Daylesford Winter Dispatch - Sunday, 5th July 2020

Last Sunday, the Dispatch didn’t quite arrive as I had planned. It still showed Tuesday’s date, it unexpectedly went into a 5th page & it seemed to go to everyone’s emails, not just the ones I had chosen for the Dispatch. These are all teething issues that I am sorting out as I make the move from Outlook to Google. Please accept my apologies & bear with me - it will improve. I am unable to find Verdana font, which I love, so have been using Varela Round, which I quite like, but all the settings are out as a result. You have no idea the panic there was at my desk around 7 am as I went to send out my first Dispatch via Gmail & Google Docs. 

I thought I should describe a typical Sunday morning for you - we get up at 5.30am and are usually at Lake Daylesford by 5.45 with Lewis & Morse. We walk for 60-70 minutes, come back home & give them breakfast. I also clean the backyard & feed the birds before coming into the study & preparing to finish & send the Dispatch. I used to try and write it all on Sunday mornings, but that is too hard, so now I have most of it done & just finish it off to send to you. 

Lewis & Morse resting after a busy morning of chasey

After the Dispatch, we have quick showers, get dressed and & drive to the Sunday Market, aiming to be there by 8am to beat the crowds. We greet Ken Rae from Spring Park Nursery as we arrive, bearing newspapers & returning pots from plants we have bought. Yvonne has dog carrots, cabbage, pumpkin & apples ready for me, along with her best celery & fennel. I then try to avoid others as I choose mushrooms, red peppers, spring onions, green beans, ginger, garlic, dog zucchini & dog & people broccoli, pears if they are in season, tomatoes, an Iceberg lettuce that fits in my Tupperware container, red onions & occasionally a leek. 

Meanwhile Wes buys sourdough bread & croissants from Steve & Ken at Stella’s, Dutch Cream potatoes from a farmer down the other end of the market & spelt bread for Glen, our neighbour, if she doesn’t need a trip to the market for anything else. On the way out, we stop to chat with Jeff, the dog treat man, and buy pigs’ ears’ strips & dried lamb bones for Lewis & Morse. 

We arrive back home laden and while Wes delivers croissants & spelt bread to Barbara & Glen, I start washing everything in preparation for filling our two crispers - the smaller dog one & the larger people one, although some days I think it should be the other way round. 

Wes then takes me out to breakfast or makes hot drinks & heats up croissants and we sit at our dining room table looking out over Lake Daylesford and reading the Sunday Age as we have breakfast. After we finish, I get back to the now clean fruit & vegetables, and Wes goes into the garden if it isn’t too cold. 

My next move is to ring Leanne & see how her weekend is going, before doing whatever chore I have set myself - last Sunday, I planned to, and did, give a complete polish to our beautiful hall table. This involved taking off the protective glass, moving the piece out from the wall, removing & polishing every drawer & eventually putting it all back together again. By this time, it was midday - time to check emails before going back upstairs for another pot of tea & the Sunday crossword. 

We bought this beautiful Chinese console hall table  from Orient Furniture, Chinatown, Sydney, back in 2005. We were going to Yum Cha with Judi & Michael, when we noticed it in the window & thought it would go perfectly in our then new home. We still love it and it looks just as good as the day we bought it. 

So much has happened this week. We watched some more Steve Dotto You Tube information sessions to learn more about Google Docs & Keep, and I made the decision to stop doing the Dispatch twice & instead write it straight into my Blog & attach a link to my Sunday emails. I do hope this has worked OK for you and that you were easily able to catch up on our news if you wished. Let me know of any issues you have, as it appears to work fine for Wes & me. Tomorrow I am teaching Wes all I have learned about Docs, as he hasn’t started using them yet. The main drawback to them is that although they are excellent for putting up on the web, they don’t keep their shape when it comes to printing and that was why I had such problems last Sunday. 

Judi & I had our regular catch up at The Food Gallery, but we were appalled by the numbers of visitors & their attitudes to spatial distancing. We are in the middle of Victoria School Holidays & people from Melbourne, which has had quite a spike in COVID-19 contractions, seem to think it is OK to visit the country, where there are little or no cases & bring it with them. More than one shop-keeper talked to me about closing over the weekends, rather than put his & his staff’s health at risk. 

We did enjoy watching the Coodabeen Champions on Monday night on You Tube - the show was meant to go for 90 minutes, but they did 135, including a 10 minute interval. Once again we felt as though we had gone out to see a live show - there were lots of jokes, very little serious football talk, plenty of songs & a very amusing array of phone calls to Torch, including one from Nige,( who is an ideator working for Gill McLaughlin), wondering if the Coodabeens had any thoughts for how to fix the season. We laughed ourselves silly, while Lewis & Morse tried to tell us how tired they were & begged to go to bed.

Wonderful cartoon of the night by Paul Harvey  L-R     Ian Cover, Jeff Richardson, Greg Champion, Andy Bellairs, Billy Baxter, Simon Whelan & Torch McGee

We celebrated end-of-financial year with lunch at Jackie’s on Vincent. We had booked & were given the table by the open fire, as well as an excellent welcome from Lisa & very yummy food courtesy of Jackie. It was the perfect time to go for a meal as there were only 8 of us having lunch & the tables were well-spaced. The biggest worry for everyone was the 12 year old girl, who wanted to go exploring & touch everything. Her parents were mindful, but didn’t demand obedience. 

Wes tucking into chocolate fondant to finish the meal, after curried goat for him & chilli calamari for me.

Wes spent plenty of time with Barbara, helping her with practical things as well as being a sounding board. He also spent time in our garden, both front & back, pruning roses & cleaning up. We had so many sunny days after cold, frosty & misty mornings.

One highlight for me was my fortnightly chat with Kathy Lazzaro & Karen Stevenson. This time, Joyce Spiteri joined us, which was wonderful. We all met in 1972-74, and have been firm friends ever since. Old friends are so good - you don’t have to explain yourself - they know you as well as anyone, and we all enjoyed the catch up. Joyce has promised to try and join us again - she had to leave the chat early as two of her grand-daughters (Katia & Alessia) were clamouring for sewing lessons. 

Another was a catch up with Dot & John Smith at The Food Gallery. We met on Friday morning, when Daylesford was submerged in fog and spent a lovely hour or so chatting. I was pleased to see them both looking well & prepared to be sensible for as long as it takes. The surge in COVID-19 cases in Victoria (mostly Melbourne) has been disappointing after we were doing so well early. 

Mid-week, we were delighted to read that the Sunday Market was going back to being a food market only with much stricter controls, as it was before. However, it was decided to cancel today’s & next Sunday’s Market & bring it back after the Victorian school holidays are over. Yvonne rang me as soon as she heard the news & Wes visited her in Wheatsheaf, about 10 minutes away, to pick up our usual order. Our fridge was as full as it ever gets with fresh food arriving two days earlier than usual. 

We feel very lucky that we haven’t gotten bored yet - we have the boys to entertain us & keep us busy; 9 games of footy are available on Fox from Thursday night to Sunday afternoon; we haven’t run out of projects, and we are keeping in touch with friends & family whenever we can. Neither of our teams won this weekend, which isn’t ideal - the Saints & Bombers were just too good. 

Beanies, berets & a scarf that I donated to Keeping Daylesford Warm this week. Thanks again to everyone for their wool donations. Much appreciated. 

Yesterday was Barbara’s birthday and Wes took her to Bellinzona Grange for High Tea at lunchtime. He was very impressed with everything - precautions, distancing, service & yummy food. 

The boys and I settled down to watching an afternoon of footy in front of the fire and out of the cold & wet. Our backyard looks like a country footy field after a game, as it hasn’t coped with another 30mls of rain in a couple of days. Lewis & Morse just love it & their games of chasey become even more excited and muddier. We think Morse’s aim is to take Lewis’s collar from him & he is successful more often than not!

This morning it feels strange not to be visiting the Sunday Market, but I am having an early breakfast with Janine Hawker at The Food Gallery. We haven’t seen each other for 4 months & it will be lovely to catch up, especially early before the visitors arrive.