This week at dancing

This week we learnt the Sally Ann Cha Cha. Hope I got the name right. I am not a dancer. Would love to be but I am not. My problem is 1. I can never remember the names of the dances I try to learn and 2. I can never remember the dances. I figure if I learn them often enough I might eventually one day get there. I didn't stay for the social this week so didn't get to practice what I had learnt.

dawn service

Up at 4.30 on a drizzly overcast day to attend the Anzac Day dawn service in the city today.  I made sure I was well rugged up.   My socks came up over my knees had a warm skivvy, warm jumper, thick warm waterproof jacket and my trusty clear and pink umberella and I was ready to go.  We got in there about 5.30 but others obviously were there a lot earlier than us for the service.   Didn't get much of a vantage point and the not so loud speakers could have been notched up a click or two but glad I was there.  A crowd of about 30,000 and yes I would go again.  It drizzled with rain for the entire service and towards the end my phone alarm went off.   Oops forgot all about it.   Poor David was a tad embarrassed by it but hey he should not have been thinking nasty thoughts about the person so inconsiderate as to be getting calls at that time of the morning.  It also prompted him to turn his phone off so he was just lucky it wasn't him.   As the service ended it began to pour with rain.  Glad to see mother nature tried so hard to keep it down to a minimum during the service.

today it's ships

the old wharf at Beacon Cove

the spirit of Tasmania

a freight ship

more freight ships but the secruity guard didn't like us there - on the outside of the fence - and told us to move on.  I'm just watching the ships unload I told him but he wasn't impressed.  Anyone would think it was a military installiation.

After a day of slowing gathering storm clouds the sky was magnificant as we were leaving.  Westgate bridge in the distance.

wine day on the farm

Visited friends for the afternoon.  Must admit the view from their farmhouse is unbeatable.

Hanging Rock

It was a plane day today.  Light aircraft flying over the farm at Hanging Rock

as well as a wine day.  Didn't get in there and stomp on the grapes

150 kgs of red grapes preserved.  Early days in the wine making process.  It now has to ferment, be racked a couple of times, bottled and matured.   Here's hoping that at the end of it all it is a nice brew.

tullamarine

On our way out to visit friends at Hanging Rock today we stopped by the Viewing Area at Tullamarine and watched a flew planes fly in.  Unbeatable.

from a small speck in the sky

to thish

a minute or two later

a couple of minutes later

a very busy day

I had a dream last night

I dreamt last night that I was talking to mum. We were just talking casually about things we had never talked about before, There were no recriminations or sorrow. It was nice, relaxed. Like we used to talk about things, it was just shall we say more in depth. I kept thinking it was so nice for mum to be able to visit me again and I knew it was only going to be for a short time. Love you mum.

dancing

Back to dancing for the first time in about six months. It really didn't seem that long. I went back into the intermediate class. I feel more comfortable there and I really enjoy these dances more than the others. Learnt the Charmaine. I have learnt it a couple of times before but hoping to one day remember it.

shoe tree and missing shoe

Approx 20 k's out of Morgan on the Morgan Burra Rd, South Australia is this shoe tree.  We came across it on our way home from Clare.

The day seemed to have a shoe theme to it.  I kicked my runners off sometime after we left Clare on our way home.  Got out of the car several times including to change drivers.  Didn't bother with the shoes there was no need to.  I was driving when we finally reached home around 10 pm well Thornbury anyway.   We unloaded the car and I reached across the drivers seat to pick up my shoes and socks from the floor.  Two socks, one shoe.  Mmmm that's not right.  I searched the car, David searched the car I even searched outside the car by feeling around the wheel in the gutter.  There was no vision as the night was not even moonlight.  I finally accepted the fact that somewhere between Clare and Thornbury there was one lonely pink laced shoe.  David liked to think that the shoe had decided to join the brigade on the shoe tree.
I walked out to my car early next morning after David had left for work and there was one pink laced runner in the gutter.  It was slightly worse for wear looking a little crushed but otherwise fine.

worlds end

I can now say I've been to the worlds end!

Talk about being on the road to nowhere. Which reminds me. Many, many, many years ago on my travels in s
South Aussie I came across a sign that pointed to Nowhere Else. I think it was getting late in the evening and I wanted to get to my destination so I didn't visit.  I kind of always wish I had but maybe one day I will get back there.

feeling at home

We did the tourist thing this mornig and had a wander around the station.  Here are some of the highlights.

finally here

This is Bungaree Station just out of Clare SA.   This is where the wedding is going to be and some of the family are also staying here.  It was worth the drive just to spend the weekend here.  The place was built in the 1840's and the building are supurb.  Our house had a wood fire which we kept going and it kept the house comfortablly warm.  The weather was perfect.  We were free to wander arouond the station at our lesure, even though the place is still a working station.   These are just a few of the many buildings on the station.

our home for the weekend

the office

main house

shearing shed

the epic journey begins

Thursday after work we left for Robinvale.   The largest half of our journey.   We left again about 10 the next morning.  We shopped in Mildura and continued.   We were stopped as everyone was at the fruit fly block just past the SA border.  The guy was quite jovial as he looked through the window into the van.  Oh he said sounding a little unsure of himself.   Is that you Judy.  Judy?  Nope sorry not her.  You look like her he smiled slightly.  Don't say there are two of her David laughed.    He stepped back to let us pass.    OK then have a good day, he looked at me again like maybe he was still unsure as to whether I really was Judy or not.  Curiously is getting the better of me now and I wished that I had asked who Judy was.   Guess I'll never know now. 

in two states

judy / maggii

a whirly whirly

water treatment plant near Morgan SA

long abandoned farmhouse

windmills - part of the SA landscape

the things mums keep

I came across an old spirax notebook that mum had kept and in it were several poems I had written when I was twelve. This is one, it gave me a laugh.

The spiders spindly web
Entangles in my hair
As I flew on my broom
Right into my lair

The screeching bats outward flew
As thick as a blob of ink
The cat screeched out as I entered
And then fell into the sink

movie day

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was recommended to me twice and seeing as it was set in India and I had decided that India was going to be my first port of call in my travels I decided to go and see the movie.  I dragged David along with me and we weren't dissapointed.   It was a great movie and made me more determined than ever to see India. 

One of the best lines in the movie was  'we are outsourcing old age' It is a feel good movie in the vein of Shirley Valentine and can't wait to be able to buy the DVD.

a walk on the city side

Took the train into the city today. David swiped his myki card but I had left mine at home. There are no longer ticket machines at some train stations and this was one of them. We tried to work out how to buy a myki card and in the end gave up and decided to travel without a ticket. All the way in I kept expcting a ticket inspector to get on and ask me for my ticket. We got off at Parliament Station and David went though the gates bought me a ticket swiped in so I could swipe out. Phew I don't want to have to do that too often. I'd be a nerous wreck.
Had a lovely day after that just wandering around the city.




empty lanes off Little Collins St.



reflection of the building opposite on the black glassed building 

the old GPO lit up with lights

graffiti lane 

of course a Melbourne Tram

I love Flinders St Station

and love Federation Square opposite

a bar in the middle of the Yarra

a pavement drawing in Southbank

part of the Grand Hotel

dressed to kill

My ipad is now a well dressed lady.  Can only be a lady in that pink dress.   Got some more of my birthday present this morning and as you can see it is simply beautiful.  Not only is my ipad dressed in hot pink leather (label says it is leather so I am going with that) it also now has a keypad.  What more could a lady want?

Coincidences

Coincidences happen with me all the time. They are not necessarily big events. Actually they are more usually very small events. On Tuesday while I was walking to work I found 10 cents on the grass and yes I bent over and picked it up. When Helen arrived at work she said I just found 50 cents on the road where I parked my car. Both of us the same morning finding money. Coincidence. Last night I went shopping after finishing work at 8. I picked some small flavored cans of tuna from the big bin. Three of them went through ok but the mustard one she said had been recalled and that she couldn't sell it to me. That had never happened to me before. I was talking to David on the phone after I got home and he said he picked up an Easter egg and when he got to the register he was told they couldn't sell it to hom because they had a recall on them. Coincidence. See very small coincidences but none the less, coincidences. And two in a week. Wonder I'd I can make it a hat trick.

A magnetic day

I tried to take My light jacket out of my locker at work last night and it stuck to the inside of the locker . It looked like it was holding. On, not wanting to come out. On closer inspection I realised that it was magnetically attached. Via a pocket. I wrenched the jacket free and inspected the pocket. Al it contained was a ten cent coin that I had found on the grass during my walk to work this morning. My original thought was that somehow the coin had become magnetic. Didn'tknow how this could have been possible but I held the coin against the locker. No that was ir and thre was nothing else in the pocket. I investigated further and discovered something hard at the bottom of the jacket. What was it and how on earth did it get there? Eventually I realised that the inside pocket was a generous one and that it went all the way down to the hem of my jacket. I reached down and retrieved a smal magnetic bar. So that was where the back of my name badge went! I lost it over six months ago and had to get a new one. Oh well, I have a spare now.

home

Leaving home again I took a walk around.  It seemed like nothing had changed but everything was different.   The row of tall lights and trees down the main street, even the brick paving of the foothpaths is all different but essentially the 'street' is still the same.   Several empty shops the names on the businesses that are open are diffent but it still looks the same.  Several shops that now make up the Vietnamese supermarket/ $2 shop/ internet cafe shows the changing population of the town.   I always go for a wander through there on my way down the street.   Occasionally I buy something.  It is like going away without leaving home.   The monument that is still a work in progress, representing the town.   The boomerang, the stockmans hat and the suitcases.  It is a different town to when I grew up  but it is still the same and it will always be home.