Easter

Wednesday evening found Jim and me at Hill House with Rupert and Hugo.  Ian was, I think, in Nhill.  Lindsey stayed in East Melbourne.

Jim and I took the Honda to the Honda place on Thursday to get the bloke to look at the front wing.  You may remember back in December that Ian detected a funny noise when he was driving the Honda (and me) back from Melbourne. It turned out that the two front wings had broken away from the casing and from the wheel flaps. Ian had made a temporary repair at Bunnings in Melton and then a more robust repair over the weekend.  Some weeks ago I had accidentally caught the front left wing on a kerb and more or less pulled it off.  Ian and Jim had sort of fixed it back on but it was clear that Something Needed to Be Done.  The bloke looked at it and said that he could fix it properly but it would cost $700 or $800 to do it.  Or we could have these here washers, screws and plastic ties, put holes here and here, do this and that and that should fix it too.  Not a new part but a repair.  Much like Ian had done the first time around.  He gave us the washers, screws and ties and sent us on our way.  Having cost us nothing!  Ian says that I wasn't as impressed when he fixed it with washers, screws and ties, but I was. I was very impressed.  But he wasn't in a position to charge us up to $800 for it and chose not to.

While all this was happening, Lindsey and Emily went to Mount Martha and brought Stella and Tony back for the Easter weekend.  Ian made his way back from Nhill on a coach.  I took Emily back to her place once they had got back from their expedition, and collected Ian from the station on my way back.

Good Friday is a Very Solemn Holiday in Australia.  All the shops are shut. It is very quiet. Some of the restaurants and cafes are open but nothing much else.  Fortunately, the Pig and Goose in Buninyong was open so Stella, Tony, Lindsey, Ian, Jim and I could go for lunch. They came down to our place first so Tony and Stella could admire our new pad, and then we all trundled in to Buninyong for lunch.  I must say, if I was running an eating place I would have been open.  The places that were were doing a thriving trade.  So many places were shut, though, and I don't suppose that most of them were run by devout observers of Good Friday.  Anyway, we enjoyed our lunch at the Pig and Goose. We enjoyed our dinner at Hill House later, where Ian cooked up a storm.

On Saturday all the shops opened again.  Or at least most of them did. Lindsey, Stella, Tony and I went clothes shopping and for a potter around some of Ballarat's shops. Ian and Jim went shopping for irrigation materials. Later Lindsey and I went food shopping for Sunday.  And back at our place was a piece of lamb in my slow cooker, waiting to be served for Saturday dinner, which Stella, Tony, Ian and Lindsey joined us for.

Yesterday, of course, was Easter Sunday. Several of the family met at Hill House for Sunday lunch.  We were thirteen in number (who should we ascribe the role of Judas to ? :D )  We had a magnificent feast.  Many of the leftovers came back to our place. I can see stews and casseroles and soups appearing. It was a good day, marred only by one of the visitors trapping her finger in a door and by Rupert taking offence to the unannounced arrival of three dogs.   Fortunately Rupert got over the horror of these dogs invading his home (he obviously doesn't remember them coming last Christmas) so no drastic action had to be taken.  I'm not sure how the finger fared.  At one point they wondered if it might be broken and I don't know what the outcome was.

I had suggested to Jim that we should ask someone to come down and pick us up in the morning and then we could walk back down after the lunchtime festivities.  However, he volunteered to drive and had to restrict himself to a glass of wine with lunch.  We could have walked. It's all downhill and it was a pleasant afternoon.

Today has also been a holiday in Australia.  Lindsey took Stella and Tony home. Jim and I went to Bunnings and to the supermarket early this morning then he went up to join Ian in the continuing adventure of the irrigation system.  I stayed here and swept the porch, tried with enthusiasm to remove many of the outside cobwebs, made pea and ham soup, started on turning the leftovers into stews and casseroles - and had a Japanese lesson.  It's very hard to explain Easter customs to someone in Japan, especially when the customs vary depending on where you are.  I didn't even attempt it in Japanese. I was the only student so we wandered away from the lesson plan quite a bit :-)

Back to work tomorrow.  I'd better start getting organised for the new week