Category Archives: retirement

Weekend Wandering

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We were away from home for less than 23 hours on the weekend. Although we did have a specific purpose and destination it was almost as much about the journey.

When we go to Melbourne we drive or catch the train from Castlemaine depending on the reason and our destination. Catching the train means that we have to drive about 15km from home and leave the car in the station car park for the day. We have also arranged a lift from friends when our trip involved getting to the airport for overseas travel.

This time we made a conscious decision to make use of the very intermittent bus service from our small town to Castlemaine. We left home after lunch on Saturday and walked about 15 minutes to the bus stop.

After the short bus ride we arrived at Castlemaine Railway Station in plenty of time to connect with the next train to Melbourne.

The train terminates at Southern Cross Station.

Our next step was a short walk across the road to catch a tram. This is one of the older style trams. The ones that run the 96 route are the newer, double-length, flat floor models.

The No 96 tram passes Southern Cross Station on its route from St Kilda to East Brunswick. We were going to the terminus at East Brunswick. It was then a short 200m walk to our overnight accommodation at an Air BnB. The tram terminus was also directly outside the Lomond Hotel which was the reason for our adventure.

We went to the Lomond Hotel on Saturday evening for dinner and to see a band, ‘Streams of Whiskey’.

It was a fabulous evening and we definitely made correct decision to find accommodation nearby as the music began at 9pm and concluded about 11.30pm.

After a comfortable night at our accommodation we were off and ready to leave just before 9am and simply retraced our steps and public transport options before arriving home at midday on Sunday.

Back at Southern Cross and the train is ready to board.

The bus dropped us off around the corner from home.

I know public transport is not an option for everyone or for all situations but if you have the time and are prepared to do a bit of pre-planning it can work in many instances. Thanks to reduced regional fares/concession/weekend fares the total transport cost for our return adventure was $22.80. Moreover, we did not have to drive or find parking.

Inertia

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It is over 2 weeks since my last post but I have not been overly busy. So, why has my lofty goal of writing a post every second day fallen so spectacularly by the wayside? I have had time to write, computer and internet access as well as plenty of potential material but still no posts.

I look back on the last 2 weeks and my last post was immediately following Easter and my birthday which coincided this year. The intervening time has included several milestones.

25th April is ANZAC Day, the anniversary of the day of the landing of the Allied Forces at Gallipoli in 1915. While not at the original landing, my paternal grandfather did serve at Gallipoli. It is a day to reflect and honour our servicemen and women from all theatres of war.

The remembering did not end that day as 26th April was the fourth anniversary of my mother’s death. The passage of time does dim the acute grief but I miss her every day and this time of the year is particularly poignant.

Grief was brought sharply into focus with the recent death of my uncle and I am currently making a brief visit to Queensland to attend his funeral and importantly, to support my cousins at this time.

There is definitely a degree of inertia with respect to the garden. I feel as though we are all holding our collective breath as we wait for the season to break and bless the ground with some rain. Autumn is definitely with us but it still feels unseasonably warm for the beginning of the second week of May.

The other significant event here is the federal election in Australia. It was held on Saturday 3rd May and we are certain of the main result there are still quite a number of unresolved contests as the counting and recounting continues.

We also cannot ignore global events such as the conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine and other places around the world. The impacts of decisions by President Trump continue to cause ripples across the globe which will impact us all. The recent death of Pope Francis and the current conclave to elect his successor are also of note. While it is important to be aware of national and global events, it is wise not to let it overwhelm us.

On the local front, I have had plenty to occupy my mind as I am working on some administrative documents for voluntary work.

All of these things have diverted my attention from the minutiae of my daily activities which is where I draw most of the inspiration for my blog posts.

Meanwhile, life keeps rolling on. Apart from my flying visit to Queensland we are actually on a bit of a road trip to South Australia. You can read more about it here. There may be one or two more holiday posts in the next few days before we head for home.

I hope to share some more of our activities in home once we get back. Please let me know if there is anything in particular you would like me to write about. Most of my posts fall under the general headings of:

Gardening
Cooking
Sewing
Op shopping
Cleaning
Renovations
Decluttering
General organisation

I would love to hear your thoughts.

Ready to Roast

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It almost 2 years since I wrote this post with a recipe for pumpkin soup. After a long, hot summer we are finally experiencing some slightly cooler days.

Like all of my cooking escapades there is plenty of room for variation. A couple of days ago GMan was baking a couple of loaves of sourdough bread so I decided to make use of the oven being on to roast the pumpkin while the oven was heating up to the temperature required for the bread.

Pumpkin wedges brushed with a mix of balsamic syrup and olive oil.

After roasting the skin peels off easily.

A pot of deliciousness.

We had soup for dinner and there were another 10 serves to go in the freezer for future meals.

It was a productive kitchen day as I had also made a new batch of spreadable butter, deyhdrated the pumpkin seeds and some root ginger which had been in the freezer for a couple of years and GMan made the bread.

No Visible Change

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I have spent most of today decluttering but I have very little to show for my efforts.

This is the view of the storage in our office and it looks exactly the same as when I started.

The reason is because I sorted out some of the paperwork which lives in one of these drawers. Some might say that it is not clutter if it fits neatly in a drawer. However, these are papers that are no longer required for a variety of reasons so I shredded them.

The drawer now looks like this. There are now 6 cardboard folders for different categories – 2 were discarded as the contents were all obsolete. It is hard to believe that we once had a 4 drawer filing cabinet.

I ended up with half a bag of shredded paper.

So, why bother doing this when I have plenty or space to store it? The documents I shredded are entirely obsolete and/or I have digital copies. They included tax returns and bank statements more than 5 years old and the like. I generally clear these things out every year or so. By having less it make the important things easier to locate when required.

Rhubarb Is Ready

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I have been away from the blog this past week as other things have taken precedence. We have enjoyed visits from two groups of guests. I has been a delight to show them around our town and the surrounds.

Here are a couple of photos taken from the summit of Mt Tarrengower which overlooks the town.

An almost full moon as we looked east towards the town.

Sunset in the opposite direction.

Our house guests of the past few days departed this morning so I need to get back to some food prep and meal planning. The first step was to cut a generous handful of rhubarb from one of the clumps which are happily growing near the back fence. We usually have some stewed fruit on our cereal each morning so I chopped and stewed the stalks and have containers of stewed rhubarb ready to go in the freezer.

Not My Garden

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There is always plenty to do in our own garden but we have recently been working in another garden. It is the garden area of our local Neighbourhood Centre which has been planted and tended in the past but was in need of a bit of care.

Along with another volunteer, GMan and I have been gradually working on a few areas. He slashed the grass around the fruit trees which number about 12. I am not even sure of exactly what they are yet.

I found a few raised gardens so have dug one over and planted some lettuce seedlings which are doing well. My friend planted coriander seeds in another and we have added garlic as well.

This photo is from a couple of weeks ago when GMan had cleared a lot of previous pruning to go to the tip as green waste. I had dug over the bed on the far left of the photo for the lettuces.

The other day I turned my attention to a massive clump of assorted succulents. They will probably not stay in the long-term plan but are OK for the time being. The most important thing was to remove the dozens of dead seed heads that would just self-seed everywhere.

The seed heads are in the bucket and the pile is dead foliage and stalks.

It certainly looks better now.

This is no massive garden blitz but more of an ongoing volunteer commitment to a community space.

An Average Autumn Day

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Although I often post about the significant and eventful happenings here, there are many days that just hum along as we do the things we do. I find this particularly so during autumn as the extreme heat and occasional storms of summer are behind us.

Autumn weather brings a benign mildness as the leaves begin to turn and we continue to harvest the last of the summer produce.

An outdoor view.

Picked from the garden.

The tomatoes I grew were from gifted seedlings from 3 different sources. I am not sure of all of the varieties but some were definitely ‘Beefsteak’ which is now my favourite tomato. So, when I discovered that one of these tomatoes had been attacked by some wildlife I decided that it was the perfect specimen from which to salvage some seeds.

Tomato seeds drying on some paper towel.

I did two loads of washing which included our bed linen. I remade the bed with the freshly laundered linen after it had dried in the warm sun and breeze.

An inviting bed at the end of the day.

Pruning and Planting

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We have plenty of plans for developing various aspects of the garden further but in the meantime we are pleased with the parts which are established.

GMan recently participated in a one-day workshop on pruning techniques and more particularly, the benefits of summer pruning of fruit trees. He has since purchased some new equipment and yesterday he applied his newly-acquired knowledge and pruned our 3 espaliered fruit trees. There are 2 Nashi pears and a nectarine.

Meanwhile, I have planted a punnet of pea seedlings.

The summer garden continues with tomatoes and zucchinis ripening and ready to pick every day or so.

I have at least a dozen packs of grated zucchini in the freezer which I can use to make zucchini quiche throughout the year. Of course, we have had fried tomato and zucchini as a side dish with plenty of meals recently.

The tomatoes have been especially prolific. I used 6kg to make sauce and there is more than enough to eat with almost every meal. There is nothing like the flavour of homegrown tomatoes.

This is what is on a rack on the kitchen bench at the moment as I constantly use some then add more from what I harvest almost every day.

Riding the Rails

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On Saturday we had a day out that was very close to home. The town where we live is one end of the Victorian Goldfields Railway, the longest broad gauge heritage railway in Victoria. Although we have lived here for nearly 2 years this was our first trip on the steam train. It was a glorious day and we thoroughly enjoyed the trip.

It was a special occasion to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the opening of the heritage railway between Castlemaine and Maldon.

Two different first class carriage interiors.

Ready for the return trip.

Rounding the bend and almost home.

It is good to be able to mix responsibilities at home with community volunteering and days out as well as our more extended holiday adventures.

GMan’s Handiwork

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Tonight I want to show you a couple of recent projects that GMan has been working on.

First, a rack of hooks for our walk-in wardrobe. These were in the wardrobe when we moved in but we removed them before the recent remodelling of the pantry and wardrobe. I decided that I wanted to retain them but in a slightly different position. They are very handy for half-worn clothes as well as the occasional belt or scarf. GMan removed the hooks from the original backing board as it was damaged, bought a new piece of timber and did all of the necessary preparation and painting before reattaching the hooks. This was quite difficult by all accounts. Today it was replaced in its new position. The only thing left to do is filling the screw holes but that can wait for another day.

The other job was creating a permanent barrier between the shed and the back fence. It had previously been blocked up by a piece of metal which is needed for some other garden landscaping so it was time to attach an offcut of Colorbond sheeting which had been set aside for the purpose.

The photo does not do it justice but there were several steps, including attaching a timber support to the back fence as well as adding a timber baseboard to account for the slight slope. The sheeting was cut to size and screwed to the timber support and the corner of the shed.

The reason for needing this area blocked off is to prevent the dog gaining access to the driveway and front garden. Her domain is restricted to the backyard.

Speaking of animals, I will finish this post with a photo I took this evening as we were coming home for our walk. We live in the town but the local wildlife are frequently in evidence around the streets. This has been particularly so in recent times as it is very dry at the moment and the kangaroos are looking for reliable sources of water.