Poor Peppermint Patty - the world's against her
We enjoyed a very lazy Sunday - after the Market, Wes & I went to breakfast at Larder to celebrate both our teams being in the Wildcard round and living to fight another day. While there, we made plans for the AFL Gather Round, held in South Australia, which is on 8-11th April 2027. We're booked into Athelney Cottage in Hackney from 7th-13th April, and will make our way home via Portland, collecting Morse from Eureka Kennels on 15th April. Wes has booked him into a suite, and paid extra for daily walks. He found lovely accommodation in Portland for us and we look forward to enjoying water views.
The rest of the day was taken up with watching the second Test against Bangladesh, which was played in Mackay. The previous day, the visitors had tumbled to be all out for 64. In reply we made 210 on the back of excellent innings by Cam Green & Nathan Lyon. Bangladesh struggled to make enough runs to force us to bat again and were all out for 95, with Mitch Starc taking 10 wickets for the match.
Morse enjoying the cricket!
Of course, there was footy as well - local footy plus AFLM & AFLW games with mixed results. I had been hoping that Essendon would have another win playing against Port Adelaide - they came close but couldn't quite finish it. Nearly 30,000 fans turned up to the dead rubber, which was wonderful support. Daylesford Seniors were beaten in their first Qualifying final, so play again this afternoon against Buninyong - fingers crossed.
Stunning sunset photo taken by our neighbour, Glen
On Monday, I joined Wes & Morse for a delightfully dry walk around Daylesford Cemetery. I spotted a bunny as we walked in, but it soon disappeared and Morse had to go home without a good chase under his belt. I did the supermarket shopping and brought home feta & spinach Danish for breakfast, before heading back out to do a few local chores. Meanwhile, Wes gardened out the front before washing & vacuuming Snoopy.
The next morning we left early in pouring rain for my lung function test in Ballarat. The young woman testing me was very clear in her instructions and it was a much better experience than some years ago at the Ballarat Base Hospital. Wes was able to accompany me and was helpful with information that was needed. I did well in the test and the results are being forwarded to my GP, Dr James Smith, and we'll see what happens next, if anything!
Beautiful hellebores
After the appointment we went to the Ballarat shopping hub, where Wes bought up big on flake, Atlantic salmon, prawn & ginger dumplings & King prawns. The freezer is groaning with all this produce, which should keep us going until Christmas! Then we walked across the road to our favourite café, Wen & Ware, and enjoyed our usual hot drinks with cheese & tomato toasties.
There was no Mah Jong this week as Judi was unavailable, but we were able to walk on Wednesday morning before I had a fringe cut at Daylesford Hair & Beauty with Kirsty. She is a lovely person and an excellent hairdresser and I feel very lucky to have found her. Wes did the vacuuming & washing of floors, so we were confined to the downstairs study for most of the morning while everywhere else dried.
First daffodils
After the walk on Thursday, I had two chats - the first with Terry Borg, and her daughter, Laura, where we chatted about Laura's recent purchase of a unit for her & her two daughters. Then with Joyce, who was looking very well, and had plenty of news.
We had booked lunch at the Pig & Whistle in Trentham East, where we were meeting Kathy & Gerard Lazzaro, who had stayed the night at Holgate Brewery in Woodend before moving to Daylesford for two nights. We enjoyed a lovely long lunch - good food & conversation, and excellent wines.
Kathy, Ged & Wes enjoying the chat
We left Kathy & Ged alone on Friday and invited them for fish & chips and the footy - the first Wildcard match ever in the AFL. It was a beautiful day, and we both spent some time in the garden - Wes weeding & trimming, and me weeding & picking daphne, daffodils and hellebores.
That afternoon, we had an unexpected visit from the electrician, Colin Johns, who came to install our new oven. He comes from a long line of Johns, and had lots of wonderful stories to tell, while he removed our old oven, and did a few things to make sure the new one fitted and was working properly. We asked him to check our laundry ceiling fan which had stopped working. It had died, so he hopped into his van and re-appeared with a new one within minutes. Then we asked him to check a decking light, which turned out to have been disconnected by a possum. He reconnected it easily and finally, I showed him a small screw that had suddenly appeared on the sink that morning. He worked out where it had come from in the mixer tap and fixed that as well. What a star. He didn't want or need tea, coffee or water, and was very happy to pat Morse as often as he could. What a find!
Kathy & Ged arrived at 6pm bearing a beautiful sparkling red, chocolates for afters and three bags of wool for me. We enjoyed a good chat before Wes & Morse went to get the fish & chips. After dinner I went to bed, and Kathy joined me in the bedroom, sitting in the comfortable chair and watching the footy.
It wasn't a particularly skilful game, but very close and exciting and decided by a kick after the siren, when Tim Membrey kicked a point instead of a goal and the Doggies won by 3 points in front of over 80,000. They had been the better team during the night and deserved to progress to an Elimination Final, while we looked spent and wouldn't have gone any further.
The Ecstasy & Agony at the end
We had a very quiet day yesterday after our busy couple of days socialising. We worked out how to use our new oven, and Wes successfully heated a pie & pastie for us for dinner before the footy started. Carlton were slow to hit their straps, but outscored the Demons by 9 goals to 3 after quarter time, and won by 19 points in front of nearly 92,000 at the MCG. What an amazing turn around this season for the Blues, who now face Geelong on Friday in an Elimination Final.
The Blues prevail over a disappointed Melbourne side
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