Yesterday Martin drove us to the Violet Town Market, “one of Victoria’s premier country markets.”
Martin bought a few plants, and Peter bought honey and some walnuts in shells. These walnuts are really good and fresh tasting. At Christmas time we had been looking for such walnuts and could not find any. I bought some Australian garlic. I love to eat this with some bread and butter!
“THE sickening impact of the Southern Aurora ploughing into a goods train alerted the people of Violet Town to disaster before any CFA alarm could sound. Like the passengers aboard the Southern Aurora, people in Violet Town were just beginning to greet the already hot morning on 7 February 1969, when the trains collided at a level crossing on the edge of town.”
I am very happy that the last few mornings Peter and I did our slow movement exercises. We also did every morning some walking. Martin took us to different places for that. There are some great walking trails in the area. I did only quite slow walking, but Peter did also a bit of fast walking. He says he regrets that he cannot run any more for these trails would be excellent for running. Our son Martin was actually able to do a bit of running!
Today is our fifth day in Benalla. Tomorrow we’re going to have another day in Benalla and then we go on the night train back to Moss Vale and from there by railway coach back home to Dapto.
It is going on 4 o’clock right now. The outside temperature is a bit over 30C. Today we had lunch at the Benalla Bowls Club. Martin liked the club and became today a member of the club.
On the 1st of January 2017 we visited our grandson with his family on our way back home from Melbourne. These pictures are from our visit at the farmhouse where Tristan and family live now.
These are Kia and Jaki, our great granddaughters.Son Martin and grandson Tristan with his wife Stephanie
After we left Melbourne, Benalla was our first stop. We were on the way to a farmstead near Wangaratta to visit our grandson Tristan and his family.
Peter took the following six pictures during a brief stop at Benalla, Victoria.
We were lucky, nothing bad happened to us. We just enjoyed the beautiful sight of it.
From Wikipedia: “Weary Dunlop Memorial Located within the Botanical Gardens and clearly visible from Bridge Street is the Weary Dunlop Memorial, a powerful statue depicting two Australian doctors (Dunlop being the standing one) helping a wounded and emaciated comrade. Cast in bronze and over 2 metres high it stands on a granite plinth with the words “compassion, integrity, forgiveness, humility, courage, leadership, friendship” engraved on the granite base. It was created by sculptor Louis Lauman to dramatically depict Dunlop’s work helping wounded and dying POWs. The sculpture was unveiled in…
When the Old World stopped believing in good Elves, Yetis, Fairies, Centaurs & such, those magical ‘mythological’ creatures established a comfortable Village colony in huge caverns beneath the Australian outback. But the battle between good and evil never ends. The Bad Guys – led by Spindox Corporation’s sinister CEO Nick Unseely – are massing and moving out of their huge glass pyramid headquarters rising from the Australian Bush; A terrifying Hag is sent to steal the Good Guys’ powerful relic – a real Unicorn horn, an Alicorn. Scores of Good Guys are consigned to Unseely’s subterranean prison but these Good Guys don’t give up easily – nor do their friends. Our trusted children’s fiction reviewer Sam Capell said this about Alicorn: “Trolls, wizards, unicorns, elves, gnomes and more all add up to a brilliant read in this well-written journey. Just one of many things I liked was the unique way of writing, going from one characters perspective to another, leaving cliff-hangers everywhere. Another is the incredible array of characters, beings and places, from wizards to leprechauns, trolls to unicorns, outback Australia to the devious Spindox corporation. In this book, myth meets reality with some big consequences. Evil pits its strength against good with varying degrees of success, and when humans come into the mix, things get serious. This was a thrilling read with lots of descriptive language, almost too much at times! Fans of J.K Rowling will be elated to add this novel to their collection.”
. . . . . Recently we have been visiting Benalla in Victoria. Unfortunately, because of bad eyesight, I cannot drive anymore. So Peter had to drive to Benalla and back all by himself. We were driving to Benalla to visit our son Martin and to see his new place. Door to door it was about 600 km only, whereas when the son lived in Melbourne (Essendon) the distance was about 800 km.
Since we are in the midst of winter now here in Australia, daylight hours are only about for ten hours, namely from ca. 7 am to 5 pm. Well, Peter had no problem driving the distance within daylight hours. However, I suggested that on the way back we could stay in a motel in Holbrook for one night to interrupt the journey, and that would give us the chance to look around a bit and familiarize us again with some things in the area. But oh no, Peter insisted on driving straight home. I like to call it ‘homeritis’!
On our last day in Benalla, a Saturday, all of us went for lunch to the Art Gallery Cafe. We were very happy that our Grandson and his wife and two daughters could meet us there.
On the way to the CafeHere grandson Tristan arrives with his family to meet all of us.
Son Martin having a rest in the park.
On the terrace outside the cafe.
Martin took a picture of his parents.
Son Martin took these pictures of Peter and me on the terrace of the Cafe.
View from the cafe’s terrace
It was a bit too cold to sit out there. It was better to have lunch inside.
Here is some of the food that we had.
This is grandson Tristan.
KiaJak.i
After lunch we had a look at some of the pictures in the Art Gallery.
It was lovely to see great-granddaughters Kia and Jaki again as well as Tris and Steph. And now I include some more pictures from another park nearby that we took on another day.
And on the 6th of July 2017 I wrote this:
We had arrived in Benalla two weeks ago on Wednesday in beautiful late afternoon sunshine. I was very happy that we had found our son’s new place straight away and that we had made good time on our a bit more than 600 km trip. We had left Dapto early in the morning as soon as it got a bit light and we made it to Benalla before it got dark. In Benalla the air was fresh and cool, but the sun still warmed it a bit. Martin, our son, said that during the night the temperature could drop to freezing point. First thing in the morning he would look outside and check whether the birdbath had been frozen over again. In Martin’s house it was warm and cozy. A cup of tea was very welcome. Later on we had an excellent home cooked dinner.
Martin had bought a two bedroom house. We were given the spare bedroom. It was similar to what it had been like when we used to visit him in Essendon in Melbourne, where he had rented a two bedroom place. Before Martin left the place in Melbourne, he had given away most of his furniture for he was in the lucky position to take over the Benalla house with all the furniture and other things in it. This is furniture, I might say, is absolutely great to have and very tasteful. On top of it it saved Martin quite a bit of moving. Still, he had to get rid of his old furniture in Melbourne, which was not all that easy, I guess.
The stuff that he had to move to the new house some 200 km away he packed into a hired van. He had to return the van the same day after having travelled the 200 km to Benalla and back. Martin is 57 and not used to lifting heavy things. He’s only used to office work and a lot of walking and he even did quite a bit of running in the past. In Melbourne he did not need a car. He could walk everywhere or use public transport. For travelling he often hired a car.
Now, in Benalla, he’s already used to walking the few minutes into town. Still, he says he might perhaps buy a car sometime soon. But he’s not sure yet. At the moment he has problems with sitting. With all that sitting at the office his back was vulnerable. Now with having had to lift a lot of stuff to clear his place in Melbourne just a few weeks ago, his back became very painful, still is very painful when he is sitting down or lying down. He can never sit for very long. He does most things standing up. Walking, he finds is very easy for him. So he feels fine walking. But lying down is difficult and he has trouble sleeping through the night.
Peter and I were lovingly looked after by our son as always. For the four nights in Benalla we stayed in Martin’s spare bedroom, which is the Japanese room. I show here some pictures of it:
In that bedroom there was also a large built-in wardrobe. And a heater was set up for us. We never felt too cold in Benalla.
We went yesterday to the Art Gallery of NSW. We saw there this picture:
In the Art Gallery Shop were a lot of different things for sale that promoted the theme of “The Lady and the Unicorn”. I was interested in finding our more about the tapestry.
“The six tapestries can be viewed as an allegory of the five senses – sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell – plus a sixth ‘internal’ sense – heart, desire or will.
Made at the very moment of transition from the Medieval period to the Renaissance, they continue to reveal a poetic medieval world of the senses, the spirit, romance, chivalry and morality.”
In the above link it says the following about the rediscovery of the tapestry:
“The lady and the unicorn was rediscovered in the mid 1800s in very poor condition. The tapestries were described as laying ‘abandoned and rolled into a corner … where rats and dampness had started attacking the edges’.”
Peter and I just returned from an outing to Austinmer Beach where we had some lunch at the Austi Beach Cafe. After lunch we drove to the Ruby’s Cafe at Bulli Beach for some coffee. It was a beautiful late summer day here in the Illawarra of Australia, and we took heaps of photos again, that is, I think I probably took most of the photos!
Two weeks ago was the wedding of Caroline and Matthew. During the week after the wedding they went to the South Coast for a little holiday. When they returned from their honeymoon they stayed with us in Dapto for one night from Friday to Saturday. I think it was on Friday when they drove us down to the lake where we went for a lovely walk.
Well, and then on that Saturday one week ago they invited us and some friends to the Hellenic Club in West Wollongong. We had always wanted to get to know this club. So far we had never made it there. So last Saturday we finally actually went to this club. and had lunch there. We did like the club very much and definitely want to go there again.
AuntyUta 