Nimmitabel: A Work in Progress: Girl's weekend 9

Another Girl's weekend with Karen and Merrill. What fun we had!

Started on the Friday night for Karen and me, with me catching the train out to Karen's after work, and then Karen driving us to Inglewood. Got there about 7.40pm - plenty of time to get to the Empire before the kitchen closed at 8pm.

Bucked tradition, and had a steak each. Enzo introduced us to a table of young French people some of whom were working at a kangaroo refuge outside of Rheola. Had a little chat with them.

Enzo came and joined us as we were finishing up our meal and wine, and gave both of us a generous glass of red.

Enzo and Karen

Then Ros came and joined us and brought another bottle of red. We were trying to persuade Ros to go to the Bendigo Cup with Enzo, but she wasn't interested, Enzo then asked if Karen or I would like to go, but it's during the week, and we're working. Time marched on, and we didn't realise, but everyone had left, it was just our table in the dining room, and I guess they wanted to close up, so we made our goodbyes and wandered down towards the Royal.

We didn't feel like any more wine, so had Baileys. Got chatting to a couple of blokes who were out prospecting. One had a pub in Marlo in Gippsland, and the other was a retired policeman. They were both doing Geology at Monash - hence the prospecting.
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One of them asked Karen if we knew anywhere where they could put up a swag, so Karen looked meaningfully at me - suggesting the garden. I thought why not, and they followed us back to the house.

Showed them the location of the main lemon tree for morning ablutions (they were planning on leaving very early) and we left them to it. I saw one of the swags, put up very quickly and raised off the ground with a cover - I guess to protect from dew/rain.

By this stage it was pretty late, so Karen and I went straight to bed, no breadmaking for me.

Woke up early, (heard those 2 blokes crunching around on the gravel outside around 6am) but then managed to get back to sleep. Yay!, so eventually got up around 8.30-9am.

After breakfast went and said hello to the Op shop ladies

Jean, Essie & Merle

and Denise, and saw those 2 blokes across the road. I asked them about gold, and they shook out these 2 x small pieces, which just looked like bits of rock. Although now looking at the photo it does look more goldy

apparently some bits of gold

Merrill arrived around 11, and I recommended that we go to Dunolly which was having a Gilbert & Sullivan festival

from the internet

Had a nice walk around town, (Dunolly) and went and made the acquaintance of Fiona - who everyone was saying we should go and meet, as she has the beautiful "big house" in Dunolly and runs a stylish cafe.

Karen, thinking about having just one glass of wine

Very over the top ode to Queen Victoria

Dunolly Town Hall

A nice old fashioned letterbox

Dunolly Town Hall

Dunolly Post Office

The court house was open, so had a good look in there

The lockup

Judge's bench

looks like Justin's

ceremonial trowel

witness in the dock

very fancy

And also admired Fiona's house and garden from afar (no gin and tonic veranda though!)

Dunolly Big House

Dunolly Big House Garden #1

Dunolly Big House Garden #2

Dunolly Big House Garden #3

Wandered back to Fiona's for lunch - was certainly memorable for the 3 of us. I had really wanted to go and see one of the Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. When we went to the Town Hall earlier the ticket office was closed, and my mobile phone didn't get reception, so I couldn't call to enquire about a ticket.

So when we finished lunch, I rushed back to the Town Hall for the 2pm show of the Gondoliers. Sold out! However there was another lady waiting to see if there might be room, and so we did also. Gotta love the country - squeeze a few more chairs in at the back, and that's what they did.

While waiting I perused the hall taking a few photos as per below

the local burghers

very impressive moustache

I'm not all of that familiar with the Gondoliers, but I knew a few of their more famous songs, and we had a rollicking good time.

The lady who organised it - Rachel - plays Queen Victoria and was the prompter down the front.

Queen Victoria - photo from the Internet

And a jolly good job she did, as some of the players forgot their lines, and made quite a virtue and show of forgetting them - it was rather funny.

QV on the stage

The Gondoliers Chorus

Interval, and out into the courtyard where the SES and CWA were selling cakes and drinks

drinks or cakes anyone?

By this stage it was rather hot

There was also a lovely huge old rose bush in the corner

Huge old rose

appreciating the huge old rose

The show finished around 5pm, and the first people I saw when leaving were Janet & Brett (old Glen Iris friends) sitting on a bench out the front. Brett was in the Melbourne contingent - doing Patience that night. Small world, although I do recall seeing him in a previous Gilbert and Sullivan production years ago.

On the drive home it started to look very stormy and dark. At one stage there was a white-ish vertical cloud that looked like a water spout (unlikely), and then later on there were some ominous dead trees with lots of white cockatoos standing out in great contrast to the dark sky

dark sky#1

dark sky#2

dark sky#3

dark sky with cockied tree

Home before 6, and some large gins and tonic on the veranda with associated cheeses and olives - courtesy of Merrill. And by the way the two of them are trying to get me to buy into the cult of thermomix - as they both have one. And each time we eat something they say how easily the thermomix could make it, from filo pastry to butter to somehow being able to pit olives!

Given that we weren't in a hurry, and that we were celebrating the 3 of us being up here again, we also had a bottle of champagne.

Merrill captured the moment of the cork popping out - it's the blur in the photo

Pop!

Yay!

And then we wandered down to the Royal for dinner. It was still warm, and we were quite loud, so we sat outside

Cheers

Very impressed with the meals, very tasty and nicely presented

twilight from the Royal

Butchers by twilight

dark and blurry

Not as late a night as Friday, but late nontheless....

Sunday, and another slow start (and no bread baked by me). Watered the garden as it was hot, and was also thrilled to see that the new apple tree had shot into bloom

flowering apple tree

apple blossom

Wandered around the shops as the gals wanted to do some window (or in Merrill's case) actual shopping.

And we were surprised by some photos displayed on the main street - of the recent Heritage Day in May. It's a bit hard to tell, because of the reflection, but there was the photo of Justin & Karen from the Advertiser, plus a photo of the house and kitchen etc

celebrity house #1

celebrity house #2

After this I had to do some measuring for Powercorp - as we hope to upgrade the electricity supply from the street. So had to measure from the pole to the house etc. The gals helped (and so did Grant from next door)

how far from the pole to the house? #1

How far from the pole to the house? #2

Merrill also took some arty photos of the house and garden

succulent

our house

Dining room floor

hallway floor

And then after tidying and packing up, we headed into Maldon for a late lunch

I hadn't been to Maldon since before the kids were born, and it really is a pretty town

Main Street Maldon

photo from the internet (certainly not wet when we were there)

We ended up eating at the Spotted Cow - which coincidentally has its meat supplied by Jim the Butcher in Inglewood. Small world. the waitress was rather droll, and laid back. And our meals were superb! Karen had a mushroom gnocchi, Merril had fried halloumi, and I had roast pork with vegies and Yorkshire pudding, (looked a bit of a mess in my photo, but was delicious!) plus a local Harcourt cider