New Year's Eve

Well we made it to 12 noon... it's in the 40s here and abounding in mosquitoes after all the rain over previous weeks so sleep was a little hard to come by last night.  The gym was only open for 2 hours this morning so, as I left, having tried to protect the garden from the searing to come, Steve and I agreed we wouldn't even try for midnight tonight.  Midday will do.  So we've had a glass of bubbly and will have another tomorrow morning for New Year in Europe and the States.
It was lovely at the gym.  I go to Curves which is very girly but it suits me fine.  Today a young girl in a pink fairy costume came in with her Mum and was determinedly copying her.  Two ladies were doing their stretches together, chatting away and unconsciously mirroring each other's moves.  I've been in a girly frame of mind over these holidays.  Some years ago I bought a book called The Evolution of Woman from a stall in a small town just outside Armidale.  The book was written in the 1970s and I've been saving it for a suitable time - it's not very large and I thought I could breeze through it in a day fondly remembering our feminist attempts from that time.  But I'm still only about halfway through.  It's is not the bra-burning call to arms I was expecting but an academic anthropological work which dovetails neatly with some of the stuff I've been thinking about recently, like when did humans start to consider themselves as separate from other animals?  This of course has implications for when you stop being a carnivore and start being a cannibal.  Very interesting stuff and it's doing my brain in.
Perhaps in response to this, I have only one NY resolution: to  wear nice underwear from now on.  I'm quite good at keeping my resolutions so feel I've achieved Nirvana at the age of 57 - well, I'm as good as I'm gonna get.  And mulling over all this as I was driving to the gym, I thought how wild it would feel to be in full burqa with only fabulous underwear on underneath, and perhaps some freedom-impeding stilettoes.  And then the terrible realisation that the Coolgardie would be covering charcuterie not fresh meat.
You'll be pleased to know I have no photos of any of this.  So I thought I'd share these with you - symbols of hope for the new year.  Here I am some years ago reading on my favourite redgum on the Darling when we were deep in drought and I was deep in depression.

 

Here I am at the same tree a cuppla weeks ago.  Very different headspace and a very different river.

I've had a fabulous 2010.  Best year this millennium so far.  Here's to 2011.
Flow river flow.
(But not as much as in Queensland.)

Christmas at last

Very quiet Christmas for us but absolutely perfect (well, as perfect as possible when there's no upturned table and reindeer footprints all over the house; no Hallelujah chorus to welcome guests;  no tangle of children and dogs; and no Mel sipping tea from the Arzberg china.)  We did at least dust off the Arzberg...

and Steve cooked a fabulous repast of 24Sage Leaves Chicken with rosemary potatoes and beans.  We'd started the ham on Tuesday, the day we got it from the butcher, so had a little rest from it.

And then the party was over.

Thank you!!!!

Sarah and gardens

While I was gardening in the rain yesterday, I heard a cooeeee that I had not heard for some time - and there was Sarah looking like a cross between Mary Quant and Twiggy and carrying an elegant and intricate floral umbrella that was more like a parasol.  Sarah spends her time stripped to the waist slaving in her garden or swanning around like a super-model.  She used to live in a shed up the Darling and created a garden there that was like another world.  I was furious when she sold and moved to the Clare Valley, having based all my plans for a future bicycle on treddlying to her place.  I have no photo of her but here's the bag of walnuts she brought me.

It was a bit like an early harvest festival yesterday.  Firstly Steve N brought around some eggs.  Then Sarah arrived with the walnuts.  She was in town for Annie's Market, a tradition of some years standing held before Easter and Christmas.  It is a beautifully girly event which used to be at Annie's garden but is now held at Artback, a gallery and cafe at the end of Darling Street and opposite Annie's place.  Sharyl, Raeleen and I had arranged to meet there for lunch, which we did, and emerged 4 hours later.  But not empty handed.  I bought 2 bottles of wine from a vineyard at Yelta just over the river, some chocolates from Broken Hill and a bracelet from Ashley and Sarah's Dangly Bits stall.  I was also tempted by dip tins, buckets and watering cans made by Wally the Tin Man but by the time I got my act together, Wally (in his 90s) had gone home.  And I was referring to him as Willy the Tonne Man, so delicious did I find the Yelta wine.
The weekend I got back from Tasmania, I took Mum to the Clare Valley to visit Sarah's garden  as part of an Open Gardens scheme.

I suppose I can understand why she relinquished the shed in Wentworth.  Here's Mum having a rest and a read as I explore.

Unfortunately, no matter how long I stood and waited, those 2 women insisted on being in the photo.

Sarah has a wonderful sense of whimsy.  Here's her chook made from an old dip tin.  And here's her chooks.

Bit of a dodgy photo I know - taken through heaps of fox-proof mesh and in the shade- if you click on it you'll see better.  Huddled chooks to the left (Sarah once left them in my care in Wentworth, and I think they remembered), beautiful swan right of centre and happy gnome in the right-hand corner of enclosure.  The gnome was Sarah's farewell gift from the Yelta / Wentworth Garden and a Glass of Wine Club which she always referred to as The Gnomes.  Finally, a parting shot of a lady who filched white pelargonium (Sarah had sold out of potted up cuttings...)

ouch

Magic on the Darling

Bit of excitement on Wharf Road this week.  You may have noticed a huge power pole marring some of the photos of the view from our deck...

Not any more.

These great works, including extending the wharf, have been promised for some time. 

  HMAS Platypus couldn't wait...

Launched on the Darling at North Bourke in October by Lady Jayne of Rivett, it powered downstream on the chocolate-milk floodwaters and is now is high, dry and happy at Wentworth.

Tassie 2

After the excitement of 01 Queen Street we had coffee and cake at Jean Pascale's (or similar) in the village - lots of choice for eating these days in Bellerive.  On Saturday we caught the water taxi to Salamanca Market.

 The Wheat Silo units - dream dream...

We had a fabulous time and bought each other's Christmas presents.. Then caught a marimba moment outside Parliament House.

oh to be a groovy granny in Tassie...

Water taxi back to Bellerive.  Cuppla photo opportunities.

The former Mrs History at the Boer War Memorial to which she devoted hours of research and went on radio requesting that someone come forward and make a replica lamp for it - which they did.

Baldies Clip Joint - seeing is believing...

Then back to Jean Pascale  for lunch this time.  And who should turn up?  Scarey O'Garey (who may have another name by now).  We used to work together at WorkSkills in Bridgewater.

Life is pretty good in Bellerive these days!

Sunday we spent at the Seafarers Festival which was a great, but wet, event.  Then we had to return our yellow car to the Goughs so Gaye could drive us to the airport - Jill was flying home, I was being picked up by sister Liz to be driven to Swansea.

Ours was the bright yellow Datsun parked at the back of 01 next to the back-gate.

Note Oscar's horsies...

Tassie 1

As some of you know, Mrs History (aka Southern Belle) and I were invited to Tasmania as guests of the Bellerive Historical Society to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the society we started back in 1990.  We rendezvoused at Tullamarine at 8am and had a leisurely brainstorm and bubbly till our noon flight.  Some of you also know that Mrs History and I are The Arbiters of Taste when it comes to things Bellerive so we decided being 'humbled', as everyone is these days, was soooo 20th Century, and we are very PROUD of our achievement.  We dined with the current President (of the Society) that night at the Shoreline and he plied us with books that he has published on behalf of the Society, and bubbly.  So we were VERY HAPPY.  We were staying at the Shoreline so it didn't matter.

 The view from my room - taken mainly to show Steve the nesting plovers..

The next day our official duties began.  We made brief speeches at the launch of the Society's latest book held at the Rosny Barn and then to lunch at The Waterfront Hotel, formerly known as The Clarence Hotel, for a fabulous feed of fish.  After these arduous duties we had a little time to explore and re-acquaint.  We had been loaned a car, so parked at the Second Bluff and walked around to Bellerive Beach.

 It was getting darkish and all the dog walkers were out.  Jill got a little tired of greeting dogs.
Of course, 01 Queen Street was very high on the list.  This used to be our house but is now part of The Cottage School - a fate we had always wished for it.  Standby, George.

Our former back garden.  They have kept the apple tree by the back gate!

and added to my silver birch copse.

And note the underneath.

Now Jill and I aren't ones to do things quietly

so the neighbours were alerted.  As was the school cleaner / chairperson who invited us all inside.

This is our kitchen somewhat extended.  And here's that beautiful downstairs learning space.

I love what they've done with our house - and I'd love to live in it again one day as it is now.  Touchingly, they have kept the window-seat in the Margaret Preston Room (for the cognoscenti) and the tulip fretwork in the hallway - even though the cleaner says it's a bugger to dust.  And George, your ironwork plant hanger is still out the front.

Too gorgeous

I was going to post my Tassie trip photos today but this happened... Steve came in this afty to tell me 'there's a wedding boat at the wharf'.  Intrigued, I investigated.

Obligingly, the wedding party appeared.

The bride told me proudly that her husband had built the River Shack.  They had used it for holidays before and then decided to get married on it.  Excellent!!!  Shades of Oscar & Lucinda and Petticoat Junction rolled into one.

In true Aussie wedding style, the blokes were out the back.

I do love life on the rivers - especially rainy Saturdays.

I shall blog Tassie tomorrow.

Like Wow

This one's for Georgia.

Poster in the Post Office window so it's a bit reflectiony...

Orange Blossom Time

Just want to share some blossom with you - sadly you don't get the scent (neroli??) but it is intoxicating.  The roses are also magnificent this year, so it really is like Paradise.

I pass zillions of groves / blocks like this on my way to work.

And here's one with some purely ornamental blossoms too.

[no, sorry, you can't see this one for some reason]

Living on the river

A big week in Wentworth.  Steve's friend, Mark, and his girlfriend Katy came to visit on their way back to Canberra after 3 months travelling oz.  They were enthralled by the Country Music Festival and Paddlesteamer Ruby clearly visible and audible from our deck.  You'll just get the visuals...

In the garden, the neighbour's lemon tree is coming in to blossom

and broad beans from a roadside stall are being shelled.

The money-plant never grows but it stays alive...

Life on the land

Couldn't resist taking a photo of mixed sheep in a vineyard in Curlwaa.  It's only been in the last cuppla years that I've noticed sheep and cattle grazing between the vines - I don't know if it was a reaction to the drought and lack of feed, or a return to more traditional farming practices.  Perhaps I'd just never noticed before.

And here's the opposite side of the road.

Horses still with their winter coats on.

Some of you know that I am not a great fan of Mildura - it seems soulless to me - but today I drove a slightly different way to the gym and saw this gorgeous cottage with wysteria.

 

The pressed metal on the verandah made me think of my trip to Tasmania at the end of October...

Pig Face

Had to do some 'outreach' from Buronga to Wentworth for work today.  Couldn't resist taking a picture of the carpets of pigface (portallucca???) - I don't usually see them because I'm usually driving when its too early for them to open their blooms.