Jill and Gerard's Seachange

Two weekends in a row in Melbourne!!

Well I am back from Melbourne again, this is the second weekend in a row and it does get just a little tiring. Mind you it is past midnight now and I am wide awake as usual.

This weekend was again a busy one, I left here on Friday afternoon, as usual not organised to get away early. Hey what is new? Got to Moorabbin about 5.45pm, stopped at Yarragon for a break, had a delicious drink of carrot and celery juice which kept me going the rest of the way. Machele and Tamyka were waiting for me to arrive and we headed out the door to Southland shopping centre for some "retail therapy". I bought a portable gas hot plate and some cute little gas cylinders to go with it as I have tried some silver jewellery making and need either a kiln (too expensive), blow torch or gas ring to cook the silver clay to a solid state so the gas ring was the cheaper way to go.. Seeing we are electric cooking otherwise would have used the gas hotplates if we had any. Anyway, Tamyka finally got a re charger for her phone, seeing the one she left behind here with me never reached her house after I posted it to her, mind you I did send it to no 10 instead of no 11, it just did not turn up!!! What else did we do? Well we looked at telescopes, yes I still want one! DVD's, dragonfly jewellery, clothes, Cd's and a bit more. By this time the shopping centre was starting to close down for the night, we had left it a bit late for tea, but managed to find a piece of lasagne, chips and pizza for our meal!!! Ended up staying up a bit too late that night, got to sleep about three am!!

Was planning to be at Little Bits at about 9.30am the next day, but woke up on and off just enjoying the comfy bed I was in and just could not come to complete consciousness. When I did finally wake up and stumbled out of bed to find my watch, I was thrown into chaos as it was 10.30am!!!!! By the time, I got in and out of the shower and got to the shop it was 11.30. Lesley had a "free make and take" happening at the shop in the morning because one of her customers won a prize simply from buying some papers from the shop and filling in an entry form for a competition this particular company was running with their paper products. It was run Australia wide and June won the prize. It was for $100.00 of products from the company and a free two hour class for herself and 9 friends to be held at the shop where she had bought her goodies. Well that was Little Bits and so the shop was also rewarded with the ladies running the make and takes in the morning so other customers could have a go at using their great products also. It was lovely to catch up with some of the girls there, no sooner had I sat down to have a play too, it was time to pack up, have lunch and get stuck into the class. We all had a great time, would you believe we covered an "empty" paint tin!!!!!! with gorgeous papers, ribbons and bits and pieces. They all looked great and with using the same stuff it was amazing how different they all looked. Then we made a gorgeous album, again with the lovely papers and again they all looked different even though we all had the same papers and embellishments to use. I left the shop after 5pm. We had planned to go to the movies and have a meal out, but decided it was too hard to decide on a movie and I had not made Kate's birthday card and her birthday was the next day (sunday), plus had other things to finish and load some movies onto the girls computer from my camera of Tamykas tap concert. We ended up getting some chinese take away for tea, a big let down from the yummy italian we were going to have. Stayed in and we all got some work done.

Machele and I ended up staying up til 2am on the internet as I have found a second cousin of mine in England who's grandmother is the sister of my grandfather!!! My Mum's dad. Boy is it exciting and a bit overwhelming to find there are so many relatives out there. One family had 12 children and another had 8. Gee I sure did let the family tree down by only having one daughter!!!! Any way this second cousin is going to send me more info on the family and hopefully we can finally find out who Mum's dad was and where he came from!!!! Yes it sounds mysterious, but is probably very simple. My grandfather was kicked out of the house and away from the family after he gambled the house they were living in.. And I bet it was not on the pokies!!!! and get this.... before World War One, he took off to America to """pick oranges"""" then went to Canada and came back to England and then married my grandmother and then off to the war. He was one of eight children. Somewhere down the family line there is some Jewish blood.. explains the "family" nose!!!!!!! My great great great grandfather William Keen was a blacksmith!!! born in 1800 and my great great grandfather Malachi Keen was a Shepherd born 1842, then my great grandfather William Keen was a cab owner born in 1862, and my grandfather was Malachi Keen born in 1892, not sure what he was!!!! One thing they certainly wanted to keep the two names going!!!! Anyway we found it very interesting and amusing. Will be getting more info later on about the family, it has taken all these years to find out anything, unfortunately mum never knew when her mother or father were born or married or death dates. Which makes it a little bit difficult to find out any info.

Sunday was difficult to rise out of bed again early. We had to be at Dandenong station to pick up Gerard as he came down by train. It is Kates birthday and we wanted to surprise her with her dad being able to make it after all for her birthday lunch and tea. We had a lovely lunch time at the Wheelers Hill pub with Machele, Tamyka, Kristy, Kate, Matt, Gerard and I. We left Tamyka and Machele after lunch and Gerard and I called into Margaret and Graeme's to say hello and then onto Matt's place where we had a wonderful barbeque meal and the most delicious garlic prawns. For me to say that is amazing as I have never really liked prawns, but these I did like very much. We had a great night, lots of laughs, Geoff, Carmel, May, Deanne, Nathan, Matt, Kate, Gerard and I had a great evening. I have found someone who is worse than me with chocolate and that is Nathan, boy did I think I was bad!!!! He is sooo bad!!!!! We got back to Machele's about 11.30 pm and I went to bed about 1am yet again another late night and tonight is going to be later seeing it is 1am now!

We got up reasonably early this morning and left Moorabbin about 10.30a.m. We stopped in Packenham I think for an ice cream and then again at Trafalgar for some lunch and then at Traralgon for an icecream and a loo stop. We then decided to take an alternative route to avoid Sale completely and it was quicker and no traffic at all. We then ended up on the other back road to get to Paynesville with out having to travel along the Princes Highway through to Bairnsdale. On the way we decided to have a few stops on the way and check out some side roads.

First one was Marley Point!!! Sounds wonderful. What a cold and windy place.. Heaps of rabbits and lots of water in the lake and that was it as dead as. Then we stopped at another Point and it was just as deserted, except for the rabbits. We saw a few hawks, rabbits, an echidna on the side road and by the time we went back it had decided to hide from us and started digging into the soil, every now and then it's long nose would come up to see if we were still there. Its spines look very sharp, took some pics of it, will have to post them here. Also we passed a """tortoise""" crossing the road!!!, Gerard managed not to hit it but it was on the middle of the road so we turned around and went back to see if it was o.k. It was still frightened as it had not come out of it's shell. As we were walking towards it a car came along and ran over it. Sooo sad!!!! They murdered the poor little thing. We checked if it was still alive, but I think it died as soon as the car hit it, the poor little thing was a mess. I picked up the poor baby and put it on the side of the road. It was only a small one. If only we were 30 seconds quicker we could have saved it for a little while at least. We also got a treat while driving along these country roads to be lucky enough to watch some aeroplanes probably from the RAAF base going through their aeronautical paces. Doing somersaults, flying in formation, climbing up in the sky, turning over and upside down and diving. It was amazing how close they flew together, very entrancing. Our trip home took a long time. Walked in the door here around 5pm I think. But we had a good and sad day. Only to get home to a heavy downpour. Among the mail was a note from some strangers saying they were back!!!!

OMG it is Annette, Paul and Hervey, they have come back to Paynesville at long last!! But only for a couple of days and then they are leaving again and finding somewhere to live in Queensland!! How could they leave this wonderful place, their new house and of course such wonderful people like us????? easy by the looks of things.!!! Even though they have been travelling around for a few months now and I have got used to them not being around I now have to start getting used to it again. It was so great to quickly see them tonight and will be catching up with them tomorrow and then they are off again! Sooo sad!!!! O.K. we took the big plunge and left Melbourne, but these guys took a bigger plunge and left England and their families back there and are following their dream of finding the ideal paradise place to live in. I thought Paynesville was the place, but they are looking further north, won't say where, but it must be extra good. Could even be around Byron Bay way I reckon seeing David and Sarah have settled up there also, will have to wait and see. Good on them.

Pat the painter was here today, I don't know what he did as he is starting to paint the outside of the house, oh boy it has probably all washed off the house by now, it was too wet to go outside to see what he had done when we got home!!! If it is still raining I suppose he will want the stuff moved on the verandah and work in the covered area first. NO!!! I am not ready to run around and clean up all the dog hair etc, need a couple of days to settle the back down before I start on that again, dust and all!!!

Put on the Christmas tree tonight, it is gorgeous. We bought one of the fibre optic ones as I am sick of the christmas lights not working each year and the tree was starting to fall apart and it is all in storage at the moment anyway. So I spent about $20.00 on some "purple" ornaments and $50 on the tree and it looks great. Have also bought some blue lights to put up along the verandah, but don't think there will be enough of them will have to put them up tomorrow and see how far they go. Have decided to get back into the Christmas spirit again and make the most of it and put the past behind me.... And start a new future for Christmas...

Still got to finish my newsletter for the Christmas card post, speaking of which I have to get to and make the christmas cards pretty soon. There are still so many people I have not notified I have moved and it is nearly 12 months, where has the time gone??? Will shock everyone if they get cards before Christmas this year.

Anyway I suppose I had better try and get sleepy and go to bed. So goodnight for now and will speak again soon.

luv Jill xxx

posted by Jill @ 1:42 am