Monday 19th June

A nice and peaceful day in comparison to previous days. But only in comparison! Started quietly enough. The Builder and I pottered about, drank tea, ate toast, ambled around. Then we took ourselves into town for supplies. A quick reconnoitre around the supermarket, then we trundled off to Dan Murphy to acquire replacement wine supplies. We seem to have drunk most of Lindsey’s!

All was well until we tried to pay. The Builder handed across his Maestro card. The reader didn’t recognise it. No worries. He has another card. Trouble is it’s a Debit Visa and they don’t have those here. I told him to select “savings” from the options(they don’t have these options in the UK). This didn’t work because it’s not a savings account. This brought the cards reader to a grinding halt of deep confusion and made it crash. Sigh. Remember to select credit in the future! And pay in cash. Thus wiping out our cash supplies!

Happily The Builder was carrying English notes. We wandered to the bank and emerged many minutes later with nice plastic notes. Scary to think how many plastic notes we’ve got through already, though.

So. Back to Mount Helen, where Austin appeared at about half past eleven, having finished his Japanese exam a tad early. He thinks he’s done quite well with it. He and The Builder had a game of snooker, then he, Lindsey, The Builder and I all headed off to Ballarat for lunch at Pipers on the lake. Well, it used to be Pipers on the lake. It’s now more like Piper’s by the swamp. The last year before I left Ballarat the lake was full to overflowing. Now there’s very little water in it. Partly as a result of a ten year drought and partly (I believe) because one of the sources of water has been diverted to a private concern. Personally, I think they should divert it back, though I think I recall Lindsey saying that “They” are thinking of importing water from somewhere next year.

Anyway. Lunch. Austin rolled in accompanied by Julia, who is supposed to be finishing an overdue essay (overdue? OVERDUE?!?!?!? I never handed in overdue essays, oh no, not me ………) It was a lovely lunch. I had a Greek lamb salad, as I always do when I have lunch there. Perhaps I should branch out and have something different the next time.

Then back down to Melbourne. Again!!! Lindsey and Ian are in the process of acquiring an apartment in central Melbourne. Perhaps next time I’ll base us there and radiate out. The highway between Ballarat and Melbourne has to be one of the most boring in the whole world.

Not that we were actually heading to Melbourne. We were off to Mount Martha to visit Stella and Tony for a couple of nights. The traffic after the Burnley tunnel was entertainingly heavy. And we managed to get mildly misplaced after I missed the Blackburn Road turn off and had to come down Springvale Road. Not that this was really getting misplaced, but Springvale itself tends to be very very busy and usually we avoid it. Mind you, it’s a bit of a worry when you have to show your navigator exactly where you are on the map (“We’ve just crossed the railway line.” “We can’t have done; there isn’t one on the map!” There is if you are looking in the right place!!!!!)

So here we are in Mount Martha. Was a beautiful evening with a lovely sunset over the bay and many stars twinkling in a very cold sky. Smoked pork chops for dinner. A couple of bottles of very nice wine, general chit chat, then everyone retired to bed very early.

So it was a quite peaceful day really. But I’ll be glad of a day when I am not trundling up or down the Western Highway!

The weather remains truly beautiful. But there’s been no significant rain for over a month and the reservoirs are only at 48% of capacity. Not good, not really. Not if you are a local.