The plan for Thursday had been that Jim and I would head to Melbourne at midday or so. I would tidy the kitchen and guest bathroom and toilet at Hill House before we went. Then I would do Stella's room and ensuite on Friday morning.
Lindsey rang while I was in the shower on Thursday morning. Her meeting which had been scheduled from 10-1 had been moved forward (by agreement with all the participants; it hadn't just randomly been altered) to an 8:00 start. So she would head down and collect Stella and bring her up a day early.
This threw my plans into complete chaos!!!
But I had to tidy Stella's room. As it stood, she wouldn't be able to get to the bed. The room was full of suitcases and bedding and other stuff. By the time midday arrived, I had done our washing and hung it out in the sunshine, tidied Stella's room and cleaned her bathroom and vacuumed the floors, sorted out the kitchen, tidied our room.
We organised the dogs, then drove down to the surgery in beautiful sunshine - and in very little traffic. It's school holidays and a long weekend was upon us so there wasn't much traffic. We arrived in good time, had lunch in a nearby Red Rooster and arrived in the surgery a little more than 5 minutes before Jim's scheduled appointment with the audiologist.
Deb the receptionist said that the audiologist had been asking if Jim had arrived for around half an hour, though we were not late. So we went down to the room she was using. She was not there. We returned to the reception area waited and waited and waited. She did not come and call him. It got to time for my appointment. She did not call me. Then someone who we assumed was the audiologist walked past, smiled at us, stopped at the desk and then left. Jim and I were confused. So I went to see what was happening. Deb was also confused. She thought we had already been seen. We went and waited the audiologist's room until she came back. Having come all the way down from Ballarat, we did not want her to glide over our appointments completely and to call the next person who had, by now, arrived for his appointment.
She returned full of apologies. In a massive confusion of understanding she had assumed that we had not turned up (not helped by someone else telling her that I didn't work there on Thursdays, lived up country and therefore was unlikely to come in; she didn't ask Deb, who knew we were coming and in any case knew that we had arrived). But never mind. We eventually had our hearing assessments. No real surprises. My hearing remains good. Jim's is also good but he is losing the upper registers, which is not uncommon as you get older and which we had already surmised. I can still hear high pitched sounds that he doesn't hear.
We got back to Hill House not long after Lindsey and Stella had arrived. Lindsey was still unpacking the car. We stayed up there overnight. Lindsey had raided Tully's in Mornington and there was beef pie, mash and green vegetables on offer.
And also, Freyja and Simon were coming for lunch on the Friday, which was a public holiday in Victoria for the football Grand Final parade in the Melbourne city centre. We had arranged for them to go to Hill House in the expectation that Lindsey and Stella would be on their way up from Mount Martha. Also, they were coming to collect the newly repaired UIW.
I made a vegan friendly gardeners' pie for lunch. Lots and lots of veg, a tin of baked beans and some gravy. When Lindsey had made the mash to go with our beef pie on Thursday night, the potatoes went from rock hard to mush in the space of around three minutes (so clearly an issue with boiling that variety of potato rather than my ineptitude :-D ). I didn't really want to spend my time watching potatoes with an eagle eye so that they were at an exact consistency for mashing for my gardeners' pie. Frozen mash from the supermarket tends to have milk and butter in it, so not suitable for vegans. Then I remembered that one of the food magazines, on the cover of one of the autumn issues, had had a photo of a shepherds' pie topped with potato gems - which are vegan friendly. I dashed to Mount Clear and bought a packet. They were perfect!
Freyja and Simon crossed their fingers and set off back to Melbourne in UIW. We got a text message to say they had safely passed Gordon, where they had broken down on the previous attempt. Then another to say they had safely arrived home. By that time, Jim and I were also at home, having packed up Ziggy and left Stella and Lindsey in the tender care of Rupert and Hugo. I think it's almost two weeks since we last spent the night at Tani. Lindsey says we have a holiday house (Tani) a mere 5 minutes away from where we live (Hill House) :-D
And now we must get on. The morning is moving on and we are going out with Lindsey and Stella at lunchtime. If nothing else, I must iron something to wear today. I seem to have run out of clean, ironed clothes!
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