom. Wes eventually tracked it down on Wednesday morning and removed it from their sight. Poor Sandra arrived to clean, fresh from a fortnight’s holiday in Bali, and was confronted by traces of white foam everywhere she went.

While Wes & Barbara did a big supermarket shop on Wednesday morning, I had a fringe trim & later a manicure. Wes visited good friend, David Hall, in the late afternoon, which meant the minestrone came in handy for dinner.

Thursday morning, I played Mah Jong with Dot for a couple of hours at Muffins & More, before Wes & I had lunch at Rubens, a long-standing lunch & dinner restaurant in Main Road, Hepburn Springs. It is ages since we have been there & the quality of the food & service was just as good as we remembered. The only drawback to Rubens is the noise levels when it is busy, but there were only 11 other people eating when we arrived, and we got the table for 2 in front of the elevated open fire.

Me tucking into smoked salmon fettucine with chillies – very yum!

We came home to a period of busyness – both Judi & Gail rang our mobile & home phones at the same time as Nick Massaro arrived to fix our sliding door (yet again) and couldn’t make himself heard over the phones as the previous night’s power outage had disabled the front door bell. We eventually got on top of everything, Nick fixed the door, I replied to the phone calls & after feeding the boys dinner, went to bed exhausted.

We had hoped to spend a pleasant evening watching the Aussies beat the Poms in the semi-final of the One-Day Cricket World Cup, but when we were 3/10, all those thoughts were put away. We capitulated, except for Steve Smith & Alex Carey, and the Poms were easily able to pass our meagre score of 223 with 18 overs to spare & only 2 wickets down.

On Friday we woke to a gentle soaking rain. Wes walked the boys anyway as they love being walked & coming home to breakfast, which I have prepared in their absence. I went supermarket shopping, caught up with the usual Friday morning early shoppers & we settled in for a quiet day.

Wonderful photo of our old friend, Bob White, with his friend, Angel, & a very decorated Inca warrior perhaps in Mexico City this week

That night we watched in amazement as Collingwood came back from the dead to beat West Coast Eagles by 1 point over in Perth.

Yesterday, we enjoyed some snow, kept the open fire going, and barracked successfully for Carlton to get over the line against the Swans.

Cofield Sparkling Shiraz celebratory drinks

It’s another cold, wet morning here and we’re about to put coats on the boys & take them to the Sunday Market, before heading to breakfast with friends, where we have a surfeit of Dutch Cream potatoes to share with them!