This Adventurous Age

Adventures travelling and working around Australia.

Monthly Archives: March 2024


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2018 Travels December 26

DECEMBER 2018 (2)     PLAYING BIN LADY

Spring and the first part of summer, up here north of the Divide, had been hotter and drier than we were used to. I had been watering the garden daily, virtually since we arrived here. Xmas Day itself had been really hot. The family was definitely looking forward to their annual month long caravan holiday at coastal Narrawong, for which they would be leaving very early on the day after Xmas.

As just about all the extended Bendigo family of daughter’s partner made the annual pilgrimage to the coast, I had been co-opted to go around to their place every few days and water their plants in tubs and any other part of their place that looked like it needed water.

I was somewhat envious of them heading off from baking Bendigo. Had it not been for Couey, we could have taken Bus and joined them – although the area of the caravan park where they have a number of adjoining sites booked, from year to year, is unpowered, and John would not have liked being deprived of his nightly TV. But the lovely caravan park at Narrawong is not pet friendly, so not for us.

On 26/12, I had done my early morning garden water and was having a late breakfast when a phone call came from daughter. They had reached Ararat and stopped to refuel. At that point, they realized that neither of them had the envelope of saved-up cash that was to be their funds for the trip – a couple of thousand dollars. Panic ensued. They knew it hadn’t been in the customary place on the bench when they were checking last minute before departure. Each had assumed the other had it. So, there was the question of where it had gone.  I was asked to go round there and do a money hunt. Fortunately I held a spare key to the house.

So off I went. Did a visual check of the bench and table tops, in case. Nup. Next, I’d been directed to go through the laundry basket, in case it was in a pocket of clothes discarded after their final packup and hitch up of van. No envelopes in the dirty clothes…

Daughter thought the envelope might have been swept up in Xmas present wrapping paper, or in the general rubbish of the pre-Xmas preparation, so I was to check the bins, too.

So out I went, to the area beside the front driveway where the bins were stored. I tackled the recycling bin first, as perhaps the most likely – and certainly the least unpleasant. No joy.

That left the general rubbish and the green recycling bin. Given the prevailing heat wave conditions, and the fact that food remnants, including delights such as prawn shells, had been therein for a few days, less said the better! Sorting through bin contents upended onto a tarp I’d brought from home, in full view of anyone walking or driving past, did earn me some strange looks. I wondered if I actually looked desperate enough to be scavenging in bins!

In plain sight…

Had to text daughter that, despite my best efforts – for which she would owe me, big time – no envelope of cash was found. Perhaps they had packed it somewhere after all?

It remained a mystery for the duration of their holiday and for a couple of weeks after they returned home, late in January. Then partner found the missing envelope and cash – tucked away in a corner of the pantry cupboard. They could only assume it had been put there in a hurry, during the episode of the exploding soft drink, when the bench was awash.

So it all ended well – though it did take quite a while for the memory of those prawn shells to fade…


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2018 Travels December 25

DECEMBER 25 2018     THE SOCIAL WHIRL

The first couple of months of our tree change had seen a steady stream of family and friends coming from afar to inspect our new abode, and reassure themselves that we had not departed from common sense in what we had done. The majority seemed impressed and satisfied that we had, in fact, improved our lifestyle.

There was a house for sale further along our street. Rather smaller than ours, though of a similar vintage, John and I decided it would be ideal for friend M. All we had to do was convince her to follow our exodus from the big smoke. She seemed slightly interested. We would continue with the campaign…

My birthday fell on a Sunday in December. The weekend seemed a great opportunity to have a party and for the family to get together, pre-Xmas. Our outdoor living area was still a great novelty for us, and this would be a chance to put it to the sort of use for which it was intended. My son and his family would come from Melbourne, as would one step daughter, holidaying there from Broken Hill, as well as M. It had been at least a decade since we had all been together at that time of year, family gatherings on Xmas Day having fallen casualty to separations, both familial and geographic. Melbourne grandson completed primary school this month, so that was something else to celebrate, although to me those seven years had passed too quickly.

The house would be full, all bedrooms occupied, with a couple of grandchildren sleeping on temporary beds in my study. I begged M to bring her Troopy, so she could camp out in the sideway.

Eventually we would have a large wooden table on the patio for such occasions, but John had not yet built same, so we trotted out an assortment of camping tables – our own and those of various family members. It was a case of byo chairs too.

M and I worked hard for a couple of days, preparing a feast of seafood, salads, cold meats, fruit salad and trifle, for the Saturday gathering.

The Sunday morning saw the early breakfast and departure of those who had stayed, with the exception of M. Daughter had planned a special event for us, as my birthday present.

She collected us from home and drove us to the Fortuna Villa, for a tour followed by high tea.

High Tea

I had not heard of Fortuna Villa, and only knew the history of Bendigo in very general terms. The history of the gold rushes in Australia, as taught in schools and universities, seemed to focus almost exclusively on Ballarat, ignoring the rich and often complex histories of places like Bendigo. Today’s tour was to be enlightening. It involved so much, and was so engrossing that it warrants a separate blog entry of its own.

Fortuna Villa

Suffice to say that ,after it, we rebooked to do it all again, around the time of Mothers Day, next year, but to bring John along too as there was much about the place that would interest him.

High Tea at Fortuna Villa

It was quite a wonderful birthday.

We had a very festive Xmas Day lunch at daughter’s place. There were eight of us – daughter, partner, the two boys, partner’s parents and us. Partner and mother had spent the previous day preparing an extensive traditional Xmas feast. Unfortunately, somehow, in the midst of their preparations, they had managed to explode a large bottle of soft drink – over ceiling, benches and their contents, walls. The cleanup had apparently taken some hours!

I contributed, at daughter’s request, one of my trifles.

It was a lovely change from our Xmas lunches in recent times, when there was usually only John and me. We pottered off home in the late afternoon, and only felt like a very light evening meal.