TUESDAY 20 JANUARY     HAMILTON

It was a dull morning and I didn’t wake up till 9.30am. It drizzled rain for much of the day. This has been such a summer of extremes.

After our late breakfast, we drove to the Post Office in order to pay our electricity and gas bills from home – we’d had the meters read and bills sent in late December, so the offspring could take over the payments.

Whilst standing in a queue, encountered one of my former Hamilton work colleagues – quite elderly now, but doing well, with two replaced hips that have curtailed her beloved horse riding. She told me she was now a widow, after her husband died – during his daughter’s wedding! She now spends half the year in Darwin, where she has a flat, and half home here. She told me that another former colleague is now Mayor of Hamilton.

John cashed in the winning lotto ticket – for $170 – and bought a month-long Keno ticket. He is accumulating the lotto money, with his bowls sale cash, to fund a new video machine for the van.

Discovered that my Visa card will not work.

After lunch, John went to bowls.

I walked to the town centre. Went into a craft shop to have a look, and the owner turned out to be yet another former colleague. I caught up with her family news.

Browsed at the Tourist Information Centre, and bought a little book of Hamilton walks, focussing on aspects of the history of the town and district. One of the featured houses is my old “Tower House” – now described as completed about 1910, with some distinctive Federation style features, such as the slate-roofed tower and some lead lighting in the windows.

Hamilton developed from the early 1840’s, as pastoralists spread north from their point of entry at Portland, at a crossing point of the Grange Burn stream. It has always been a wool oriented town, reflecting what was for so long, the major industry of the surrounding district.

John returned, happy with his bowls. He has entered in a tournament on Saturday, and also has us playing Monday and Friday afternoon and evening. He has obviously assumed we will stay longer than one week!

I made fried rice for tea, that used up the last of the cooked chicken.

After tea, we went for a walk, to the “Church Hill” area. Walked through the Botanic Gardens – dating from the 1880’s and designed by William Guilfoyle, and thus of considerable historic significance. They have been tidied up and improved, since I lived in a nearby street and regularly walked through them on my way to the town centre, and are excellent now.  Continued our walk down past the Skene Street house – run down – then made our way back to the van.

John reached his friends by phone; we are going there for lunch on Sunday. They asked us to take the van and stay at their place, but we will just do a short visit, at this stage.