All have gone to bed – cat asleep up under my windcheater and I am speed blogging before falling into bed myself!
Today’s weather was insanely gorgeous considering yesterdays misery!!
So before heading to the hall for the party, we took an opportunity to get down to Sisters Beach
Of course – Sisters on Sisters Beach – its necessary!!
Shoes off and paddle even!
The kids had a great time in the sunshine and running about like mad things!
Riley and Georgia in the waves!Finding treasuresMichelle and Tony enjoying long awaited holidays!The mad teenager taking a dip!!! (Georgia’s comment to her older cousin “You’ll go numb!!” lol )
We had a fabulous afternoon at Ruby’s party (more on that another day) and we even squeezed in doing a second beach before the sun went down!!
Hanging out with my sisters! (Michelle on left and Rosemary on right)
Pip has been pretty much hiding under the doona in our bed all day, clearly not as thrilled as I am with ALL my family here together for the first time.
And oh what a feral day weather wise!! haha – typical!!
Michelle and her family drove off the ferry this morning early, and Mum and Dad went to pick up Rosemary and Emma off the plane at Devonport.
Just so fabulous to have them all here! The kids are excited (They have collected the eggs already) and are keen to go everywhere and collect rocks (sensible kids!)
Dodgy photo – I just stuck my camera in the air and hoped!! (Left from Michelle in red, clockwise, her husband Tony, Jeff, Mum, Georgia, Riley, Dad, Emma and Rosemary.)
Big bacon & egg brunch with fresh baked bread and home made sauces!!
We ducked down to the beach despite the weather just to get a bit of a taste as all my family come from landlocked areas. They need as much beach time as possible before leaving!
Then it was on to Ruby’s for a quick hello – she was home alone “Minding her own business” as everyone else was down setting up the hall.
Naturally the smartest thing to do is to drag her out in the rain to give her a birthday present.
Unconventional presents!
Rosemary & Emma didn’t have time to hand-make anything but I suggested we pick up a trailer-load of super dooper compost – a mix of a special one and mushroom and she could give her that… we even put a ribbon on the trailer!!
Ruby was pretty thrilled and Rosemary took glee in telling Ruby it would now be up to me to dig it all into her garden!! 🙂
Inspecting her present!Spots on the lens… rain won’t let up!
Michelle & family have made an amazing guest book for people to sign at the party tomorrow. I will get some photos soon!
And Ruby loved her shawl!! She wasn’t fazed at all by the flowers and presents coming in (haha – after all that fuss)
All the wrapping paper i had was newspaper or Disney Princesses
People have made a truck-load of food that she now can have on hand for the constant stream of people dropping in!
Beautiful biscuits & savories
The new extra fridge stocked up as well!
A whole fridge has been loaned by some of my wonderful cousins who own a second hand shop – Ruby was going to buy a small fridge for the extra food she needed – but they have delivered it and will pick it up when she is done with it!! So sweet!Ruby’s home is looking like a florist at the moment!
The nurses having a confab
Ruby directing Jeff who was putting up a whole new line to hang cards on, while more people turn up out the front!
Anyway – The big party day tomorrow! I best be off to bed! Crazy busy over here, but its totally fabulous!
Thank-you for all the lovely messages you have sent to Ruby. I will look forward to a quiet afternoon with her to read out every single one!
I told her there was a bunch of messages coming from all over, and mentioned a few of you and how we were going to sit down in a week or so and have fun reading them out! She chuckled a lot and is looking forward to that!
But wow – people coming and going, tea, coffee, cake & PRESENTS and she is lapping it all up like a queen!!! It was wonderful! I am still grinning!
Ruby looked so beautiful in her suit and she doesn’t seem worn out in the slightest!!
I don’t have time to do proper blogging – still got a wee bit more to attend to in the kitchen before bed and then an early morning to greet my sisters and their families!! Yay!
Just thought you would like to see the birthday photo in case you miss it on facebook!
Mum and Dad are a bit behind on their daily walk on a beach – due to sniffles and snuffles, but happy to report everyone is on the mend and so far, Nurse Jeff is the only one that avoided coming down with anything (so far – fingers crossed)
We managed to slip back down to Fossil Bluff while the sun was shining yesterday
Not a bad spring day!Being touristsOh look! More rocks! (agate)
I really love this yellow protea that is out now – I think I need some at our place. A lot was growing around the Fossil Bluff area!
Protea
While pretty much everyone was having a Nanna-Nap in the afternoon (cat included) I managed to squeeze in a little gardening. There is a barrel of a raised garden bed in the main vegie patch that was horribly neglected!
I had lettuce in this last season – seems like among all the weeds there were some little seedlings doing their thing!Getting thereHopefully I didn’t disturb them too much!Added some of the self seeded silverbeet in as wellIf all goes well, this fellow will be the first salad of the season!Still got acres of parsley!
The carrots have been in the ground for ever! Seems the best way to store them long term!! They are starting to throw out white whiskers and a few are being munched on by some bugs. Since I am not precious, I have no drama peeling off the white roots and cutting out the bug damage and putting them on the plate… not that I tell Jeff the details! haha They still taste really good too!
These were on our plate tonight
An exciting moment – I have my seed potatoes! I can’t wait to get them in the ground and going… fast running out of potatoes!!
And finally… all over the place, more Daffodils are popping out and making it very cheerful around here!
Hope you have had – or going to have – a fabulous day
Sadly I have hardly been near Ruby in the last week or so!! Too risky to pass on my germs, and since her 100th birthday is on Thursday and the party on Saturday, I have had to be sensible and stay away! Rotten luck and timing!
All the family is starting to roll in – the Western Australian Mob got in yesterday – great grandson has already mowed the lawn (seriously, with a ride on mower, what kid WOULDN’T want to mow a lawn??)
A notice went into the paper today about the time and date of the party – Ruby refused point blank to send out invitations!!! She was afraid they would forget someone and upset them, so the whole shebang has been done by word of mouth, email, phone calls and finally – a facebook page I set up with Margie! (Margie may have taken up drinking more wine than normal hee hee)
Pretty sure this is Ruby with her Mum
We have had a couple of meetings with Ruby & my cousins to talk about and arrange the gathering. I don’t think she realised the scale of what is going to be happening on Saturday. Margie was starting to fret so it was great we all got together to sort out what was happening.
At one point, Ruby was adamant about having ‘bangers and mash’ but possibly hadn’t thought that well over 100 people are likely to be turning up to join in the well wishing! We have sorted the church guild to be preparing a lot of finger food – sweet and savory for people to graze on during the afternoon. Not to mention tea and coffee!!
She was quite against ‘making a fuss’. I did point out when you turn 100 and that over 100 people would be turning up, sorry, but fuss is what you are going to get, so she is going to just have to go with the flow there! 😀
The local girls off for a swim – probably in the dam or river!
I was given a bunch of photographs to scan. I will also add a number of images I have taken over the last few years to put into a projector, so people can see them during the party.
Of course – my Official Role is photographer! Yay!
Friday afternoon we can go into the church hall and set up for the party the following day. Set out the tables and generally organise most things in advance so on the day there is scant left to do.
On Thursday – the day she actually turns 100 – we will be going down to wish her happy birthday, sing and eat cake – and a cuppa or two and a few dozen photographs I am sure!
She has been in really good spirits lately – and her foot is behaving much better!
Ruby as a young nurse
I am excited to give her the shawl I crocheted – a BIG thing was also “No Presents!!” Naturally I whinged and pouted and said ‘what about home made?’ So I got my loophole 🙂 A number of other people have followed suit and have done things like spring clean her house and dropped in jars of home made biscuits (cookies) so she has plenty of goodies to offer the people that will be constantly dropping in for coffee between now and next week!
I have been collecting messages from people who cannot turn up on the day & general well wishes etc from around the world.
Please feel welcome to write a note in the comments and I will set aside an afternoon after all the hullabaloo is done to read her out all the messages.
Adding where you live and a bit about yourself would be wonderful, I know she will love it.
This has to be one of my favourite Ruby-images! Sitting on her milk crate weeding in her beloved garden!
It’s the time of year when it’s a bit frustratingly slow. Spring is here, but most of the first lot of seeds haven’t shown their heads and I am just impatient for ‘Things To Be Happening’
Basil-mint popping up everywhere
The herb garden seems to be looking after itself nicely – things are popping up. I am actually pleased to see the mint starting to run away as before this I have been the only one that can’t get mint to go crazy! And yes- I will probably regret it!
Mint
At least my cos lettuce seeds are really rocking along.
Reckon I will be able to transplant this lot soon….
Some of my flower seeds have finally popped up – although the pumpkin, cucumber and zucchini are conspicuously absent!
MarigoldMixed seeds (flowers)The silverbeet has been going amazingly well forever… keeps producing new leaves as I pick the old and feed them to the chickensPlenty of self seeded little silverbeet plants looking sturdy – need new homes tho.
Compared to last year, the raspberry canes are distressingly slow at producing leaves – there are a few popping out now, but way behind compared to last season.
Which is a worry because I keep inviting people here in December trying to lure them along with promised of endless raspberries! 😀
A quick tour of the fruit trees showed lots of budding.
Plum tree – one I dug up from Ruby’s and plonked in the ground at our placeThis may be the peach treeBuds on the cherry tree! Cherries this year??The newly planted man-ferns are unfurling some new fronds which is awesome
It was a rain-off-and-on kind of day, but I chucked in some washing anyway – it immediately started to rain after I hung it out, but I told the weather I wasn’t playing that game today, walked away and left it. It quit raining and didn’t start up again!! 😀
I had a couple of cracked eggs I wanted to use in a cake for the chickens so I finally got around to that.
It proved popular!
Great excitement
Pip enjoyed being outside today – is now buried in my Nanna-Knee-Rug! (Taking up a whole couch to himself)
Fathers Day here in Australia – so despite various sniffles, we got out, and drove up to Stanley, which is about a 45 minute drive, west of home.
We enjoyed a really lovely lunch in the town, but the main idea of going out to Stanley was to take the baptism font that my parents bought from the Rocky Cape Presbyterian Church, to donate it to the property at Highfield House.
Font originally donated by my Grandfather (Pop), Barnett Bauchop in memory of his parents, Jane and John.
Someone had bought the church where the font originally was given to and converted into a home. Families who had donated items to that church, had the chance to buy them back. A lot of the church furniture was purchased by Highfield, my mother discovered later.
We believe that the first baby baptised in the Highfield House church was my Great Great Grandmother, so it seemed fitting that the font my Pop had donated all those years ago was moved to another place where we had strong family ties.
School room above the chapel. The family at Highfield had 15 children, and along with workers children – plenty of kids to fill the classroom on this estate!View of chapel from outsideView from schoolroom window
The lady, Sue, that met us at Highfield was really lovely and was really happy to receive the font. She showed us around a bit and let us go all over the house without charging us an entry fee! (yay)
Highfield was built around 1832-35 as a residence for Edward Curr, chief agent of the Van Diemen’s Land Company.
For those of you that don’t realise, Tasmania was first known as Van Dieman’s Land. The name was changed to Tasmania in 1856.
The Van Diemen’s Land Company had been formed by a group of London-based businessmen. Their proposal was to establish a successful wool growing venture on the island to supply the needs of the British textile industry.
Unfortunately the venture into growing fine merino wool in the area wasn’t a success… it was a tough and unforgiving land, and the sheep never thrived.
Dining room
The house is quite grand – although built by convicts (pretty much slave labour) much has gone into restoring and upkeep of the property and is open to the public to wander through and experience it.
The sign on the kitchen door made me chuckle tho
Please close the door (Otherwise the chooks come in)
Sue pointed out the rounded bricks by the doorway that was created simply by over a hundred years of people brushing by!
The bricks were only rounded off up to ‘people height’Kitchen ceiling!Different layers of wallpaper left showing on the walls down the stairwell
What’s a main bedroom without an ensuite??
Our kind of people – digging in the foundations and keeping all the broken crockery!
CellarsThe views outside all the windows were beautifulViews of the front garden
Scattered though out the house are remnants of times gone by and amazing furniture, maps and photos.
Sign says ‘no bottoms please’This may have been the front – I like the other side better!
Can you see tiny rainbow remains?
It was great to finally get out and do something with my parents today!
Enjoying a quick look around Fossil Bluff with Mum this afternoon
Lovely to be back home again. I managed to catch Mum’s cold… or someone elses – who knows!! At least I am just snuffly not particularly sick and pathetic, so that’s good. Poor Dad has come down with it too!!
We really enjoyed our few days away – Its pretty rare for us to do that, so a change is good fun!
Anyway – here is the fancy-pants B&B that we weren’t staying in! 😀
I quite liked our wonky funny place we stayed tho…
To be honest, it was a bit tired and the rooms should have been cleaner for the price, hotter coffee and perhaps fresher bread at breakfast… 😀
I spent some time here one afternoon crocheting waiting for Jeff to get back from his conference.
Excellent view over Launceston
It was kinda weird at first getting used to not having to do anything! There is always a task lurking in my brain to attend to – wood, chickens, cat, dinner, garden etc.
I thoroughly enjoyed wandering the streets admiring the buildings, homes & Churches in Launceston.
Magnolias were out in full bloom everywhere, which was a total delight!
I walked past this one every day and decided I must plant a magnolia!
I was quite taken with this scruffy church – it had been de`consecrated a while back and some design company now inhabits it.
I think I need climbing roses too
Everywhere I wandered I came across beautiful old buildings
The Town Hall
The post office!
At night – no cooking for me!! We wandered the streets until we found a restaurant that took our fancy. Then walked back up the hill to our B&B which I am sure was very healthy of us! It was nice seeing the buildings at night too – and it wasn’t even too cold!
Albert Hall
Each day, part of my walk would include a walk through this small park, Princes’ Square.
Will be lovely when the trees green up!
There is a statue in the park of Dr William Russ Pugh. Dr Pugh is acclaimed as being the first in Australia to etherise patients for surgical operations in 1847, in Launceston, Tasmania.
We really enjoyed our time in this very pretty city.
I have never tried to use Jeffs tablet before to do anything fancy like post a blog when I am not sitting at home in front of my PC. I tried to log on several times and it kept telling me ‘wrong password’. Then I searched more then somehow got to my admin page?? I tell you – totally clueless!!
Quirky B&B
The trip started in our usual fashion – awkwardly…
I am usually the one that does all booking & sorting of trips but because this was Jeffs conference, he organised it all. We reached fancy b&b and nobody was there. Happily we had Mums mobile and called number and dragged some lady out to let us in…. although just before she arrived I noted that we were at Highview House not Hillview House where we were meant to be!!
Not too embarrassing!! I totally blamed the Canadian. Lol.
Mind you, she probably took one look at my farm boots that I forgot to clean and thought “How the hell did they mistake my fancy B&B for the local grungy backpackers??”
We drove off as fast as dignity allowed!
Jeff is enjoying his conference- getting lots of new information in that nursing brain of his! I am enjoying some nice weather – yay – and walking a lot.
Cataract Gorge is the big tourist destination. I totally enjoyed my walk around it yesterday – for 3 hours! Even managed a few snaps on this tablet so I had something to show you!
This part of the walk was a lot less slogging uphill than the first bit I did. I am sure I lost an inch off my bottom – haha- wishful thinking!
During the recent flood – the waters reached the underside of the suspension bridge!
I found a nice place to sit and met a few friendly peacocks
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Anyway – Jeff kindly told me about the existence of a massive Spotlight shop yarn) so I am off to check it out!
