Family and home

The next day was Mothers Day.  Lady Jayne and Pearl took a leisurely stroll to Glenelg.  I did makko ho stretches in the sunshine and then set off to see Mum.  It was lovely to have Tamasin, Helly Bells, Mum and I together.

darling Mumsy

A final visit to Mum the next day, and a farewell to Pearl Resort.

farewell to the tree dahlia blossoms viewed from my window chez Pearl

Next stop:  Klemzig.  The Windsor Gardens Caravan Park.  

Lady Jayne arrives at our Klemzig cabin

So many times I have walked past this place from Mum's house, sometimes with Mum and Dad, sometimes just Mum, for a while with Steve, Rosie and Sis.

It's an easy walk from here to Mercato in Campbelltown, where we provisioned for the evening meal, fueling up for the sentimental walk around Klemzig the next day.

Steve and my old home did not look the same, even more overgrown that last time.

2 smart units evolving next door

more posh units just down Cullford Avenue

Other changes in Klemzig too.

carnival atmosphere on OG Road!

We picked up some short eats from my Sri Lankan supermarket and threaded our way through backstreets to our cosy cabin.

In the afternoon we took a stroll along the Linear Park.  So many memories along this track.

rain washed River Red Gums take me back to Thegoa Lagoon in Wentworth

but this is the Torrens, tumbling over rocks as Mum loved it.

How I loved this couple of days.  I'll do it again.  People-watch from the cabin window.  Curl up and read.  Watch the birds, the clouds, the towering eucalypts.  Do the walks again, slowly.  Greet the dogs.  I hadn't realised how much of my story lingers here.

Destination Canberra the next day.  An overnight in Hay which is an interesting little town.  Arriving late and leaving early, we didn't see much.

our pub meal

I had the special.  I can't remember what it was but it was excellent.

a moody early morning start across Hay Plain

violets from Lady Jayne's garden

This is just what I had wanted to find for Mum for Mothers Day.

kites at The Arboretum

lunch at the Bot Gards

Time to go home.  An empty Canberra Airport on a Sunday.

a chance for crab and seaweed inari sushi (and very cheap for airport food)

A wonderful flight home.  No-one beside me.  The window seat.  A cruise down the East Coast of Tasmania.  And our house visible through the clouds.

out and about

We drove to Melbourne Street in North Adelaide.  Back in the 1970s this was the grooviest street and the boys were all excited about The Clipjoint - hairdresser / barber with topless female barbers.  It's not so groovy these days - though I did work briefly in a cafe there in about 2006.  Now there's some retail but it is increasingly medical / specialist rooms.  Pearl had an appointment with her sister and we waited for her at a Vietnamese influenced cafe.

Pearl looks calm and assured.  I look like a cross  between the Cheshire Cat and Rumpole of the Bailey

Lady Jayne waits elegantly

While Pearl attended her sister, LJ and I sought out the North Adelaide shop once belonging to her aunt.  As a child, the Lady would sit by the shop door and alert her aunt to the arrival of customers.  

The shop is now a popular cafe whose patrons looked very PLU

We meandered back to Melbourne Street and rendezvoused with Pearl.  Cunningly I had noticed an exhibition advertised outside the David Roche House Museum, a place I had long wanted to visited but had never been able to find.  Seize the day! 

https://www.rochefoundation.com.au/exhibitions/  The exhibition consisted of 12 huge, stunning tapestries that Arthur Boyd had commissioned to be made in Portugal from his Life of St Francis paintings and drawings.

As a reward for such cultural pursuits, we indulged in lunch at The Red Lion, once The Place to rage the weekend away.

Taking the long way home, we eventually located the house where Lady Jayne's grandma had  lived.  It would be a wonderful place to live today - close to the Parklands, old houses, a villagey feel with an edge.

The next day we were off to Tanunda to take Pearl's sister home.  This is another lovely town with a gorgeous bookshop.

I didn't buy this book but have ordered it from the library since my return.

So beguiled was I by the shop and owner that I bought a 500 piece jigsaw.  I hate jigsaws but thought, if ever I'm going to get into them, this is the one to do it.  Could be useful if I ever have to quarantine again for covid or suchlike...

Took the Glenelg tram the next day into the city.  It was Friday and The Guardsman restaurant in the train station was open!  It's not the exciting lunch place it used to be, the menu having been taken over by the inevitable improbable sounding burgers, but there's still some good choices and the toilets are as refreshing as ever.

More driving the next day - McLaren Vale and the d'Arenberg Cube.  We wanked our way through the wine tasting and Salvador Dali exhibition.

I tried to get Lady Jayne to out-impose this bronze 

but she  preferred to checkout the merch.

The Pearl got down to some serious study

and the autumn vines were glorious

Some days you've just got to agree with The Man.

To Adelaide and beyond

I always enjoy Dimboola as a destination.  The town first came to my attention in, I think, the 1970s when a play called A Wedding in Dimboola came to prominence in the media.  The play included raucous audience participation and, as I recall it, Dimboola seized on the idea of staging it as a tourist attraction.  I had not been there until Sandrine lived at Warracknabeal and we would rendezvous at a cute little cafe in the main street.  In homage to Sandrine, I stop there, often for breakfast, when driving from the Spirit of Tasmania to Adelaide.  This trip was a little different because we approached Dimboola via back roads from the South and not via the highway.  We indulged in a cholesterol bulging, piping hot scrambled egg/ham/cheese wrap.  Delicious.

The food was good but the cafe has lost a bit of its sparkle.  The town, however, has filled with life and all the previously empty shops are now up and running.  I was stunned, and thrilled, to see these flags flying at the plaza beside the library.

The drive from Dimboola to Adelaide is the least interesting part of the trip, though it is countered by the anticipation of getting there.

the welcoming sight of the aloes in the park next to Pearl Resort

The chief reason to travel to Adelaide is to visit Mum in the nursing home at Christies Beach.

I spent many a 15 minutes staring at this view while awaiting RAT results.  Fortunately there was no rain.

Being covid free, I was allowed to dress up like this to go and spend time with Mum, who can hardly hear a word I say.  By the second week covid regulations had changed and I only had to don a blue mask, making conversation marginally easier.

Mum and I took many trips down memory lane.  Back Chez Pearl, new adventures were planned.

We took the drive north up the coast and cruised Port Adelaide.  There was a time when Pearl and I got excited at the prospect of buying a 3 storey building there and splitting it into apartments, one for each of us and one for my Mum.  A pipe dream but lovely to see that it now appears to be a well kept family home with a bike track running alongside.  After The Port we made our first expedition to find Lady Jayne's grandma's house.  Not totally successful, but getting warm...

That night, being a Friday, we observed Mars family tradition and made pizzas.

The following evening we investigated Shiraz, a Persian / Iranian restaurant that Pearl had noticed close to her place.  Without Tamasin and Nima to guide us, we were at a loss to know what to order but chose well with three very traditional dishes.  The dessert pastries looked divine but we were flup.

It was Heritage Month in South Australia and we set off to Hahndorf the next day.  Naturally it was seething with people and I didn't take any photos but we did find a Gingerbread Cafe and ate deliciously warm ginger cake.

Big day next - the pilgrimage to Port Elliot, particularly our pub and 'our usual table'.

Sadly our pub does not have the range of seafood dishes it once had.  It does have Coorong Mullet, but I have had it many times before, so this time I thought I'd try their lambs fry and bacon.  It was superb.

On the way home we dropped off a book to Fleurieu Floosie, continuing the tradition of the Travelling Library.  Long may it continue!

The next day marked one week of travels.  After I had visited Mum, we went to a U3A presentation just over the way from Pearl Resort.  It was a popular and lively event with a lady talking about life in the early 1920s.  She even wore clothes from the period and looked dashing.  An added pleasure for me was a book cupboard beside the venue.  Inside, begging to be taken, was this book:

so I could expand my holiday to France too!  Amongst all the fabulous photos

there are recipes that I may even make one day.  They look delicious

but don't hold your breath...

The Pig takes flight (boots n all)

Time to visit Mum again in Adelaide, and it's always best to go the long way 'round.  So I flew to Canberra...

It's winter and I  wore my boots to Hobart airport because they would take up nearly my whole bag were I to pack them.  This was quite a good strategy.  As claimed on the box, they are seriously comfortable but I was a bit warier about the claim that they were safety boots.  They had seemed too cheap for that claim.  However they set off the alarm on the walk-through metal detector and the security guy suggested they were steel-cap toed.  Which presumably is true because when I walked through again in holey socked feet, the detector let me through, and the x-ray scanner thingy seemed satisfied that I did not sport a knife in my boots.

I had a delightful flight to Canberra on a very small plane with a very solicitous steward.  I did not avail myself of the complimentary booze but partook of a small bag of salted crisps - years since I'd had them.  Lady Jayne and her two Ladies in Waiting chased me around the airport.  I have no idea where the public pick up point is - of course there is work being undertaken so it's not just outside the baggage claim area - and I kept being given instructions by security guys that virtually saw me circumnavigate the airport.  Eventually we espied each other and zapped off home.

The next day Lady Jayne and I, sans the Ladies in Waiting who were at school, went to the National Museum of Australia to view the Feared and Revered Exhibition.  I had long wanted to see it and it didn't disappoint.  It did overwhelm, but I stuck to the simple stuff, which is what I like best.

These modern Aboriginal depictions of women made using traditional fibre weaving techniques certainly weren't simple.  Just simply beautiful.

This fabulous exhibit in the museum foyer reminded us we were off on a road trip to Adelaide the next day.

So off we set the next morning, wending our way through country lanes (sort of) to Bendigo, our destination for the night.  Finding a motel in peak hour traffic was a little fraught but we eventually found a place between a Catholic Girls School and a cathedral, and felt very blessed.

Dinner in The Shamrock pub was also a blessing - an Indian-style seafood dish and a big glug of wine because we could walk back to our digs.  Bendigo is a beautiful town and a night time wander after a full day's driving was divine.

The next morning we did a small wander around town.  I wanted to see the Arts Precinct.  Bendigo celebrates its architecture and mining heritage with panache.  Mining is part of Lady Jayne's heritage too.

And then on the road again, destination Adelaide via Dimboola.