From Lyndoch on the Southern edge of the Barossa, I towed the van South via Williamstown, Birdwood, Mount Torrens, Woodside and Nairn, to Ric and Ann's 5 acre block not far from Mount Barker, in the Adelaide Hills.
After a bit of damp manouvering and a little digging on the uphill slope, the van was set up in the regular position down below the house. Ready made private guest wing.
Always great to spend a little time with Ric & Ann, as we have known each other for a very long time. It feels very comforting to see them again and catch up on what has happened since the last time.
Ann has a relatively stable weekly cycle built around her 3 (plus) day a week part time but full on job and exercise regime. Easy for me to spend some extra time with Ric and fit in with the routine.
On Friday, we went down to Adelaide. Ann had some commitments, so Ric and I went to the Art Gallery to have a look at the "Colours of Impressionism Masterpieces from the Musee D'Orsay" on loan from the Gallery in Paris. Interesting as Jean & I saw a number of those paintings many years ago in Paris. Quite a large collection was on loan to Adelaide. Some truly stunning pieces.
Ric admiring the portrait of Monet by Renoir.
The Gallery really does a good job educating school children, with a group of young primary school kids featured. They were so well behaved.
The portrait of Monet by Renoir was very impressive.
The Gallery also has at least one original Namajira painting on display. The captured outback colours are spectacular.
We still had a little time on our hands after some afternoon tea at the nearby Museum, so walked the short distance to the University of South Australia grounds to visit Lyrian, Ric & Ann's daughter in her office. Amazing that she will turn 30 this year. Where did all those years go;.
I sneaked a photo in whilst we were waiting for our Cinema to open.
We had a "trainee" guide, but the walk up the main street was fun and informative.
Quite a lot of history in the town and a little bit of fun as well.
I managed to get Ric & Ann to pose for this photo, which I really liked.
Ann insisted on one of Ric & myself as well, which of course I didn't like as much.
On Saturday afternoon, whilst Ric was preparing Dinner, I had a call from Jean to tell me that her Mum Betty had died suddenly at home that morning. Although quite a shock, her passing was a blessing in many ways, as her quality of life at 85 years was deteriorating fairly rapidly and she had been approaching the point where she would not have been able to continue living at home.
I was able to book a flight home for the next day (Sunday 6 May) from Adelaide and find some off Airport undercover parking for the Landcruiser. Fortunately, as Ric and Ann have plenty of room at their place, I was able to leave the caravan where it was without any extra drama.
The flight to Perth was a good one and Jean picked me up at the Airport and drove us home.
It appeared that Betty had got up early on Saturday morning and had not felt very well. She went back to the bedroom and lay on her bed, where she passed away. Younger daughter Michelle found her later that morning and Jean had last seen her on Friday afternoon. As it was a weekend, they had been unable to contact her GP, so the Ambos called the Police and Jean and Michelle had rather a long day before her body was taken to the Morgue. Later that week, her Doctor was able to give her a cause of death, which allowed information for the death certificate and her body to be released to a Funeral Director.
Meantime, her Son Will and his Partner Vickie had flown over from South Australia and the family, minus Linda (who lives in Katanning) were able to meet with the Director from the local Purslow Chippers Funeral Parlour and plan the Funeral Service for the following Wednesday 16 May 2018. The service was held at their local Chapel not far from Betty's place in Rockingham. All went pretty well, with Linda and her partner coming up from Katanning for the day and Margie Hanly agreeing to do a Eulogy for Betty along with Will and Michelle. Betty was then taken by the Hearse to the new Rockingham facility and cremated.
During the period leading up to the Funeral, Betty's house was broken into, which added to the stress that everyone was under. At first we thought the empty house may have been targeted, but Police later caught a number of children that had broken into a series of houses in the area. They broke a glass door and made quite a mess inside, but fortunately Jean had removed Betty's purse and jewellry from the house.
In the lead up to the funeral, we decided that we needed a little more excitement in our lives, so we picked up the new puppy from Jan, who also lives in Gidgegannup and had managed to breed a litter of eight very active Kelpie pups. For a while we thought her name might be Pippin, then Winnie, so Jan named her as Pippin-Winnie. "Don't all puppies have hyphenated names?" So far she responds well to the call of "Pipi".
Pippin-Winnie at her old home, before "Trauma Day".
On the day we picked her up and took her home, we had an enormous drama and thought we had lost her for good. At just over 4 months old, she had never been away from her Mum and remaining siblings and had never been in a car. By the time we got her home, she was quite car sick and very much out of her territory. We called her into our back yard, closed the gate and then tried to introduce her "gently" to Axel our old very large great dane. Not surprisingly, she was terrified, squeezed through the fence and took off heading for the front of our property. We thought she was gone for good and despite quite a lot of calling and hunting for her we had no luck in finding her. Jean then made up a number of lost dog signs and put them around the neighbourhood.
Later that evening, Jean was exhausted and went to sleep on her chair in the lounge room. I noticed Axel was behaving strangely and wanted to get out to the front of the house. I had a look, but couldn't see anything, but he still persisted. I had another closer look on the front porch and found the pup hiding behind a metal box. She was thirsty, hungry, but very fortunately otherwise well. Jean was so relieved when I woke her with the puppy.
Pippin-Winnie at her new home and the pup with the big ears (just like her Mum Rennie-Mac)
I spent a bit of time helping Jean to sort out some of Betty's affairs, and after the funeral things started to slow down and not a lot more was going to happen until the Death Certificate was available and an Application made to appoint an Administrator to her Estate. So I booked a ticket back to Adelaide and flew out on Tuesday 22 May. This time I decided to try Virgin instead of Qantas, as the available flight times were more convenient, the fare was cheaper and the Virgin terminal located next to the International Terminal was much less crowded and convenient. The flight was excellent with plenty of spare seats and a good movie to watch - "The Post" with Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks. I picked up the Landruiser, and had a pleasant drive back up into the Hills just before the worst of the afternoon traffic started.
It didn't take long to get back into a routine with Ric & Ann, which was great after all that had been going on at home.
Friday night we had a special Ric Thai Red Curry, followed by an Ann Sticky Date Pudding. Good living.
On Saturday (26 May) afternoon, we had another trip to Adelaide, dropped in on Lyrian and Josh, followed by a tour of the Lifeflow Office, Meditation and Yoga rooms, then did a few errands before going to watch the Tim Winton movie "Breath". Another very good movie, set in and around Denmark on the WA South Coast.
As a treat for their generous hospitality I then treated Ric & Ann to a meal out at the Mimasu Japanese Restaurant. We had an excellent Chef's Selection shared meal, including some Sake and an Adelaide Hills wine.
As an extra indulgence, we had desert, which included this fuiji crumble with black sesame ice cream. It was just amazing.
I managed to sneak in another happy shot of Ric at the end of our very enjoyable meal.
Lucky for us, Ann drove home and we had a good sleep after a busy day. Sunday was a quiet day with a walk around the local wetlands in the afternoon (or was that another day?). Yes I think it was another day as we went for a drive out to Tara Hills and had a walk nearby, a look at the dam on the adjoining property, as well as finding a few decent mushrooms along the way. Left overs from Friday night made for an another excellent Sunday night dinner.
Monday morning (28 May), Ann went back to work, Ric had some more preparation work for a lecture on Tuesday and I set off for Port Augusta, where I had a service booked for the Landcruiser also on Tuesday before the rest of my journey home. That will be the final chapter of the blog for this trip.........
No comments:
Post a Comment