BACK HOME

stayed with anne and dennis in torquay after the wedding and left on sunday morning to drive straight up to wentworth.

these gorgeous succulents are on their back verandah

bye bye (boo hoo) to the sisters, sorry about the bright sun susan.     see you in march/april  xxx




on the way home - i love these hay bales, this huge field was covered in them,
  freshly rolled and a beautiful sight

A WEDDING

On Saturday afternoon our dear friends janet and bevan were married after being together for almost thirty years i think.  we all gathered in the gallery for a lovely casual ceremony and drinks and nibbles with sun streaming in the windows from the balcony.

WITH PRINTMAKING BUDDIES ROS ATKINS, JANET GOLDMAN AND LIBBY LETCHER

MARRIED AT LAST

now what do we call them,

mr and mrs?

  hubby and wife?

the old cheeses? 

them indoors?  

nana and pop?

:0)

maybe just

janet and bevan

CONGRATULATIONS you two, and thanks for a lovely day

PEOPLE :0) PEOPLE :0) PEOPLE :0)

WHAT A DAY . . . a big morning with all the torquay buddies, coffee, xmas goodies and talk talk talk  :0)

sean, sister susan, moi, anne and den, gail, sister jen and freddie with the adorable mockie

jenny has the cutest array of xmas decos, this tiny little fella
travels round and round on a circular music box

this snowman is a little kit with a white sculpting clay, you

make your own snowman shape then decorate him with

the plastic bits,  then he slowly melts.

below - this is what he looked like half melted minus the

bits - pretty evil eh?

 

    

anne lambert's pretty

little mini puddings

we all transferred ourselves down to the front beach cafe   www.frontbeachcafe.com.au

for a glass of wine then i had a lovely hour of having my hair cut,  lots of shampooing and massaging,   aaah, i could sit there all day

RENE and SAYAKA arrived in the afternoon - we all had a bbq tea - it's been such a great

time with family and friends today, ren and sayaka stayed the night and freddie's made me up my own little bedroom in the back of the van, complete with rug and chairs outside in case anyone drops in . . .  to the garage   :0)

my son . . . and father to be rene

sayaka, gorgeous girl, with sean     it's his birthday tomorrow

this is a page of sayaka's writing, figuring out possible baby names taking into account the sound of the word and how it translates into kanji -  japanese characters.   beautiful writing

A BEAUTIFUL FULL MOON TONIGHT

NO PHOTOS

YESTERDAY i arrived down at torquay loaded with towels from the target xmas sale.  no photos, just an afternoon lying on the beach with the crew, getting sunburned and eating out at the pub. a good day.

time to get up :0)

BOXING DAY

COMING into geelong  -   corio bay sparkling in the sun

i visited dear leigh hobbs www.leighhobbs.com.au and dmetri on the way to geelong – staying with denise tonight,  bbq today at nina's, it's always good to catch up with her son lee on

his trips home from the UK -  that smile!

 

denise cooking up a storm in nina's backyard

thursday  it’s morning at denise’s – she’s still asleep. i’m thinking i might go to the after-christmas sales on the way to torquay today.  staying with the sisters  :0)    susan and sean and jenny and freddie,  some beach time coming up i imagine.

CHRISTMAS IN MELBOURNE

goodbye to the dalton clan – what a lovely family night we had.   kris came back to melbourne with me so the drive was a talkfest all the way, great to have
that time with her.

I had vicki’s lovely house to stay in christmas night, and had planned for sunny, rene and sayaka and i to have a picnic in the gardens but it was pretty breezy so we just stayed in and opened up the doors to the courtyard.  wonderful to have the kids with me,  it’s been a year since i’ve seen them all together.

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being introduced to rene and sayaka's two kittens via the

phone photos

sayaka -  in good shape :0)

i splashed out on baby clothes at the mildura baby shop - 

closing down so big discounts.  very cute goodies

  

it's CHRISTMAS DAY

I'm driving krissy down to melbourne for her flight home this morning, then rene and sayaka and sunny are coming over to vicki's, hopefully the weather will be warm enough for us to take our christmas food down to the st kilda botanical gardens.

a gift from don - beautiful poppy heads to grow - when the watering system is working

COOL COOL CHRISTMAS

PHEW  it's cooled right down.  after a day of holing up with the aircon at helen and don's the weather has completely changed.  yesterday was a great day here at sierra vista, with the extended dalton family, three generations celebrating patriarch john's 86th and christmas eve.  no words needed

krissy 

bakes

a

cake

bon and em do the pistachios

brave jen's given herself the onorous task of christmas eve dinner, christmas dinner and food for em's 30th on the 27th

the gorgeous

sisters, dressed for dinner

bon and dave

-recently engaged

ah yes, the party started later . . .

COOL CHANGE COMING

WHAT A RELIEF  it's cool here in the grampians after a hot hot night. left home
yesterday with next door's hoses thumbing their noses at me, me with a broken pump.
i'm glad to leave it all behind for a week.

loaded up the esky with ice, yabbies and fresh fruit for xmas and drove non stop to helen and don's.  sadly the heat beat my esky, and the yabbies are going to be turfed out, hope there are some prawns left at the supermarket today.

i'm having trouble uploading photos on this computer, will try later

happily in-stawell-ed

UP AT 5.30 to do a lot of watering only discover - yes, after brendan's efforts yesterday and a whole evening of ecstatically watching the sprinklers, this morning i watched the water pressure slowly die away again. left a message with brendan and drove away.
anyway, after a day of driving, from 8.30 till about 3,  i'm here at helen and don's, a few gin and tonics under the belt and having escaped a 40 deg day by being safely encased in the air conditioned comfort of my toyota.   don had a  chilled g and t waiting, and helen and i spent the afternoon playing scrabble.  now it's off to bed.  photos tomorrow, i have to organise getting them onto the blog from the computer here. 

CHRISTMAS IS COMING

I'M HITTING THE ROAD today to visit helen and don in the grampians, jenny and rob in stawell, then rene and sayaka and sunny in melbourne on christmas day.  high fire danger and 40 plus temperatures today so i'm leaving early. 

i'm leaving with the pump still not working, brendan was here again yesterday and it was glorious last night to watch all the sprinklers in action, but this morning the pressure's died away again.  i'm outta here, it'll have to survive as well as it can.

end of the week

look at these little fellas - the beautiful grass parrots that are here almost every day - they're the most beautiful iridescent shades of lime and turquoise on the back with a flash of orange when they fly.

 i went for an early morning walk up to the thegoa lagoon and discovered another section of water - full of egrets, spoonbills and herons. it really is lovely up there, i'm only starting to explore the area, there are great places to go in all directions.

the trees along the river are amazing -  huge beautiful old redgums

it was weird this evening - about two million corellas came and settled in the trees all around the house, every so often they'd all take off, wheel around and settle again, very alfred hitchcock.

and of course there was the daily water drama

the pressure disappeared again, hardly any water pumping out of the river, brendan came again, it was fine when he left and now, at 9.30p.m.  i've realised the automatic system hasn't come on - boy am i sick of this.   and it's nearly christmas, probably can't get anything done now so everything will dry out while i'm down south for a week.

groan.