Nimmitabel: A Work in Progress: September Holidays Saturday 20

Well, Justin and I certainly packed up the ute with a heavy load...as we'd been offered 3 x good sized bookshelves with accompanying books by his Dad

It took hours boxing up the books, and traipsing them downstairs, And then Justin had to work out how to fit everything onto the ute. He did, most cleverly. (he would be a very good tetris player)

All of this running up and the down the stairs (and then again at Inglewood) gave me a rather good workout, as my legs were a little sore on the Sunday having used a different set of muscles from the norm.

many boxes of books

the 3 x book shelves

In the interests of safety, Justin fixed the shelves both to each other, and the wall,

As Justin was only here basically overnight, we left the book unpacking for later.

Mum, Helen & kids were already here when we arrived mid afternoon. The kids were pleased to see Justin as they hadn't seen him for a while.

Given the lovely weather, we had late afternoon gin and tonics (or should it be gins and tonic?) on the veranda, with some guitar music, followed by a walk to the pub for dinner

G&T time

Afternoon concert

Off to the pub - uncle and nephew

Justin left for Melbourne mid Sunday morning, The rest of us went up to the Eucy Museum to the Friends of Kooyoora Wild Flower show. We ran into Jill Mc there and she gave me copy of her sister Sue's biography

Sue Mackinnon biography

It was very interesting reading, especially the Fitzroy and Kingower years.

At the Wild Flower show they had a photography exhibit, a eucalyptus oil making demonstration, and samples of local weeds to look out for - of which my garden had all of them unfortunately ie cape weed, bridal veil creeper, spiny plant, etc

blurry Horehound - yep found in my garden

Bridal Veil Creeper - yep found in my garden

Cape Tulip - yep found in my garden
(the orange flowers like small gladioli)

African Boxthorn (spiny plant) - yep found in my garden

Storks Bill - yep found in my garden

The kids also found something to play with

Ride 'em cowboy

And enjoyed looking at the kissing llamas across the road

Kissing llamas

Look at me!

There was a wildflower tour later in the afternoon, so we went home for lunch, and came back afterwards.

There were 15-20 of us in the minibus, and we headed out past Kingower

Ready for the tour

thinking about the tour

It was a bit like searching for Easter Eggs, as the wild flowers were somewhat few and far between, but I quite enjoyed looking for them. There was a group leader who identified and showed them to us, and lots of enthusiastic regulars. I think we were the only newcomers there

wildflower #1

Wildflower #2

wildflower #3

wildflower #4

wildflower #5

wildflower #6

wildflower #7

wildflower #8

wildflower #9

wildflower "carpet"

wildflower #10

wildflower #11

wildflower #12

wildflower #13

wildflower #14

wildflower #15

wildflower #16

wildflower #17

wildflower #18

wildflower #19

wildflower #20

wildflower #21

wildflower #22

wildflower #23

We also saw a little bit of "wild" life ie large tadpoles, a cicada shell ,and a witchetty grub casing

large tadpoles

cicada shell

witchetty grub casing

Everyone seemed to be having a good time

looking #1

Looking #2

Looking #3

Granite #1

Granite #2

And some of us were rather tired by the end

exhausted

As per usual in Inglewood there was much eating and gardening.

Given the generally sunny weather, and the fact that it was generally warmer outside than in, we had breakfast by the succulent bed a few times. Jim the butcher also put on a "coffee club" morning tea every Thursday, and we went along to that. Good coffees, and plates of fresh scones with jam and cream. Yum!

Al fresco breakfast

Al fresco coffee

Al fresco icy poles #1

Al fresco icy poles #2

fancy tuna, corn, mayo etc sandwich - just like Schwabs used to make ! #1

fancy tuna, corn, mayo etc sandwich - just like Schwabs used to make ! #2

Butcher's Thursday "coffee club" #1

lick up that cream #1

have licked up most of that cream

more cream to lick

Butcher's Thursday "coffee club" #2

And yep, I did lots of weeding too (need to buy some mulch), and cutting back dead wood etc. Helen & Mum helped too. My hands and arms got all scratched up from the sharp twigs etc. Helen thought I looked like a junky. Mum said I should have had long sleeves. I did start wearing gloves though - perhaps too little too late

stopping for a photo #1

stopping for a photo #2

stopping for a photo #3

stopping for a photo #4

Helen was an enthusiastic helper, but after one particular session I asked her not to do any more weeding, as she didn't differentiate between what I wanted to keep and the weeds/calendulas that I wanted taking out. Yep, the calendulas in the front bed were looking a bit tired and dry, so I took them all out. Hopefully some of the seeds that I scattered ie cosmos more poppies will grow now

Helen weeding

Mum watering

a finished bed

another finished bed

nice and neat

looking pleased with himself

I was pleased to see the 1st poppy flower of the season

1st poppy

We also went and visited Maile and David (after I had texted first to see if it was ok to bring the hordes). It was a lovely afternoon, and their garden was glorious, lots of roses, and lots of citrus fruit. We had made some Anzac biscuits and brought them to have with a coffee. However prosecco was offered, so we had that in lieu of the coffee. Still had the Anzac biscuits though

Enjoying an afternoon prosecco

Kids playing

On one of the days it was a little drizzly, so this was the day that I decided to tackle the boxes of books. Initially I just started emptying the boxes and putting the books on the shelves in no real order. But then I thought it would be better to have some sort of system

I started by sorting the fiction books into alphabetical piles, and putting all of the non fiction books in another pile. But then the non fiction pile got too big, and I realised that I needed to make sub piles for the non fiction ie Ancient Greece, Egypt, Biography, Travel etc. Not exactly the dewey decimal system, but it worked for me. Helen and the kids also wandered up to give moral support.

many piles

a daunting task

It took about a day all up, and I was pleased with the result. I even had a section with Justin's Dad's & grandparent's old books that they had won at school/Sunday School etc

Our new library

Karen also came to visit for a night, and brought a large painting that I put in one of the upstairs bedrooms

Karen's painting #1

Karen's painting #2

Justin came back for the 2nd weekend as there was the folk music night at Kingower, and he also brought the new scaffolding (like Michael's) that we'd bought

Justin looking purposeful

the new scaffolding

On Friday morning I went to Terry's place to help him and other volunteers make the Mediterranean finger food feast for the Folk Music night. I helped out with the eggplant dip, the meatballs, and some of the desserts. Arlene, June, Chrissy, and Jan were there also. We had to cater for 50 people, normally allowing 2 pieces each. I thought I was going well with the meat balls, and anticipated making about 100. However I anticipated wrongly, and ended up with only 70 or so, so had to go back and pinch a little bit from the made ones. I did end up with >100 that way!

Arelene and Chrissy on the spanokopita assembly line

June on dishes duty

Terry on herb duty - with my meatballs and dolmas in the foreground

June cooking up the dolmas

Arlene and shish kebabs

Chrissy cutting the filo pastry for the baklava

cooked baklava

Almond fingers and date pinwheels

Terry also put on a nice lunch for us - homemade sausage rolls

Al fresco sausage roll lunch

Karen arrived after lunch and helped assemble the desserts even though she wasn't able to come to the dinner, as it was sold out! We stayed until after 4, and then went home.

As anticipated, Saturday night was a great success. The food was fabulous, the music was great, and the atmosphere most convivial. David R, his brother Alvin (on mandolin) and Mark were the Kingower Bushrangers and played for us first. They were good musicians, had a good line of patter, and they gave the audience handouts with the various song chorus' - so we could sing along with them. I think at this stage that Justin was possibly feeling a little under-prepared. (feel free to comment on this Justin) Anyway, Terry gave Justin the nod, after the interval, and up he rose, just him and his guitar on stage. He was terrific, and the audience seemed to particularly like the old known classics ie Johnny Cash's Fulsome Prison Blues, and Don't Fence me in etc. Some of his other selections ie Mark Knopfler were a little more obscure, but still well received. In the end he rather enjoyed it, and is already talking about what he'll do next year, as the assumption is that it will become an annual event. David P got up next, and did a couple of songs with his guitar, followed by Daniel singing with no accompaniments. And then finally the Kingower Bushrangers got back up again, and Justin joined them - as sort of a Travelling Wilburys supergroup,