Thursday 25th February 2010

Hmmmmmmm! where has this week dissapeared to?

Sunday 21st February 2010 we were up early to share breakfast with Rod, Anne & Joel. Bacon, Scrambled Eggs & Orange juice on the menu this week. Anne was taking Joel to a Mother's meeting and a Baby Fair so we only got a brief time today. Joel is on the move & is after his toys on the floor now.

Golf was about midday & our playing partners today were Wally & Robyn Johnston. It was an incredibly hot day & we were happy to make it back into the clubhouse. We had a fun day with Wally playing well & he was the only one to win a ball. There were some great scores - 47 points winning the individual Men's with 46 points for the runner up & that was a bit hard to compete with. Lyn & Richard arrived about 6 o'clock and met us at the golf club. Ken & Marg Gardiner also joined us for dinner at the club so we had a nice evening. Lyn & Ric are staying with us for a few days as part of their annual holidays they spend at Diamond Beach.

Monday 22nd February 2010 was a busy day for everyone. Lyn & Ric spent the day visiting a local dentist for some repair work for Lyn & then went to Erina Fair for some shopping. Peter was tied up with F-Troop work & I was tied up with golf playing in the Central Coast Womens Golf Association Open Day which was held at Gosford this year. It was a big day with 2 shotgun starts. I played in the 12 noon shotgun start & my playing partners were Christine Drakeford, Mary Beard & Jan Walker. We had some good highlights through the day but our score was not good enough to win anything. I did manage to get 4/4 at the 17th hole which was a highlight for me - It was a good day in spite of the intense heat.

Tuesday 23rd February 2010 I was tied up with golf again. My playing partners were Glennis English & Wendy Stapleton & once again we had mixed fortunes. I repeated my 4/4 effort at the 17th again today so I had another highlight. It was hot again - but not as bad as yesterday.

Lyn & Ric went to see Avata the 3 D movie & were just as impressed as I was. After golf Lyn & I went to Palmdale to visit Mum & Dad's resting place. Lyn picked some nice flowers from my garden & we placed them at the memorial plaque. Then it was home for a Mum's Lamb Roast Dinner & relaxing on the new lounge watching the 20/20 cricket & Winter Olympics. I have learnt how to take a self portrait photo with 10 seconds delay with my new camera (Panasonic Lumix that I love) & the result is the photo of the 4 of us taken after dinner today.

Wednesday 24th February 2010 was an easy recovery day. After lunch Lyn & Ric went on to Sydney as part of their holiday to see family & friends for a week or so. We are expecting them back weekend after next. I spent the afternoon in the back garden doing some weeding & watering. The weather has cooled down & it was quiet a pleasant day for doing not much.

Thursday 25th February 2010 (today) was a nice relaxing day. I did some fertilizing and weeding in the back gardens before heading to Terrigal Haven to have lunch with some of the Golf girls. We have a 3 putt club at Tuesday's competition where we have to put in 50 cents every time we 3 putt a green (within reason). At the end of the season the money goes towards a luncheon. This year we had lunch at "The Cove" restaurant at The Haven at Terrigal - a beautiful venue for lunch. I drove out a bit early as I had not been to Terrigal for a long period of time & wanted to have a look at the shops etc. I had a nice coffee at "The Crown Plaza" as one does at Terrigal & then enjoyed a lovely long lunch with the girls at the Haven.

Saturday 20th February 2010

This week went very quickly as I always seemed to be busy doing something.

Sunday 14th February 2010 started with breakfast with Rod, Anne & Joel - Bacon & Eggs on the menu. Joel is just about on the move - currently doing a commando crawl. At 11.30 we left for golf & we were lucky to have a very pleasant day even though there were a few annoying showers to dampen us down. Our playing partners were Wally & Fay Bailey & we had some good highlights at times. My highlight was getting more than 30 points in the rain. We stayed for dinner at the club with Wally & Fay & had a very pleasant evening.

Monday 15th February we started F-Troop at 7.00 am with a lot of weeding work to be done after all the wet weather. I worked on the native garden at the 6th & helped to tidy up the 17th fairway where the Bunya Pine had been dropping it's huge seeds. The cockatoos love them & they make quite a mess with them. Monday night we joined Shane for dinner at Rod & Anne's place. I had some quality time with Joel & gave him a mohawk hairdo after his bath (photo attached).

Tuesday 16th February 2010 I was up early to cut some roses for Christine Drakeford's birthday. It was golf day & was the dreaded par match. The course grass is very long & the rough even longer as it is growing faster than the greenkeepers can cut it. It was hard work out there & the scores were all low. My playing partners were Robyn Johnston and Norma Presdee & we had mixed fortunes all day. I started poorly, Norma started well, Robyn picked up her game early & I left my run until the last 9 - all too late for a good score.

Wednesday 17th February 2010 I was up early & into my walking exercises which I have now built back up to one hour. I spent the rest of the day working in my garden which had become a jungle while I was away on holidays. I managed to fill up 2 bins and the trailer with more work left to be done which hopefully I will get done next week.

Thursday 18th February 2010 was another early start for my exercises. Then we went to Ourimbah to get some tap fittings for F-Troop work and to buy some new Iceberg Roses for the putting green gardens at the golf club. Bunnings was on the list to pick up some more garden stakes & some rose fertilizer. Two of the roses at the golf club suffered damage while I was away on holidays & had to be replaced. In the afternoon the roses were planted out & we staked up some of the new grevilleas at the native garden on the 6th.

Friday 19th February 2010 I was up early again for a bit of walking and an early morning gardening session at the golf course which took until 9.30am. Then I was off to the hairdressers for a very overdue haircut. I did a clean up of my computer on Friday afternoon - saving data & deleting old files that I had not done since last October. I have been trying to get to my jigsaw puzzle that I started after Christmas. I just don't seem to be able to find enough hours in the day to concentrate on it. Rod & Anne filled some pieces for me while I was away which was helpful. Photo attached of my progess (or lack thereof).

Saturday 20th February 2010 (today) I was up early for my walking regime followed by the standard grocery shopping & housework. Sister Lyn & Richard are holidaying at Diamond Beach at the moment & are coming tomorrow to stay for a few days. We had a Garden Wedding Function on at the golf club today so we went over to clean up the wedding garden area at 1 o'clock in preparation for the 4.00pm wedding. It was a beautiful day & all went well.

Saturday 13th February 2010

Well it is back to reality this week with the first day of the week being back at F-Troop.

Monday 8th February 2010 we were flat chat from 7.00am until 2.00pm with F-Troop work. The previous week the Central Coast had got something like 4 inches of rain so there was a lot of work to be done. The bonus was that none of the gardens had to be watered. I spent most of my day cleaning up around the front of the club & the Wedding Garden area which is our showcase area and needs to be as pristine as possible. We had one tragedy while I was a way & that was one of the standard white Iceberg rose somehow became unstabilized & the stem snapped in the wild wet weather which is such a shame as the rose was growing beautifully.

Tuesday 9th February 2010 I was back in the golf scene. I had not intended to play as I should have been doing some gardening at home. One of the girls could not play so of course I had to fill in. My playing partners were Rosalie Dyer and Kath Payn & we had a lovely day although the golf was hard work trying to get some run on the ball through the long grass. There were no really good scores by anyone that day which made me feel better. We have had so much rain that the grass is growing faster than they can cut it. Peter spent six hours on the rough cutter that day trying to keep the rough managable.

Wednesday 10th February I spent the morning in my front garden, filled one otto bin in no time.

The weather was so hot I spent the afternoon catching up with ironing etc that I could do in the air conditioning.

Thursday 11th February I did a little bit more gardening out the front & decided that it was just too hot and went to the movies to see "Avata" which I had been told not to miss. What an amazing movie and the 3D images were just fantastic. I would like to see it again just to have time to absorb all the background computer graphics that it is too hard to grasp when watching the movie for the first time. I was very impressed with the show & never cease to be amazed at what impact new technology can have on movies. I will try to make some time to see it again before it is off the screen. DVD copy would not give it justice.

Friday 12th February 2010 I was up at dawn to cut some roses to give to Anne Stimpson for her "Surprise"60th birthday which is being held at the club tonight. The weather has been so hot & after all the heavy rain I had doubts that I would have any quality roses left. I managed to scrape a nice vaseful for the occasion. Anne had taken some photos of the Club's annual Presentation night that was held while I was away and I had been talking with her all week on and off about getting copies of the photos to me so I could update the Golfers Blog. These discussions were very difficult as I had to be careful not to spill the beans on the surprise party. The rest of the day I spent inside in the airconditioning getting the housework up to date for the weekend.

Laurie Assef from Tamworth (my old school friend that I had not seen for some years) was on his way for a few days of business in Sydney. Laurie stayed over with us on Friday night & came with us to Anne's 60th birthday party at the Golf Club which was an excellant night. It was good to catch up with Laurie & get up to date with all the Moree/Tamworth news.

Saturday 13th February 2010 I said farewell to Laurie and headed over to the golf club to see what needed to be done in preparation for a garden wedding that was to be held there this afternoon. After hosing down the outside entrance to the club it was a bit of a rush to get to the swim centre by 10 o'clock to watch Joel having his swimming lessons. It was such fun to watch him enjoying the water - I was the standard doting Nana with the camera capturing every move.

After that I was back to the golf club to tidy up the wedding garden area as the weather had cleared a bit & the bride had decided to chance having the service out in the garden. They were lucky - the weather held just long enough & by the time steady rain had arrived their outside photos were done & the party was inside the clubhouse. The venue is getting very popular with eight weddings being booked in the next month or so. That will keep me busy.

The rain seems to be settling in again which is not a good thing with Social Golf on the agenda for tomorrow.

Sunday 7th February 2010 - Dorrigo

We had a nice diversion on the way home from our holiday at Byron Bay.

Our long, long time good friends Ken & Margaret Gardener have just finished building their new home at Megan (near Dorrigo) - they picked up the keys from their builder on Friday & have yet to move in. It seemed appropriate that we should be on the doorstep to celebrate the new house with some chilled champagne.

Ken & Margaret's daughter Carolyn is my God Daughter. Carolyn & her husband Brett have some lovely acres at Dorrigo and I have been promising her for six years that I would visit.

They have three young children now so my visit was well overdue.

We arrived to find Ken, Margaret and their eldest son Jim at Brett & Carolyn's. Jim is over from WA to give Ken a hand to move furniture & whatever from Gosford to their new retirement home at Megan which is about 9 klms from Carolyn & Bretts place.

We had a property inspection at Megan and celebrated the magic moment with champagne.

The property and house are lovely as you can see by the attached photos. We stayed for dinner at Carolyns & then went back to spend the the night at the "Lookout Motel" at the highest point at Dorrigo. The wet weather did spoil the outlook a bit but the countryside is magnificent even in the rain. It poured rain all night. We went back to Carolyn's for breakfast & to farewell everyone there before making the trek down the mountain towards home. The "Waterfall Way" (the road up to Dorrigo) is very narrow in parts and is prone to rock slides and washaways so it can be quite dangerous especially in the wet. I was relieved to get to the main highway without incident.

The trip home was slow as the rain was very heavy in patches but we managed the 500klms & got home about 5.00pm with stops at Kempsey for fuel and Pt Macquarie for lunch break.

Then of course there was the pile of messages and mail to wade through not to mention unpacking. I understand we have had something like 4 inches of rain here in the last few days.

I did not have to worry about the garden dying of thirst while I was away. I now have a jungle of weeds to contemplate.