Paranormal Investigators and lots of guests Fri 22 - Sun 24 May 2026

Well, I'm sort of up to date - at least this is the last entry I need to do until the next time we go to Inglewood

Way back in February I wrote that a car had pulled up out the front - and some people jumped out and started chatting with me.

Turned out they were paranormal investigators and had always wanted to have a look at our house

I think I surprised them by agreeing - and this is the weekend that we had finally organised 

Justin wasn't that interested to come, but everyone else was ....

Madeleine & Hughie, Fraser & Rileigh, Helen & Michaela, and Karen

Mad then asked if her friend Courtney could come, who brought her boyfriend Nick (son of Chris), and she also asked if her 2 friends Chloe and Tarsh could come too

As it was Helen and Tarsh didn't come - but everyone else did - making it 10 people all up

Justin lent me his car, and I was going to drive Mad, Hughie, & Michaela, but then M&H decided to come up with Chloe on Saturday (as did everyone else).

So I just drove Michaela on Friday night - had some dinner, and then watched an episode of Pokerface - as we had watched that last time at Easter    

Saturday, and a garden inspection - Shane had chopped back this garden bed quite a lot - but the stupid couch grass is in it still

Fraser and Rileigh arrived after 2 - and the made toasties in the Aga

Karen had a friendly bee in her hair  - crawled around quite a lot - but eventually flew away 

Some of us went for a walk later in the afternoon - me, Fraser, Rileigh, Michaela & Karen - saw some rabbits

Came back, and some of the others had arrived

We'd ordered pizzas for 6.45pm, and I suggested that everyone should have their beds organised before this 

Started on dips/chips/bubbles etc around 5pm in the dining room.  Had to extend the table and get some more chairs

Mad had brought her polaroid and we mucked around with some photos (once we got it going, as she had forgotten how to work it)

The paranormal people came around 5.30pm.  There were quite a few of them - most from Bendigo, some from Dunolly etc

I gave them and Chloe a quick tour of the house, and then they started setting up their gear in the dining room - and they wanted the lights off - so we just had the battery candles and those little battery orbs that Carolyn had told me about. Below looks like some sort of transmitter/walky talky

And then they put these lights and the thing on the tripod on the mantelshelf

There were also cat toy balls scattered around the room - they were supposed to light up if there were any vibrations

And on the table they had what looked a bit like a rectangular torch - if the end turned blue - it meant that a spirit was around.  we could then ask yes/no questions - and it would respond with green if the answer was yes, and with red if the answer was no

Bear (the lead Paranormal guy) asked if they liked the new owners (me and Justin) - it flashed red - hmm - they didn't like us

He then asked if they liked what we had done with the house and garden and it flashed green - so that was something

There were a lot of pauses and waiting for answers, and a lot of seemingly random words which were generated from a laptop?  They didn't have oiuja boards

At one point - the name Linda was said - and Karen asked it yes no questions - as she had had a friend called Linda who had died - but the answers didn't really go anywhere 

Below is Madeleine and Fraser - still during dinner - as Mad has some pizza in her hand    

After an hour or more they decided to go up to the Music room - as some of them had felt something up there

For whatever reason Chloe decided to sit under that little table

At times the lights were off completely

At other times we had a little light.  You can see in the below photo that the end of the torch thing is green - so it had just said yes

Bear also set up the "spirit talker" which looked like a normal music speaker but of course lit up.  It apparently had something like 5000 words programmed into it - and it would just scan through the frequencies? and various words would come out - and then be shown on the spirit ipad thingy.  Words like Samuel, Opehelia, Tree, Cancer, Bear etc 

Some of us then split off into the green room downstairs because of the mirrors - not sure what happened down there ( I stayed in the Music room)

Then back down to the dining room - where the video camera was set up and we could watch what was happening on the laptop screen

Orbs were moving across the screen which  we couldn't see in real life.  we were told that these were not dust - but spirits, and that they had never seen so many - like a spirit super highway 

So, to wrap up - it just seemed like a lot of random words that were generated  - no deep dark secrets were revealed, not did anything mysteriously move or fly into the air

The Bear Paranormal people were very happy, and said it was great - but we needed some further convincing

That said, we had fun, and were glad that we did it 

Below is Fraser towards the end of the night

  

And another later evening shot

Here is their equipment - before they left

We stayed up a bit longer after they left, and rehashed what had happened.  No one had been scared

Sunday, and a late start - Karen had to go back early

The dormitory in the bee room was packed up

I did a little bit in the garden

Pruned that iceberg rose that I had put in as a cutting years ago - and had become a quasi standard rose 

 Admired the jonquils

And was going to plant the 4 x plants that I'd bought at Rippon Lea, but then didn't just left them in situ in the garden bed - given that my right little finger was still in a splint - digging holes was a bit tricky

The others left just before 3pm

And Michaela and I left soon after - and went to Macca's to pick up the olive oil.  As I said in the last post - less than a big square plastic container full - very disappointing - given that we had picked just over 200kg
 

Olive harvest 24 - 26 April 2026

Still behind in this....

Met Justin in the city, and we left around 5pm - of course some traffic along the way, so got there after 7pm.  Just leftovers for dinner I assume

Alex is visiting from Vietnam, and came up with April and Jarad before us - they unpacked, had a look around the garden (Nice photo by Alex)

And then left for Guildford to see Curtis.  The general store is now closed, but he does pizza at the Stables  - from Thursday - Sunday nights

Alex took a nice shot of our front door on leaving

And a photo of April and Jarad at the Stables

They got back to Inglewood around 10.30pm or so 

Saturday, and after the obligatory puzzles and the Saturday Age got outside and I started picking the  olives at 9am.

 It was cool to begin, but the sun came out and certainly warmed up

The olives were still green and relatively hard.  I was about to call up John at Maccas and ask him about them - when Terry came to help - and I asked him.  he said they were good, and so we picked

Justin came out around 10 and initially did some work on the canoe - another layer of varnish

He came and picked olives after that, Alex came out around 11.00, and April and Jarad around 12

I asked Justin to put on some olive picking music from Spotify, and that was a bit of fun - initally some sort of German play list with a German teensy weeny yellow polka bikini song, and then another song in German - we swapped across to a more mediterrannean playlist 

Broke for lunch around 1 or so - Justin went and got some supplies from the IGA, and we ate in the rotunda (I assume)

Then back to it - til after 6 for me, April and Jarad

Certainly didn't cook - either got takeaway or went to the pub for dinner

Sunday and more olive picking of course - I wanted to reach a new record of 200kg

I went and picked out the front - Susan and my favourite tree - little olives - but apparently lots of oil.

Well, we filled 10 baskets and  some boxes also -as per below - and we didn't even strip all the trees - there were still many kilos left - but we'd had enough

Alex and the others had left after lunch - and I took the below photo around 3pm before we loaded them into the car

Terry and I used the luggage scales to weigh the baskets - and tipped the box contents into a basket to weight them - and then back in the box  

 

I had guessed 230kg, Terry 210kg  - and Terry won  - as it was an astounding 204kg

I picked some more olives for table olives and also some pomegranates

Was pleased to see some of the lupin seeds had come up

 

And the cosmos are out

Not so pleased to see a wasp nest by the front door

Or a lot of dampness around some of the garden beds - we hadn't watered, and it hadn't rained, but it was still pretty damp

Given that we had so many olives - Justin wasn't sure if it would all fit in our car - along with our other stuff - but they did 

Got to Maccas around 3.45, and when John saw the olives he was a little dubious - didn't think there weas that much oil in them.  Said he would have waited another three weeks.  This was very disappointing news - we hoped that he would be able to get a lot of oil out of them ....As it was, when we went to pick up a few weeks later - there wasn't that much oil - not even a full water cube...- very disappointing for all of those kilos.  John told me that we had to wait til the olives were a little bit soft - which is the oil.  On previous occasions he had said that water had got into the olives - and so couldn't get as much of the oil out as possible then either - you can't win!

I had picked this weekend - as the next time we could come up would be 23rd May, and then not til June after that - and I didn't want to wait that long.  Maybe I should have    

  

Lazy weekend with Justin - Friday 10 - Sunday 12 April 2026

Did a Food Safety Supervisor Course in the city for CWA on Friday, and the plan was to meet up with Justin at 6pm at Rosa's canteen

My course finished around 4pm - so I went to the Immigration Museum and read my book on my ipad.  I was going to go in and have a look, but they said I couldn't really see everything in an hour (they close at 5pm) - so they suggested I just sit in the lobby area - which I did

Obviously left around 5pm, and so walked in the direction of Rosa's - stopped at the Bank on Collins (where I used to go when I was at CSBA) and had a limoncello spritz and whiled away some more time

Then onto Rosa's where I met up with Justin , and a couple of his old colleagues.  Had a soft drink there, as I was driving us to Inglewood

Got back to the carpark - and realised that I didn't have my little bag with me where I had both the Inglewood and Melbourne set of house keys. In my defence I was somewhat weighted down, had another bigger shoulder bag, and also a big coat and umbrella - lots of moving parts. I realised with a sickening feeling that I had left it behind somewhere... and that the Inglewood keys had a Nimmitabel tag.

I felt so stupid and annoyed.  Retraced my steps to the Bank on Collins - other people were now sitting at the table where I had been.  they hadn't seen it, I asked at the bar if it had been handed in - nothing.  the people suggested that I ask to look at the CCTV - but I didn't do that.  Also went back to the Rendezvous Hotel - because I'd remembered that I'd sat in there for about 5 minutes, but then I thought I looked a bit obvious as a non resident - so left.  They hadn't seen it either....

So back to the County court and the car - and off we went to Inglewood - with me in a bad mood with myself

Ended up getting to Inglewood quite late - after 9.30pm 

Saturday, and at 9am I tried calling the Immigration Museum - was on hold for ages - but after an hour or so - just hung up and planned to ring them early on Monday

 Just pottered around for the day - had done enough work at Easter.  I think that Justin was a bit unsure about all the trimming I had done - he thought it a bit open...

Shane came over and I discussed with him next steps - ie what we wanted gone as per my photos etc 

Given that it was nearly a month ago - can't really remember what else we did    

Actually Isee from my photos that I did a little bit of gardening - weeded a bit out the front

Before

After

Justin probably gave the canoe another coat of sealer

And he took some nice photos of the garden

 

And I also got the Loddon Herald - and saw that the gold nugget at the Rheola Fair had weighed around 152g

I'd lastly like to add that I ended up finding my little bag with the keys and other bits and pieces intact - I'd left it at the Food safety training place - I was so relieved, and picked it up on the Monday