Nimmitabel: A Work in Progress: More weeding & new neighbours :-Sunday 26 August

Another solo trip - pretty much during the week this time - as I am between engagements as they say... Yep, retrenched and taking a bit of time off up in the country, in part to work out what I want to do next, and also obviously because I really enjoy coming up here to Inglewood.

I did get some rather nice leaving presents...

A rather impressive bottle of champagne

will save for a special occasion

which Basil was also interested in

don't think I'll share any with Basil though

A set of camping cookware for my open fires:-

the box of camping cookware - in my car boot

And some flowers

nice box of flowers

First thing I noticed when I got here was that yes, Coliban Water had made good it's promise, and dug in the water pipe which had been previously looped along the crappy falling down front fence. And the water meter had been moved also - along to the Storm Lane side

underground water pipe now

Anyway, I hadn't attacked the front garden (outside the fence) for a while, and the weeds were starting to mount up, as were all of the plantings that I had put in over the last year ie irises, jonquils, mystery bulbs, gazanias, self sown euphorbias, poppies, lavender, geraniums etc.

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, it's very social weeding out the front like that - as people always stop and have a chat. I worked out here for some hours, and it was rather pleasant in the Winter sun.

I also had to empty out the cellar a bit - as more water had seeped in....

Chicken and mushrooms for dinner on the wood stove, and an early night

Rather cold morning (Monday) with a good frost....crunchy grass under foot. However, another lovely day - and more weeding on the left hand side front bed.

Had decided that I would reward myself with a social coffee each day around 11am. And today I went to the Empire and had a coffee with Enzo, who had been up all night - fixing up his new bathrooms. I suggested that when he finished them he could come around to our place - as he's obviously a handy fellow. he graciously declined that one

I also ducked into the new Inglewood Emporium to ask them about their cellar ( stories abound about their cellar and a tunnel to our house.... as their shop had been owned by Mr Tivey

Inglewood Emporium

Steve and Denise introduced themselves - and showed me around - including the cellar - which unfortunately doesn't have a tunnel to our place - although there did appear to be a bricked in doorway - which might have been for the tunnel. (They dropped in on me later in the afternoon when they'd closed the shop - and I returned the favour and showed them around Nimmitabel)

After lunch, I'd had enough weeding so I grabbed the axe and started splitting logs that Gordon had cut up (from last years fallen down fence)

part of the wood pile for chopping

It was surprisingly quite satisfying and even good fun - hefting that big axe. And yes I was careful, wearing steel capped boots and making sure that my feet weren't any where near where I was swinging. Also wore gloves as I didn't want blisters again

not much of the wood pile left - pretty much all chopped up (that could be)

This took quite a while, and I transferred the wood to our new laundry and stacked it there

For dinner I thought I should christen one of my new camping pots, so started up the fire on the wood burning stove, and cooked up some pumpkin soup - from one of my pumpkins in the cellar

sausages and pumpkin soup for dinner

After a long day's work I was quite physically tired (who said I was coming up here for a rest? - and it was getting cold - so I decided to brave the less than pristine bathtub and have a bath by candlelight - while reading the Good Weekend. It was actually lovely, as it really warmed me up

bubbles up the far end

Finished off all of the weeding out the front the next day, and yes more passers by and more chats. Met the chief CFA officer - Brian - who asked if he could cut some palm fronds for his birds. Of course he could and he came back later. He also made a new leg for the broken fire dog that I had bought, as he has a metal works business down the road

new fire dog leg on the floor

broken fire dog and new bit on the floor

Don came by to fix the town hall clock and we had a chat, Gordon dropped in, and Howard stopped by to see if we were interested in an old chair and couch which had originally been in the Tivey House. Of course I was interested to have a look, so we went down to his son's place to inspect them. Unfortunately I think they're too far gone. As you can see they would definitely need to be recovered

Tivey arm chair

Tivey couch

I invited Denise to join me for my Tuesday morning coffee at Bubbletoes, which was very pleasant, and Wednesday coffee was at GGs

I also had to take some photos of the hoop pine and bunya bunya for Sue the arborist, as I had spoken to her - and she wanted to know what the trees looked like