Tidying, Eating and Discovering

It was our weekend at Mount Martha so Jim and I went down on Saturday and stayed the night.

I have to say, it was a productive weekend. We didn't sort out the side of the sink in Stella's bathroom, which was on the plan.  But we did sort through Tony's shirts and trousers in the wardrobe. I snaffled a few shirts and left some that we thought Matthew might like. The rest went to the charity clothes bin. We sorted through the set of shelves in the little hall leading to the study. I organised the freezer so we could see what was in there (several open packets of frozen chips, folks. Tsk!.  I've consolidated them. One chip packet at a time in future, please!!!). We sorted through the papers on the table and little trolley. And, of course, we tidied the kitchen and emptied the dishwasher and all the usual things.

One beautifully tidy freezer

We ate well.  We had King George whiting fillets on Saturday night, with some of the frozen chips and with green vegetables. King George whiting is Stella's most favourite fish and it can be hard to get hold of.  It's a very delicate fish, both in texture and in flavour, so I don't muck about with it.  Dredged in seasoned flour and lightly fried in butter and olive oil, with a little lemon juice to serve. Delicious.  Sunday breakfast was mango slices, banana and some apricot fruit toast. And then we went to The Dava for lunch.  I had the senior's parmigiana.  I could easily have eaten more, but I didn't come away from lunch feeling slightly bloated or slightly over fed.  I may have to have the senior's serve more often!

Looking good - and wearing one of her shirts that I like best

Stella wondered, during lunch, what had been on the Dava site before the hotel was built.  None of us knew.  As far as we were concerned, it has always been there.  But our "always" is only a quarter of a century, when Stella and Tony moved to the peninsula. So I investigated while we were waiting for our food.  Apparently it had been built in the 1920s and was a convent and boys' school, before being bought out and turned into a hotel and guest house in the 1930s. It's been refurbished several times since then but, as far as we are concerned, it really has "always" been there.

We called at Tully's after lunch and bought lovely things for Stella and lovely things for us. And then Jim and I headed home and had baked potatoes with some of Tully's lovely things for dinner.

Tuesday would have been Tony's 88th birthday.  Matthew took the day off work and went across to spend the day with Stella. They went to the Flinders' pub bistro for a celebratory lunch, which Tony would have enjoyed. He was a bit disappointed when their restaurant closed, but we all enjoyed visits to the bistro. And it's a lovely drive from Mount Martha to Flinders.

When Stella and I had been clearing out the wardrobe, I had asked what was in all the shoe boxes on the top shelf.  Stella didn't know, and we didn't have time to investigate.  So Matthew had a look.  And found a positive mountain of photos that we all thought had been lost.  Should keep us all happily occupied for ages, looking through them.

Photo (c) Matthew