Visiting York with Mum

Hello, I'm back in Melbourne after a lovely 2 week visit with Mum and extended family.  As planned, Mum and I visited the historical town of York over the ANZAC weekend.  Our accommodation was lovely and set amongst a beautiful garden.  We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves wandering around the town, looking at the river, eating out and visiting a cousin.  Here are some photos from our visit.

The Flour Mill - currently used to exhibit the work of local artists and craftspeople and most importantly a cafe.

I went for a short walk along the river while Mum sat in the car looking at the view and devouring some card making magazines.  Card making is her hobby.  Mum's mobility is limited and as she uses a walker, a stroll along the river along uneven terrain would have been difficult and tiring for her.  I didn't leave her for long.

The river Avon.  Coming out of summer it is very dry in the surrounding countryside.

Reflections on the water.

The Swing Bridge over the river.

A nest just above the river presumably from the last breeding season.

I was surprised to see this pelican so far from the sea.  He obviously found something to eat as can be seen in the next photo.

Mum and I were rather amused at this sign.

Looking down the main street of York.

A lovely example of stone work used on some the buildings in the town.

Having afternoon tea with my cousin.

My cousin is one lucky lady.  Late March/early April last year, Caroline was in a diabetic coma for about three weeks.  When she regained consciousness she couldn't physically support herself or walk, eat, speak, life was very difficult for her.  Over the passed year she has slowly regained the ability to talk, eat whole food, walk and do many of the things we were concerned would not be possible.  She is now living in care and doing very well.  Her speech is a little altered but completely understandable.  Her biggest obstacle is her short term memory loss which means she needs to be cared for on a permanent basis.  She was so surprised to see us as we never told her we were coming and as you can see from the above photo, she is very happy.

Driving around the streets of York we came some lovely old houses like this one, buildings and sheds.

I love the front gate.

A marvellous old shed.

An old wagon or buggy out the back shed.

The Anglican church over the road from our accommodation.  The bells were ringing while we were eating breakfast on Sunday morning.

This is the lovely Catholic church in another part of town.  The service was in full swing when I took this photo.

These photos bring back lovely memories of a wonderful weekend away with my gorgeous Mum.  Thanks Mum for being such a fun traveling companion.

Anne  xx

The fisherman returns

Yesterday afternoon I picked hubby up from the airport after his wonderful and successful fishing trip in Walpole, Western Australia.  He spent time fishing with my farming brother, my nephew and my brothers mate, a good all round blokey time was had by all.  Here are a few photos from hubby's time away.

Eric with a beautiful sea salmon.

These kangaroos roamed in and out of the caravan park.

Hubbies accommodation was the hippy van.

I think a hard working farmer deserves to lie down while waiting for the fish to bite.

Eric, Trev and Ben.

Sandscapes on the beach.

Cleaning the days catch with a friend who lives locally.

Eric with one that didn't get away.

After the fishing week was over, hubby drove back up to the farm to stay with Mum for a couple of days.  On the way he stopped off at the tree top walk.

Without question hubby enjoyed his holiday and would love to do it again.

Catching up

Hi everyone, I'm long overdue for a big catch up on all that we have been doing since my gorgeous cousin Jane came to stay.  She left us on Thursday to travel home to a rather wet and soggy Shropshire.  I would have to say that we (our family) have had the best time while she was staying with us as not only is Jane the best company, we enjoyed being tourists in our own state of Victoria and appreciated seeing the things we love through fresh eyes.

We've seen other interesting things too.  Jane wanted to make us a lemon drizzle cake with fresh lemons from our tree, something of a novelty for her see fresh lemons on a tree apparently.  I was assured that this is a cake recipe that never fails.  Ooops.  Of course being down under meant the cake sunk in the middle, according to Jane that is.  Whatever it looked like it tasted delicious.  Thank you Jane.

You can't come to Australia without trying Vegemite and I think Jane's face tells the story.

She took a a tube home so her kids could try it.  :)  Should be interesting.

On one of the days when we weren't doing anything too far from home, we decided to have a picnic in the Alfred Nicholas Memorial Gardens on Sherbrooke Road not too far from where we live.  Here are some photos from the afternoon.

At the time these photos were taken it was extremely dry and we had been suffering extreme heat so the gardens are perhaps not at their best.   This cheeky duck below quite fancied joining our picnic.  I did hold my breath while his/her rear end was over Jane's mobile phone case.  It could have ended very badly.

Helping him/herself to cashew nut dregs.

This was a lovely peaceful spot to picnic,

the little island on the lake.

Our next adventure was to Healesville Sanctuary which I will share with you next post.

Anne   xx

More adventures with Jane

Today is cool, pleasantly cool for the first time in days and it's so nice not to feel like we are all wilting.  Cousin Jane cannot believe she is waking up to morning after morning of blue skies and hasn't had goose bumps once since she's been staying with us.  

Saturday we decided to take a drive out to the Yarra Valley to show Jane another lovely area in Victoria.  Of course it is incredibly dry at the moment rather than the lush green it is most of the year.  The temperature reached 43C at one point and because Jane had never experienced such heat before, we suggested she hop out of the air conditioned car for a few minutes just to see what it was like.  She described the hot wind as having a blow dryer directly on your body.

We decided to have lunch at the  Yarra Valley Dairy
and enjoyed some rather delicious cheeses with a selection of olives, breads and crackers. 

This photo makes the dairy look deceptively small, it's not.  It extends further out the back through the dark doorway area.  It was so incredibly hot when I took this photo and the glare of the sun reflecting on the light roof and walls of the dairy make everything in shadow look very dark.

 

I do believe Jane is enjoying herself.

 Some scenes of the Yarra Valley including vineyards for which the area is well known.

We had a lovely afternoon but were glad to come home to a partly air conditioned house and hubby's excellent homemade pizza.

Sunday hubby indulged Jane and took her to the site where they film the house exteriros for the Aussie soap "Neighbours", Ramsay Street.  I've never watched Neighbours but it was fun for Jane to do something so touristy.

 Last night at dusk we went for a walk up in the Sherbrooke forest in the hope we might see some Australia wildlife such as kangaroos, wallabies or a lyrebird or two.  We did hear three different types of owls calling, heard wallabies jumping in the bush, but sadly we didn't see anything.  We did however manage to photograph the rare and beautiful Pommy bird Janeus Louiseus Cooperus.  She obliged me ever so nicely by standing still while I took this photo.  :)

This morning I popped Jane on a plane to Sydney to spend a few days with friends there.  I'm hoping she will enjoy the delights of Sydney, the beautiful harbour etc.  She'll be back on Thursday when more adventures and fun will be had I'm sure.

Anne  xx