The Stash 3

It's wildly exciting to get home and find a parcel from Spain waiting for you.  Carefully unwrapped it revealed a lovely light pink scarf with owls on it.  I fell in love immediately.  When Momery Twigg (now Spanish Rose) and I were children a lady would occasionally walk past our houses with her hair and poodle dyed to the same pastel colour.  I thought the pink particularly stylish for a poodle and suitable for old ladies...

You know that I love owls and this book had jumped out at me at the library.  I like Janet Frame  as an author, and the title I recognised as from a Shakespeare poem that my Dad spouted occasionally.  I admire Janet Frame.  Let me quote a bit from the blurb:  'She wrote her first book, The Lagoon and Other Stories, in 1946 while working as a live-in maid and studying part-time at university.  When the collection was published in 1952 and won a prestigious literary prize, Frame's doctors cancelled a lobotomy they had planned for her.'  She led a precarious life.
This post was going to lead into my first day at my new Thursday job at the local school but it is eclipsed by this article http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2016/apr/28/the-day-the-war-came-poem-about-unaccompanied-child-refugees?CMP=share_btn_tw which Bronnie sent and see also Jackie Morris' blog post 'Empty Chairs'.  My day at school was fine.

The Second Stash

I know I've shown you these pictures before but I have to take you back to Adelaide.  On the first Monday after daylight saving ended, when it is easy to be up early,  I spent a lazy morning reading the Watchman on the porch.  Curled on the bench in the green shade of Mum's huge hibiscus, it was easy to imagine I was in The Deep South.  On another day I lolled on the bed reading and eating Easter egg in the late afternoon sun, my feet resting on the westerly window sill.  True bliss.
Yet another day I caught the bus into town, astonished that I could travel free as a Senior, bought my lunch at Subway where I was offered a Senior Discount (which is good though a little hurtful) and met Lily Mimosa at the uni for lunch.  Adelaide Uni has changed so much.  I watched a hapless young student try fruitlessly to get students to sign a petition protesting against the proposed lowering of the income at which student loans must be repaid.  No-one signed and only 2 acknowledged her existence.  In the loos I discovered squat toilets as well as traditional Western ones.  LM is studying Mechanical Engineering and finds the lecturers' accents difficult.  Programming apparently revolves around mattresses and radishes.
But I digress.  H Bells and Co gave me my divine Christmas and birthday presents.

The possum scarf brought back lovely memories of a similar chap bought for Georgia in Launceston many, many years ago.  The gardening gloves remain unused because they are so beautiful, but the day will come.  The empty jar had contained exquisite chocolate covered coffee beans which Watkins had discovered at the Central Market.  The chocolate is cappuccino flavoured.  Sadly Steve thought they were scrumptious.  Luckily I thought the Moroccan Jam and spicy eggplant chutney that were his presents pretty yummy too.

And what, I hear you ask, is in the purple prezzie?  Well, that photo was taken upon my return to Tribes where that gift awaited me.

Here and then

Today we lunched at The Old Saltworks about 30kms up the road towards Swansea.  We had been there previously but it was blowing a gale, so today we took advantage of the summery weather after yesterday's brief wintery blast.  It is a stunningly beautiful place

with evidence that others have dined there before.

The she-oaks remind me of the kooba, native willow, on the banks of the Murray / Darling.

But mostly I'm in a Welsh reverie.

The Bitch and Puppies between the coast and Ramsay Island

Laugharne with the tide going out.

Walking from Caerfai to Non's Well

Shanah and I dancing Wu Tao at St Non's.

Sublime Today

Today is Walking Group day.  Quite a contrast with last week.

Who could drive past these gates and not want to see inside?

Who would not want to hang out with these guys?  For those in the know, the lady in front is The Honey Lady, great friend of Sarah's and of the lady who lives in this house.

So many lovely little garden parts

to explore,

enough to bring out the Simon Griffiths in us all,

plus some whimsy.

Garden beds with a view.

A joyous Autumn morning which has switched to a blustery winter afternoon as I write.

Last week

It was quite a week, getting back into yoga and zumba, and then the Walking Group on Thursday.  It was the first real bush walk I had done in years and years and made me optimistic that maybe I will see a tarn lake again before I die, and maybe even raft the Franklin - though some have said this is a sure way to die and haven't I read The Death of a River Guide? - which I did a long time ago.

This was the Bluff River Gorge walk.  I was not the only one to feel the challenge but I had a cunning plan - gym on Friday to keep the aches at bay.  It was a killer gym and I wobbled home to have breakfast.  Zut alors!  Georgia, Kit and Ella arrived v v early.  And the day was off and running.  We ended at Spring Beach, Kit, Jill and I driving there with the windows down a la the 60s - not that Jill and Kit know much about that.

I purloined this photo from George.  We parted ways from there, Georgia, Kit and Ella returning to Hobart.  Jill and I must have driven back to Triabunna but I have no memory of that.  Plum tuckered.

Jill and Steve 2

But wait there's more.  More Jills and Steves that is.  On the second day of my SA holiday Steve phoned to say there was a 5 year old beagle called Dustin at the Dogs' Home and he was going to take a look.  OK, I said as we walked the windswept cliff tops of Port Elliot, after all Dustin met the criteria we had set for our next dog.

Enter Jill.  Who looks a lot like Sis and so poor old Dustin didn't get a look in.  As it happens it is Jill's birthday today.

She's turned two.  We spend most of our time checking that she hasn't jumped the fence, our neighbours on all sides being infinitely fascinating to an adolescent dog.  I spend a lot of time on poo patrol and wondering why people would call a dog Jill.  She is, of course, a darling.  And Jill 1 seems quite honoured.

Jill and Steve 1

Southern Belle has very conveniently become Fleurieu Floosie and thus it was that on 1 April I motored to Encounter Bay for a couple of days R&R, Easter being 3 days in the distant past.  The date started to seem significant as I drove my new favourite way and arrived nearly an hour after my ETA despite being dead keen to show off my new tootsies.

But the Floosie knows my foibles so all was forgiven and a delicious salad lunch with homemade zucchini fritters awaited.  Fuelled up, we took to The Bluff.  It may well be nearly 50 years since last I was there.

 FF was disappointed in the weather but I loved it - very Welsh Wales.

This apparently superfluous shot was to capture a hovering raptor which you may be able to see if you have eyes like a hawk...  That night we dined tapas style on the waterfront at Victor Harbor, a warm up for the following day.
Steve suggested a tour of the Langhorne Creek wineries between Strathalbyn and Wellington.  Well I was up for that.  We visited cellar doors old and new.  The differences in style and presentation is really invigorating.  I was particularly taken with this one (whose name totally eludes me at the moment)

which had old barrels made of redgum - a rather remarkable feat of cooperage.

It also had this sign which I found hilarious.  Of course wineries are more fun for some

than others

.

We resisted the trendy vineyard restaurants (which were fully booked anyway) and had a quick snack at the pub

then it was on to more wineries

with a distinct after vintage, autumnal feel and home again, stopping only for lemons for a sundowner G&T and icecreams at a lovely fruit and vegie shop in Strathalbyn.  Steve highly recommends the chocolate.  I thought the sour cherry frozen yoghurt was one of the best things I've ever tasted.  A totes satisfactory day.
Sunday was my day of departure.  But first a walk around the wetlands in good company.

And then, goodbye for now.

And, for this post only, you can live it all again here courtesy of the Floosie herself (and fill in some of my memory blanks).