Joy and Les: May 2014

Thought it was about time to put pen to paper (or is that fingers to keyboard?) as it has been 6 months since the last blog entry. We always seem to be busy but have to look in the diary to see what we have done.

Les has been busy planning our next holiday which will be almost 8 weeks heading across the Nullarbor to Western Australia and then back from Perth to Adelaide on the Indian Pacific which will cross off several things from our bucket list – driving the Nullarbor, seeing Western Australia in spring with the wildflowers (hopefully) and travelling on the Indian Pacific. Les has most of the trip planned, just doing the finishing touches for the trip, which we are starting at the end of July. We have arranged a house sitter to look after the house and Maggie the cat. But that is what is happening in the future and I should cover what we have done over the last few months.

In November we went back to Ferntree Gully and did the walk into the gully and then had lunch in a café in Rylstone. And that is how Joy celebrated her birthday (it was her choice!!).

Ferntree Gully Walk

We visited Sydney in December to catch up with friends and go to the Christmas party for the Exercise Group that Joy used to do each Saturday morning when we were still in Sydney. Putt Putt Golf at West Ryde. Good to catch up with friends but good to then get out of Sydney again.

Christmas was a family affair at Bathurst. Joy’s mother came down from Parkes and her brother and sisters and families all came for Christmas Lunch. We were lucky as one of Joy’s tennis ladies needed a house sitter for Christmas so Joy’s sisters and their families stayed on a farm about ½ hour out of Bathurst. After Christmas we went to Maitland for a few days.

Since then we have celebrated Valentines with a few days at Leura (where Les got to try his new filters on his camera at the waterfalls!!),

Leura Cascades

had several trips to Joy’s mothers at Parkes, a trip to Wollongong to celebrate a 21st birthday. Joy is still doing tennis each week plus volunteering at the local craft shop as well as doing lots of craft things ie mosaics, crocheting, knitting, making soap, chutney, etc.

Joy's Mosaic Pot

Les is still doing some work via remote access as well as making models, reading, started replacing the upholstery webbing on the lounges and planning our holiday (as well as helping plan a friend’s holiday) and making more models.

VW Beetle made for a friend for Christmas

Plus the usual gardening, etc. We have had home grown tomatoes, carrots, shallots, basil and potatoes.

We have also visited most of the Aged Care facilities in Bathurst. No not for us, but looking for Joy’s mum – no, we haven’t lost her, she is looking to move from the big four-bedroom family home into something where she doesn’t have to cook, or clean, or do anything that she doesn’t want to do.

So we have now been in Bathurst for a full year, and celebrated the anniversary with lunch at a local Italian that we had not tried before – we will definitely be going back there. So the summary of the year, weather wise - Winter minimums were about normal, Winter maximums were about 2 degrees higher then normal (some locals said we did not really have a winter at all!!). Summer minimums were about average but the maximums were about 3 degrees above the average, so we have had a hot summer but dry. The grass was suffering from the hot dry weather even using the sprinklers but then in last February we started to get good rain. So it went from mowing the lawn once every 2 to 3 weeks to 3 times in 2 weeks!!

The farm behind our place has also seen lots of new calves born and also harvesting of the crop (not sure what it was but think it might have been oats).

We have also had a pair of Blue Wrens set up a nest in the backyard and had 3 chicks.

That was just before Christmas and they still visit almost every day. Maggie gets very interested if the Peewees (Magpie larks) come up close to the window when she is awake (which is not all that often).

Maggie loves her big scratching post but she can look very uncomfortable!!

We have also visited Mayfield Gardens http://www.mayfieldgarden.com.au/ near Oberon. It is one of the largest private cool climate gardens in world. It is a beautiful example of what you can do when money is not an object (reported that the owner is worth $1 Billion!!)