Daylesford ChillOut Dispatch - Sunday, 12th March 2023

 

We started our week in the usual way with a long walk around Lake Daylesford, followed by a trip to the Sunday Market to collect fruit & vegetables & entertain Morse with pats from friends & a sliced pear to eat. Once we had fulfilled those needs and I had washed & put away our produce, we gave Morse a big bone to occupy him & drove to Strathmore to visit my sister, Leanne. 

We had a good and busy visit - lots of chatting over hot drinks & toast to begin with, followed by Wes getting stuck into Part IV of her garden, as well as watering & pruning other areas. All the new beds are doing well, and on our next visit we will do some maintenance of all 4 beds & make sure all the plants (new & old) are happy & thriving. 

On Monday we woke to discover 11mls of rain had fallen overnight & everyone's gardens were showing the benefits. My Roma tomatoes are finally starting to ripen, the cucumbers are growing, and my two Jalapeno chilli plants are doing well. 

School that morning was cleaning our study from top to toe. While I dusted & polished, Wes cleaned the flywire screens & windows, vacuumed & washed the floors, and moved his desk further to the left, which gives much more light to the room & to him. We were very pleased with what we had done & felt we had earned our lunch. I had ordered new Motorola mobile phones for us both, as our LG models are no longer being updated now that LG has moved out of the Australian market. They both arrived that afternoon - one was delivered to the door & the other taken to the Post Office for us to collect!!!

Morse has had great difficulty relating to the changes in the study. When he leapt up onto Wes's recliner on Tuesday morning, he was facing the wrong way & it took him 30 minutes to work out that he needed to move his body around. We were most amused! I had a good Zoom chat with my sister, Leanne, followed by another excellent catch-up with friend, Terry, and Morse consented to be part of both Zooms with the attraction of a treat as his reward. 

Warren's desk, his recliner, our filing cabinets & my desk with our lovely view of the garden, Lake Daylesford & the Wombat State Forest in the distance

Once again, there was no Mah Jong on Wednesday, so I devoted my morning to getting our new phones up & working. There was no problem with Wes's phone, which happily synchronised with his old one & moved everything over swiftly, but my old one refused to play ball (even Tim at Mitre 10 couldn't get it to behave), so I've had to reinstall most of my apps manually, which isn't too hard, just frustrating. We are thrilled with our new phones, which are quicker, easier to read & use and have excellent cameras.

Morse was very happy to pose for my first photo!

We've both chatted with old friends this week - thanks to Helen Hanrahan & Sherryn Danaher, who made the calls to Wes & to me. We did enjoy speaking with you & sharing some news. As well, Wes had an excellent Zoom with his Godson, Danny Wells, and a Gilbert & Sullivan flavoured monthly Zoom with his Cousins. At the end they paused to remember Maryanne Phelan and her wonderful stories. There were five of us on my weekly chat with Old Friends and we were thrilled to see Joyce Spiteri again after a couple of weeks' absence. She makes us smile & we did laugh about decluttering or lack of it at everyone's homes. 

Meanwhile, over in India, the Aussies won the toss & elected to bat on a friendly pitch, in front of the Prime Ministers of both countries. Usman Khawaja batted all day to make his first century of this tour & we were very proud of our team's efforts in 33° heat. That night we had fish & chips as our Fish Shop had re-opened after their short break.

On Friday, after a lovely walk around Lake Daylesford, I left Wes doing the floors, while I went to Daylesford Cemetery to plant some rosemary at David & Annie Smith's graveside. Wes sent me a message to say the washing machine was leaking water, which sent me hurrying home to see if I could solve the issue. We took out the filter & discovered it was full of lavender twigs, which must have been in a pair of gardening trousers. We did a short wash with nothing in the machine to check & no more water leaked onto the floor.  

Day 2 of the Test was wonderful with Australia batting almost all day to reach 480. We loved seeing Cameron Green score his first century & Todd Murphy put on a 70-run partnership with Nathan Lyon, which was unexpected. Meanwhile Daylesford & Hepburn Springs are full of very happy people celebrating ChillOut, with both towns decorated with flags & bunting, and shops, cafés & restaurants full. 

A montage of photos from last year's ChillOut Parade

Yesterday after our early walk, we went to Pancho's for Glen's daily chai latte, and then Wes planted a lime & three hydrangeas I had bought the day before. He put them all in the front garden & did a wonderful job of settling them in. I found enough roses to give Glen a new jug of colour for her weekend, before getting stuck into changing passwords & pin numbers, which is my current big project. 

Reality set in with the cricket as the Indian team were 3/289 at stumps with Shubman Gill making an excellent century & Virat Kohli looking likely to do the same. Fingers crossed we can take some wickets today, otherwise the match will be a draw.