Karen Maloney's Dispatch: Daylesford Autumn Dispatch

We were so pleased that the Daylesford Sunday Market is still going ahead, with the regular stall-holders in attendance. We usually arrive around 8am & the five stalls we need are the first five we see. Ken Rae from Spring Park Nursery is the there with his beautiful array of roses & I give him our week’s worth of newspapers, as he can never get too much paper, especially with Winter & bare-rooted rose around the corner.

Next to Ken is Gary, who has a huge range of dried dog treats. He happily removes plastic covers from bones for me & always give me a great price on everything I buy. Naturally, he also sells eggs! After him is O’Toole’s honey stall, where you can choose from a good range of flavours & sizes or bring your jar to be refilled.

Then we come to Yvonne, who is helped by her late partner’s son, Corey. Yvonne knows what all her locals want & strives to provide it each week. For example, when we rock up, she has 2 bags of dog carrots, half a cabbage, a piece of pumpkin & a huge bag of seconds apples ready for Lewis & Morse. As well Corey has set out some sliced cabbage on a suitable tray ready for them to demolish while I shop. Yvonne always has a fennel for me & sometimes a salad onion. She does all her calculations in her head, weighs fruit & vegetables from scales hanging from a tree, and trusts me to tell her what I have bought. This is the best shopping experience ever!

On the other side of the walkway are Steve & Ken with Stella’s sourdough bread, which costs $1 less if you are a local. They make a great fruit bread, olive bread, pumpkin bread & even gluten-free bread & you can choose from tall squat loaves or short longer ones & no-one minds.

There were only 5 of us at breakfast, mostly saying Nameste in lieu of any kissing or touching, just in case. The Food Gallery was pleased to see us as visitors were thin on the ground & they were very happy to have their loyal locals. We were all disgusted with the incitement by that morning’s Herald Sun newspaper that we should stock up with two week’s worth of food at once & our local Coles Supermarket had queues at 5.30am, 90 minutes before it opened.

Afterwards, we went back home, I made my first pot of vegetarian minestrone for 2020 – using fresh ingredients from Yvonne & herbs & chillis from our pots. I must confess that after a few chores, I was very happy to sit with the Sunday Age & watch AFLW for the rest of the afternoon.

On Monday, I spent a couple of hours in a very quiet Vincent Street, buying things that I hadn’t been able to venture out & get the previous week. We needed a new bread knife, kitchen sink plugs, printer ribbons & USB port, prescriptions, Arnica, serviettes & yellow wool for me to knit Wes a bright, fisherman’s beanie. I finished up with a pot of Jasmine tea in The Food Gallery, which was very quiet with just a few loyal locals coming in for late breakfast, cuppas & early lunches. When I got home I washed both cars, as Wes arrived back from taking the boys to the vet for their annual vaccinations, just as I finished cleaning the little car. The boys got a clean bill of health & Morse, who has been know to misbehave, didn’t!

For all of you who feel a Dispatch isn’t complete without them!

We had decided to both visit Leanne on Tuesday when our date with Terry Borg was postponed and set off around 8am getting to Strathmore in record time of one hour & twenty minutes. She was very pleased to see us & have some help. The NDIS are being very supportive & her various visitors are still arriving; they are keeping her supplied with hand sanitiser & allaying any fears she may have. We tackled a couple of big jobs that were worrying her & got back here around 3pm. Our neighbour, Rob, had worked from home that day & it was such a relief to know that he was around & able to chat with Lewis & Morse every time he got up from his desk! Apparently they spent a good part of the day eyeballing him & waiting for just such action. We invited Rob in for a thank you drink when his workday ended & enjoyed the chat.

On Wednesday morning Daylesford Coles instigated their new hours, which allows seniors, pensioners & health care card holders etc to shop between 7 & 8am exclusively. Wes decided to do Barbara’s shopping for her & was most impressed with the care & organisation of the store & staff, many of whom had been there since 5am making sure shelves were stocked.

Not quite the quantity I had hoped for, but these home-grown tomatoes taste as good as they look!

I did our shopping at Coles on Thursday morning at 7.30am after we walked the boys. It was busy, but not frenzied & everyone was polite & being helpful. I found it quite tiring as I usually shop early & only have to chat to a handful of people, but every where I turned, I found a friend. I thanked the staff for getting in so early & having as much available as they could. There was plenty of toilet paper, no meat, some rice & milk, but no tissues or paper towels. I came home with nearly everything on my list, but was too tired afterwards to achieve much else for the rest of the day.

We were surprised the AFL decided to go ahead with the men’s footy and it was quite strange watching traditional rivals, Richmond & Carlton face off that night in front of no-one! Carlton looked over-awed at the start, but rallied to lose by only 24 points by the end, although they have injury concerns.

On Friday, The Food Gallery decided to close before it becomes compulsory, so Sunday Breakfasts have been suspended. On the plus side, our wonderful Springs Medical Centre set up a Sunday Flu Vaccine clinic for over 65s. We booked in as soon as we knew & disseminated the information as widely as we could. We are off shortly to have our injections.

We had decided to have a last hurrah meal out & visited the newly-opened Beppe Kitchen & Bar, owned by Liam Thorneycroft, who runs the very successful Cliffy’s. We enjoyed a very yummy meal in lovely surroundings, with plenty of space between diners. That night we lasted until half-time, when Collingwood were too good for the Western Bulldogs, in a game that would have disappointed their fans.

Whole snapper cooked to perfection at Beppe

Yesterday Wes did Barbara’s care after our walk, while I cleaned the fridge & collected a few grocery items I had forgotten on Thursday. Coles was quiet & most of the shelves were stocked.

We watched the AFLW Finals yesterday – Collingwood lost to North by 2 points in a most exciting match & Melbourne beat GWS by 3 points in another thriller. Freo, the flag favourites, thrashed the Gold Coast & today Carlton plays Brisbane in another cut-throat semi final.

We have been trying to stay in touch with family & friends as much as possible. Wes has been sending Jacquie Lawson e-cards & we have been delighted with the response to them. Thank you all for your replies. We’ve also tried to make phone calls every day & disseminate information when we receive it. We are so very lucky to be living in this beautiful part of the world, where we can still walk Lewis & Morse every morning around Lake Daylesford & the view from our windows is tranquil & Autumnal.

P.S. We are sad to be saying good bye to long-time friends, Bronwen & John Scarffe, who are leaving Porcupine Ridge next month for Moonee Ponds & the high life. They have been good friends through Rotary initially, and Bronnie always responds to my Dispatch with an encouraging word or two. She is promising to come back for Rotary Farmers’ Markets & meetings, so our paths will continue to cross.