Snow Angels

It has probably become obvious that these 'school trips' were in fact Charlie's training camps for future Angels

who seem happy to have been so chosen.

Dressed to thrill

with looks to kill.  Never underestimate the Deadly Tredley.
Who is that in red?  Beats me.  Possibly Ingrid Ozols?  Sounds like an East European spy...

with a suitably cool demeanour.

Has she been lliquidated (a Welsh form of assassination) by the trim, taut, undercover trio?  Like, did anyone see Judith D again after the Central Australia trip???

More questions than answers.  The Babe looks rather smug.
And Lady Jayne?  As usual she had duxed everything and was already on a mission, possibly writing the Book of Love.

Trips of a lifetime

I had the best drive ever to Encounter Bay.  There was hardly any traffic.  Cyclists were out. People walked dogs.  It seemed like the height of civilisation.

We agreed on social distancing then headed inside for delicious mandarin cake made with hazelnut flour.

Fortified, as promised I brought out my mobile laboratory and we conducted rigorous soil tests throughout the garden.  Time spent working at the CSIRO had not been wasted.

Then lunch.  This is not a poached egg but dessert: The Floosie's scrumptious lemon meringue pie and a nice cup of French Earl Grey tea.  And then

the screen went up and the slideshow began.

The trip to Central Australia circa 1968.

Australia as I had never seen it before.

H Bells walking the streets of Oodnadatta or Coober Pedy or somesuch

a beautiful part of Uluru which, I think from subsequent trips there, is a place of Women's Business

some very tired young women having climbed Ayers Rock (!!!!!!)

Lady Jayne, CKBeagle, moi (looking dazed and confused), H Bells and Babs.  I have no idea who the boys are.  They look far too interesting to be from our school - though I was younger then.  It was the year of the handmade milkmaid's hat.  The Beagle naturally has more style.

I have no idea who the babe in gingham is.  And who is that teacher person?

hanging around a toilet somewhere, probably wishing we were as svelte as the picture on the wall.

CK doing her Mod stance, and dressed interestingly for the climate.

Lady Jayne with a dress shorter than Lynette Phillips' (??????) shorts.

We were probably queuing to use the toilet.  We lived in terror throughout the trip because Judith D became a mad photographer.  Most of the time we camped out woop woop where there were no toilets.  So we had to wander miles to find a bit of scrub for privacy.  Then you'd look up and there would be Judith snapping away.

Next up:  The Ski Trip

Klemzig calling

I set off on the 21st March - a little early for Easter which we'd cancelled anyway - because Willowa wanted Mum and me to look after Daphne du Greyhound while she went to New Zealand...  Naturally New Zealand travel was canned, so then she was going to Tasmania hmmm then Victoria... finally Melrose in South Australia where she has been a number of times before.  But some of this was in the future as I drove from Melbourne to Adelaide with my (still) dodgy phone.  I stopped at Great Western because the timing was right for lunch at a little restaurant I had always fancied.  I checked my phone and zut alors! a message from Steve saying that the border was about to be closed, so I hot-footed it until I got into South Australia and stopped at the Landrover on a Pole Park at Keith, where I ate my breakfast jar of yoghurt, walnuts and baked quince.
The days at Mum's passed productively while I sorted and cleaned and organised with the only adventures being the Great Tartare Sauce Robbery (which I rectified with Meals on Wheels the next day) and Mum's frantic yells in the night because Daphne was sleeping on top of her.

a compromise

a dog hard done by

Then came the day I discovered a cuppla boxes of slides in Mum's wardrobe.  I held them up to the light thinking they may have been the slides of Aden I had bought enroute to Australia in 1964 but, even better, they were of 2 school trips in the later 60s and featured the Easterers, including CKB!!!  A cunning plan formed involving a photographer friend of mine who may have a slide projector... and who I was visiting very soon.

It's all too beautiful*

It's so good to be back home.  I enjoyed my quarantine time and will blog it soonish,  I treated it as a 'Retreat', which is something I've always wanted to do, and spent the time reading, yoga-ing and tai chi-ing.  Gradually the Wu Tao dances came back to me.  ABC Classic was my constant companion each day until 6.30pm when I'd watch the SBS news, switch to ABC news at 7pm, and then channel hop with access to SBS Movie Channel too.  There were church bells, on the quarter hour, and the atmosphere was a cross between St Davids and Paris.  Which is not a bad thing...
I didn't feel that I missed many things, mainly my hairbrush and my blackbirds.  I did look forward to being in boots and overalls again so, of course, that is how I have spent today.  As soon as I was out in the garden I realised how much I had missed it.  Already my perfect nails are damaged and my supersoft feet (not having worn shoes for a fortnight) are distorting and hardening up. I'm giving ABC Classic a break and listening to the sounds around me - the blackbird and, for a few magic moments, bells ringing - until I realised it was the sound of the metal lines hitting the flag poles at the council offices.
The tomatoes above are not from the garden.  At Jill's insistence we walked to the Gatehouse and I foraged from my secret self-sown tomato patch - that's why they are in a (fresh off the roll) dog poo bag.


* Small Faces' Itchycoo Park - favourite song when skating at the Moonah Ice-skating Rink during Wednesday Activities with students from Elizabeth Matriculation College mid 1970s - and dreaming of a lake in Austria

Thinking ahead

I'm leaving for Adelaide via Spirit of Tasmania this afty.  Am taking this book so I'll be prepared for 2 weeks of quarantine when I return to Tassie.  I'm also taking about 10 other books just in case there are hold ups en route.  You may notice that the Nuns book is top of the range PUBS - $4!!!!  Sadly PUBS has closed for the foreseeable future, along with most of Triabunna.

The Flying Pig

Now, these are not cute little chocolates but purple potatoes from the Gatehouse, grown at the school.  Very adventurous.

I made a sort of a salad with them and some beans which my friend, Ian, donated to the Gatehouse.  The celery is from Woolworths (I think) but we grew the tomatoes.  The Floosie may recognise the bowls.

I have long wanted a yellow front door, and Steve kindly obliged.  The paint colour is called 'Laughter' which I think is wonderful.

He has even painted the door on the inside and, most fortuitously, it nicely compliments the painting Steve did some years ago of our heritaged River Bank.

Because I live the life I've always wanted and the house is becoming just as I wanted, I'm calling the house The Flying Pig.  This name, of course, references The Flying Fish restaurant in Port Elliot where I have had many, many a happy meal with you.  Some will also remember the cottage in Normanville which had flying pigs on the front wall.

Stepping out

I spent a lovely day with you last Thursday revisiting the Wentworth days via this blog and the Our House blog.  Well, back to 2010 when I started blogging on Australia Day.  All this was courtesy of RAIN.  Lovely soaking rain.  And the garden has been most thankful.  My '10,000 steps a day' campaign suffered, clocking up only 2,200 or so.
Other exciting news includes:

100 Years Retrospective at the Village Gallery.  Local artists Ingrid and Graeme have clocked (it seems to be a day for clocking) up 100 arting years between them.  They arrived in Triabunna from Western Australia at about the same time as we got here, and were similarly enticed by The Village.

You can see Steve's pumpkin paintings on the far wall.

To compensate for missing out on Our Roadtrip because of rain, Her Majesty, Mrs O Henry and I indulged in the Seafood Tower at the EastCoaster restaurant.  I remembered to take a photo this time.
On Tuesday, fired up by zumba, I went into Hobart.  This is quite a rare event for me because I have little need to go there. 

I went to the cathedral to get hand-knitted socks for Steve (as you do) and noticed these bird sculptures on the building opposite.  Very interesting.

My other mission was to find the chocolate shop which Her Majesty had told me about.  Not the sort of thing  you expect to find in the middle of a city.  Perhaps Hobart is getting more interesting.  The chocolatier is passionate about his art / craft and makes chocolates that look like marbles.