7 Roos and a bunny :- 6 & 7 March 2015

A Friday/Saturday weekend this time, as Fraser had cricket semi finals on the Sunday, so I had to be there.  Ludicrous to have it in the middle of the Labour Day long weekend. Oh well, it was a good game, and an honorable defeat....but back to Inglewood...

Arrived mid morning, and planned to have a coffee with Denise.  However, she and Steven were already enjoying a coffee out the front, so I told them I'd come back and join them.  Only thing was, that I was waylaid at the Empire by Julie and Enzo.

I ordered my coffee from Julie in a takeaway cup, but then Enzo came out and said he wanted to talk to me....Sounded interesting...

He told me that the Great Victorian Bike Ride was riding through Inglewood in December and that he was charged with organising activities for the riders.  He wondered if they could possibly have a look around the house.  

Great Victorian Bike ride for 2015

map of where they will ride

Given that we will be doing something similar for the Heritage Day, I said yes, why not...Details to come.

Then we got chatting about drawcards for the town, and I said food was always popular ie longest lunch with the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival etc.  This lead to a brainstorming session about what types of food we could offer.  My suggestions were local ie Julie's tomatoes on Bridgewater bruschetta, some yabbies, and local cheese if we could find some for starters, Rabbit/kangaroo in red wine sauce with cous cous (from local wheat) and vegies, and then apple (from Harcourt) pie.  All washed down with local wines and cider.  It was quite fun talking about it all, Enzo was very keen, and we discussed catering for it in the Town Hall, how much it would cost a head, the logistics of serving all at once, and having a Glen Miller band for dancing afterwards etc.  I  must have stayed there for around an hour.

Needless to say, Denise and Steven had finished their coffees, and were back inside the shop by the time I got back to them.

Had a quick sandwich lunch at home, and then back to the bindis -as there were lots more to dig out.  At least it wasn't as hot today, yes, it was sunny but only mid twenties in temperature.  It was back breaking work though, and I managed to get blisters through the leather gloves.  I was also tempted to set them all on fire (not really) - there were just so many,  And the dried ones had escaped/loose prickles which I tried to pick up, but I wouldn't have got all of them.

a large rotten bindi eye plant 

bindi eye plant with many "branches"

After a couple of hours, I figured I needed some sort of reward to look forward to.  So rang up Jill Mc to see if I could go and visit her late afternoon.  She very kindly invited me to dinner instead.  I told her that I didn't want to invite myself, but she told me not to be silly, it was a pleasure.  Who was I to deny Jill a little pleasure, so I gratefully accepted. Kept pulling bindis out til around 5pm, and then swapped over to watering the garden.  Yes, although watered only a couple of weeks ago, the lemons were looking very thirsty and droopy

droopy lemon

I was also interested to see that one of the palm fronds had swept a depression into the hard earth out the front - powered by the constant wind.

sweeping frond

  

My cling peach tree has fruit that is now yellow, quite small, but hopefully nice and sweet.  I picked one, and will see if it ripens on the shelf

there are lots of yellow peaches on this tree

Although I didn't get any Flanders poppies surviving - one seems to have come up now - which is completely the wrong season for it

Flanders Poppy - maybe?

And I was also very pleased to see that one of the yuccas was flowering.  Fancy that!

flowering yucca

Although still warm enough, I was surprised to smell wood smoke in the afternoon - probably for cooking rather than heating.

Once I'd done enough watering - I went upstairs with the newspaper and had a lovely long gin and tonic.  Ahh, I deserved it.



And then onto Jill's for dinner at 7pm.  I had asked her what I could bring, apart from wine, and she said nothing, just my good self.  Well, I didn't want to go empty handed, so I took a jar of my fab fejoa chutney - which we ended up having with some of the cheeses that she'd laid out.  Main course was calamari and vegies char grilled on the bbq - very nice, and then pears poached in red wine with icecream.  Was a lovely night, chatted about all sorts of things - including how she & a friend  had put baby crocodiles in people's beds as a lark while up in NT on a scientific type expedition.  Also organised to have Miles & Mary come over for a meal to the house with Jill - before Jill departs Kingower for Hawthorn (around April)

I don't know where the time went.  I left for Inglewood around midnight, I saw 3 kangaroos between Jill's house and Terry's - so I (almost) literally crawled home at 50kph. And I saw another 4 kangaroos, plus a rabbit, thus 7 kangaroos all up.  I was really petrified of hitting one - luckily didn't of course!

Sunday, and I woke early unfortunately, and also unfortunately I couldn't fall back asleep.  I had an uncharacteristic headache, so I took it easy all day.  Although I felt that I should have been doing something useful.  I just didn't have the motivation - given my sore head, and the fact that I was also feeling a bit nauseous.

Mum and I had started sorting out the jig saw puzzle a couple of weeks ago, so set myself the challenge of putting all of the edges together.

jigsaw in progress #1

This was accomplished

jigsaw in progress #2

And then I wanted to fill some (easy) bits in - ie bits of tree, chairs etc.  But there is a lot of blue sky and sea which will be challenging.  I'm hoping that when the others come up next week for the concert that they'll assist, as I don't want to pack it up until it's been completed....

jigsaw in progress #3