The long-awaited
Maloney pink waterlily in all its glory
Dear Friends, it is a perfect day today – so far February
has been a delight with a little rain & a need for heaters in the house and
jumpers outside. We would love to get through this month without the worry of
any more bushfires, so fingers crossed.
John & Jan had a bad experience in their caravan park,
when another resident let his two blue heelers loose and they attacked their
dog, Gypsy, causing a huge wound in her back. John was hitting golf balls at
the time, so Jan sought help from another caravanner, who took her & Gypsy
to the vet. Gypsy was in shock, which had to be treated first, and she has
survived her operation well. Unfortunately when Jan picked her up on the next
morning, she must have hurt her and Gypsy responded by biting Jan, who found
herself getting a tetanus injection & anti-biotics just like her dog. John
will be in Melbourne tomorrow, so Wes is going to help Jan take Gypsy to
Andrew, our vet, to have the stitches taken out.
We’ve had a lovely week, which started on Monday when we
drove to Aireys Inlet and had a beautiful lunch at a la Grecque Greek restaurant.
I had expressed a longing to see waves crashing on the shore and although we couldn’t
see them from our table, we did stop in Jan Juc on the way home for thermos tea
and a stunning view. (No view will ever
be as good as the one we used to enjoy at the back beach at Blairgowrie in the late
80s & early 90s).
On Tuesday we played golf in the cold & wet at Trentham –
both Terry & Gillie decided not to join us, so Wes and I played skins,
which I was lucky enough to win, but Terry has since ruled that the result is
null & void as there wasn’t a quorum for awarding the Heather Andrew Trophy (pictured below), so we are hoping to
have a competition next week instead.
That afternoon Wes
drove Barbara to the dentist in Ballarat, which was very kind of him, as she
was having an injection, and may not have felt like driving home on her own. He
bought some beautiful fish while he was out and cooked it perfectly that night.
Valerie and I played Mah Jong together on Wednesday and
enjoyed a lovely morning. We banned all easy hands and tried to get hands we
had not done before or those which are nearly impossible. It was great fun
& we were sorry to finish, as Valerie will now be missing playing until
after Easter. Dot was on holidays in Warrnambool and having a good time there.
Wes went to Rotary that night, at the Old Hepburn Hotel, which
is where it has moved. He came home full of ideas, which he has proceeded to
put into action. He is keen for Rotary to spend money on the Peace
Mile, which is the walk around Lake Daylesford; to finish the Lookout
at Cornish Hill, which is an unfinished Rotary project from many years ago
and finally to spend Clean Up Australia Day working on
the Daylesford Cemetery.
On Friday, while Wes was meeting with Steve Lamb, the chair
of the cemetery trust, Nicole came to do my hair. After she was finished and I
showered & dressed, I collected Judi and we met for lunch at Gracenotes
Café, where we enjoyed a lovely meal and a good chat.
1983 – the new Mayor of Brunswick with his wife, and her family
Yesterday was a
cool morning at the Farmers Market where the wind threatened to blow away the tent,
until one of the Rotarians was able to go to the Rotary Shed and retrieve the
tent pins. Garry Rodoni, who brings all the gear early in the morning never
thinks we might need our sandbags or tent pins- he sets everything up and goes
off to work and has no idea what happens over the next 4-5 hours! There were
heaps of stalls groaning with produce; the animal nursery set up; the local
Greens candidate was there in the company of Greg Barber, State M, and Chris
Rowe of Spring Mount Nursery was soliciting for new members of the Daylesford
Museum. Greg was a Mayor at the same time as Wes and they have remained
friends. Chris is doing very well in his attempts to bring the Museum into the
21st Century and needs support, so we and Gillie joined on the spot.
This morning at the Sunday Market, it was fun to walk
around & watch all the routines. I take the boys at 8am, while some stall-holders
are still setting up, and I watch them torn between getting organised and
finding something hot to eat & drink – they are easily waylaid by a chat,
and many stalls are unmanned as their owners stand around catching up with each
other. One little old lady donned a zip-up fur coat from her stall as she was
cold and went in search of coffee; another put on a pair of the gloves she was
selling, and a third stayed well away from his post, which is one of the
coldest & windiest of the lot.
As I was untying the boys from the back of the Honey Stall,
where they usually sit and wait for treats from John & Yvonne, she called
me to remind me that I hadn’t bought any cabbage or lemons and did I need
either? How good is that! Wes had asked Ken, Chris’s dad, for a yellow rose, so
he had 5 lined up for me to choose from and then knocked $5 off the price. Geoff,
the dog bone chap, hadn’t been able to get my usual bones during the week, so
he had hunted around at home and found a week’s supply that he had ready for me
to collect. No wonder we stay loyal to our Sunday Market friends.
Solero, our new
yellow rose
