Market Day

Some time ago, the Ballarat Council decided to rejig the Bridge Street Mall and convert it back to a roadway. Only one lane, heading out of Ballarat City centre.

This provoked considerable discussion amongst the nay-sayers and whiners who inhabit the Ballarat Facebook groups. What a ridiculous decision it had been to turn it into a pedestrian mall in the first place. How ridiculous it is to convert it back. How ridiculous the plans and designs were. How ridiculous the (almost) finished product is.

They illustrate this with photos of Bridge Street from the 1950s and 60s, waxing lyrical about how vibrant and active it was. How many thriving businesses there were. How many people used it. I look at these photos and all I see is lots of cars and other vehicles. It doesn't look particularly vibrant to me, though I will allow that I wasn't there to observe it in the 1950s or 60s. Or at any time really, until the 90s when the pedestrian mall was long in place.

During the re-making of the road, the Bridge Mall market has been much reduced in size and pushed out of the way of the roadworks. Lindsey and I didn't go very often; only if we had another reason to be in town on market day. There wasn't enough of interest for it to be worth making the trip into town just for the market.

Now, however, the roadworks are almost complete. The Moaners and Groaners are complaining on Facebook how horrible it looks, how it will never work, how the children will get run over (there is a play area to one side, which is fenced off from the single lane road); waste of money; stupid council; will have to be closed on market days; mumble, mutter, whine, whinge.

On Saturday the market moved back to what had been the pedestrian mall and there were lots more stalls in play. So Lindsey and I went to have a look. It was busy and bustling. The sun was shining. Everyone seemed happy. The stalls were attracting lots of attention. The shops along the street were also busy.

The Bridge Street market is on the first Saturday of the month. They did try having it also on the third Saturday but that was suspended once the roadworks began. I wonder if they'll try again.

Apart from that, things have been trundling along. I've been at work. I've done a bit of shopping. I've done a bit of tidying. The wind has continued to blow, although mercifully not as strongly as before. Spring taunts us by pushing the temperature up to the high teens and then dropping it back down to very low double figures. My tiny peach tree still has bright pink blossom and, although small, looks cheerful. The apple trees are beginning to wake up. The peas are flowering. The broad beans are struggling a bit. I don't think they've been getting enough light and they are quite weedy. It is true they are underneath some trees over the back fence, and I think that, combined with what was quite a dull winter (in terms of light), has left them a bit sun deprived. Maybe they'll strengthen up now that Spring is (more or less) Sprung.

This turned up during the week:

I like Mingle spice mixes and am looking forward to trying some of the ones that you don't find in the supermarkets. I might have to share some of them, though. It was a very full box and I don't think I can use it all before the mixes are a long way past their Best Before date.

Weather

It has been faintly irritating, over the past few days, listening to people on the radio and TV talking about how many parts of Australia have been unseasonably warm, even hot. I have not been hot, or even warm. In Ballarat it has been decidedly on the cool side. I have been listening to these reports of heat and warmth while snuggled under the heated couch throw, fire lit, wearing thick winter jumpers. I agree that 40° is rather too hot, especially at the tail end of winter, but something slightly warmer than the 9° that is the forecast high in Ballarat today would be nice.

It would be even nicer if the strong, strong winds would die down a bit. It has been unbelievably windy over the past two or three days. I am lucky that I have electricity. So many places in Victoria do not. I am also lucky that none of the local trees have blown onto my house, or any other houses immediately round me. The worst I have is twigs, some small branches and a bit of bark. Oh - and the "greenhouse" has blown over. Not a big problem - there were no plants in it and I was thinking of moving it anyway.

There are twigs and small branches everywhere

Brandy is not enjoying the wind, or the disruption

I wondered what this was when I first glimpsed it
It's quite a large piece of bark that
wasn't in the front yard when I locked up last night

It is still very windy this morning but at least the sun has come out. I would be tempted out into the garden were it not for the wind and the fact that it's about 5° outside. I may settle for tidying up inside, rather than out.

I brought the daffodils, tulips and jonquils in before the storms arrived. There weren't a lot, but I figured they would be safer in a vase in the lounge room rather than taking their chances under the fruit trees.

Sunny and cheerful

I couldn't bring the peach blossom in, or not if I want any chance of peaches. I am happy to report it is still on the tree. It's a very small tree and protected by the fence, but I am pleased and a bit surprised anyway. I had two peaches last season and they were delicious.

Apart from the wind, it was a fairly quiet weekend. It was cold and drizzly or cold and rainy. And windy. So there wasn't much incentive to go outside. Or even out, although I did go shopping with Lindsey later yesterday morning. Apart from that, nothing exciting to report.

Some of us are enjoying the electric chair throws:

It was another dark and stormy night

It was Freyja's birthday last weekend but it wasn't convenient to get together to celebrate, so we had her Birthday Lunch yesterday at my place. Lindsey came too, but not Ian. He's currently in Switzerland so not really handy for Sunday Lunch.

Lindsey brought home made seed crackers and various dips. I made roast potatoes (of course) and a vegetable and bean pot pie. I made the pastry topping in the way I usually make shortcrust pastry, except that I used vegan olive spread and oat milk in place of butter and cows' milk. I rather like my vegan pastry - it is very soft and fluffy.

Sunday Lunch in Mount Helen, photos by Freyja:

The BoM had been warning for several days of severe weather across the state on Sunday afternoon, so Freyja and Simon left shortly after lunch, hoping to be ahead of the wind and the rain. It arrived here late in the afternoon and lasted into the evening. It wasn't as bad as it might have been - the wind wasn't as strong as Friday night's. But there was a considerable amount of rain, a hefty dose of hail and lots of thunder and lightning. Lindsey had so much hail bouncing off her front windows that she couldn't hear the thunder. I didn't have quite as much rain and hail, and could definitely hear the thunder. Freyja and Simon got home ahead of the rain, just. They have magnificent views of approaching storms from their lounge room windows.

It is much calmer today, although it is still cold and rainy. But gentle, gardeners' rain rather than stormy rain.

I am very pleased with my three bedrooms. They are looking rather nice - at the moment, while they are still neat and tidy!

Main bedroom
(which is my room)

Guest (second) bedroom

Spare (third) bedroom

It was a dark and stormy night

 ... as they say.

The rain started around 8pm, just as Lindsey and I were getting back from Melbourne. The wind picked up shortly after.

There was a LOT of wind. Brandy and Whiskey were unimpressed and ran up and down the house, behaving as though there was another cat or a possum in the garden. There wasn't. It was just the wind, blowing things about.

I worried that the mighty gum tree over the side fence might decide to throw a branch or even itself at my little house. (It's not really all that little, but it would be the underdog in a fight with the gum tree)

The wind and the rain lasted for hours.

But in the end, it was not the gum tree over my side fence that blew down. It was the Cootamundra wattle at Lindsey's place (These are Lindsey's photos):

Broken at the base

Narrowly missed Lindsey's car!

"My" trees are still standing:

Base of the ancient gum tree

And its canopy, towering over other,
much younger trees

"My" wattle, just over the fence.
Not a Cootamundra, but also
not sleeping on the fence!

After such a stormy night, it has been a rather lovely day. So much so that the market was absolutely packed, the playgrounds and botanical gardens around the lake were filled with people and the walking tracks were very busy. So was the parking. We had to park up behind the gardens, rather than alongside the lake.

The market, abuzz with shoppers and browsers

It was busy at the Avalon nursery, where we went to buy new wattle trees. We had to park outside rather than in the car park. Fortunately not so busy at the Mount Clear shops, where we stopped for lunch, although busy enough. The cafe had quite a few [people in it. But at least parking wasn't an issue.

I think, after the storms of last night, people might be thinking thoughts of spring. I believe that winter is due back tomorrow

Spring

Hill House, parking area

Bottom of the Hill House drive,
eucalyptus flowers

Daffodils at my place

Snow peas growing vigorously

 

Wattles at my place,
a week or so behind those at Hill House

You would have had every reason to think that spring is on its way. The wattles are in bloom, spring flowers are starting to flower. The soil is warming up. We have had some sunny, almost warm days.

Alas, I fear that spring is merely toying with us. The past few days have been cold, gloomy and damp. This morning we have had a storm and it is very cold and rainy. Winter is positively gloating as it returns itself, front and centre. 

I had almost found my gardening mojo, which has been missing for some while. Freyja said she thought it might be in the garden, so I went hunting one sunny day a week or so ago - and there it was, lurking in a grassy corner. I went to grab it and it slipped out of my grasp and is hiding somewhere in the wind and rain, the long grass, the overgrown garden beds.

As I survey the garden through a rain-splashed window and watch the trees over the side fence dancing in the wind, a flat with a balcony somewhere in Docklands is Very Tempting! But I certainly couldn't put this place on the market with the garden in such disarray, and once spring really does arrive my gardening mojo might return.

Today is not that day 😂

It's a year today since Jim died. I'm not sure what to make of that. I still have a faint sense of Time's wingèd chariot lurking nearby. I have a faint sense that I am waiting for something, although what I do not know. The earth has made another complete revolution around the sun, the season is in flux. Life goes on.

And time passes, very quickly. The morning is almost gone and I have yet to accomplish most of the things I had planned. I really must get a move on!

A Busy Thursday

Before the Handygirls came on Thursday the driveway looked like this:

And after:

I had been slowly, slowly, slowly chopping down a bush that was in this spot. The Handygirls finished it off for me. I am intending to put the leftover pavers here as a standing spot for the rubbish/recylcing/green waste bins. Although, it may not be big enough when/if the glass recycling bin ever comes.

The agapanthus down the side of the driveway are much tidier, although I will still need to cut back a couple by the little wall with the mail boxes. I do not like agapanthus. They seem to think that their whole reason for being is to take over the whole known universe. I would have them out if I could afford it. Then I would replace them with native ground covers. Or something. But that is way down the bottom of my list of things to do and will almost certainly never happen.

Then the Handygirls came inside and now my little-used study, which mostly held things that needed sorting out, looks like this:

It is a child's bed, really, but at least it makes my place a three bedroom house, rather than two bedrooms and study. I need to get curtains or a blind for the window. It somehow got missed when I bought blinds for the place after we purchased it.

It may not often/ever have a person sleeping
on it, but Brandy and Whiskey think it's ok

This also arrived on Thursday:

I now have flights booked for Japan in October.

And the gas has finally been properly disconnected. The gas supply company had been harassing "The Occupier" pretty much since I closed my account, with increasingly threatening letters. I would ring them. They would say that I should ignore the letters because I no longer had any responsibility for the gas account. And on Thursday morning, while I was out, a bloke came and turned it completely off. The meter is still there, so any future owner can have it reconnected if they wish. I am happy with my solar panels and my "all electric house".

All in all, Thursday was quite a busy day.

Partying

It was a weekend of partying.

Saturday afternoon was Stella's Family Farewell Party, in a wine bar in East Melbourne. Very conveniently, the Life's Too Short  wine bar is in the same complex as Lindsey and Ian's flat. Ian was heading back to Ballarat after the event, so I stayed in the flat overnight.

It was a good do. Stella would have much enjoyed it. I think everyone who is in Victoria was there, plus distant cousin Ken, and Bob and Marie Rogers. Marie met us at the airport when we very first came to Australia. Bob was a partner in the surgery when Tony joined it. Bob and Marie are in their nineties, live in Kew and came to East Melbourne on the tram! Bob is the only original partner still standing.

We had cocktails, wine, non alcoholic alternatives, coffee, tea and very tasty small canapés. Stella and Tony were there in the form of a large portrait that Lindsey's daughter in law's father painted 

The painting is in the background at
Hill House.
Rupert and Hugo are with Stella
January, 2020

Here we all are:

And a few of the people who were there:

And this is inside the venue:

On Sunday, I was off to Geelong. The Sunday lunchers were meeting at Irene's place, although Chris and John were unexpectedly unable to come. 

People say that the road from Melbourne to Geelong is very boring, and that may well be the case if you drive it frequently. I almost never drive it, going as I usually do from Ballarat, so I didn't find it boring. And especially not once I got to Geelong itself and drove around Corio Bay for part of the journey. I wasn't expecting to see the sea, which was deep blue and sparkling in the sunshine.

This is what Chris and John missed out on:

There was tiramisu for dessert, but I didn't get a photo of that. It was all very delicious.

Gillie and Irene

In other news, I FINALLY got around to getting the gutters cleaned out on Saturday morning before I went to Melbourne. I've been trying to think when it was last done. It was quite some time ago. When Jim was here, the council came out and cleared them as part of his aged care support, although I think that might have stopped when the My Aged Care package came into play. Whenever it stopped, it certainly didn't continue after he moved into residential care. I suspect it might have been perhaps three years since the gutters were last done. The gutters were very full. The bloke who came and did it was very careful but the green waste bin is very full and there is still a lot of leaf and twig litter to go in. I shall have to remember to have it done more often!

Whiskey was very keen to get out and see
what had been going on

Brandy was more than happy
to look at it from inside

The Handy Girls are coming on Thursday to sort out the agapanthus down the driveway. They were going to come last Thursday but they were running very late and I had to go out. Lindsey and I were meeting Sandy from Perth in Sunbury at 6pm and that's slightly over an hour away. I put the Handy Girls off to this week and Lindsey and I went off to Sunbury, to Okami for Japanese food and a catch up with Sandy and another friend.

All in all it's been quite a sociable few days