Friday Fun Day - From Last Week

Last Friday was our last chance to have a Friday Fun Day this month and it actually happened.  You can blame Spotlight.

You see, Spotlight put out a new catalogue last week which had a range of fabrics that looked like they would make a nice quilt.  I popped out to the local store on Thursday to buy half a metre of each of the eight fabrics, only to find that they only had five of the prints in stock. Blast!!!  I bought them anyway and then had a look online to see if the others were available.  To my delight, it said they were in stock in the Orange store, just half an hour up the road.  A quick phone call confirmed that, yes, they were in stock.

Therefore, on Friday, Mick and I hopped in the car and went for a drive.  When I got to the store I could only find two of the fabrics I wanted.  After quite a hunt by the assistant, the final one was found and I now have a nice collection of fabric ready for me to cut up into little pieces and sew back together again, as you do.

As this trip was totally unplanned, we then had a think about what to do next.  Firstly, we visited our favourite cafe in a garden centre for a late breakfast.

The food was delicious, as always.

And the setting in the courtyard is delightful.  It is always a very popular venue.

Next, we decided to have a mooch around the op shops in the never ending quest to find an orange mug.  No mug, but I did find a couple of huckaback hand towels, which have since been laundered and one has now been incorporated into the Vintage Linens quilt.

By then it was getting on towards lunch time....not that we really needed lunch....but we had packed a small picnic.  Cook Park is always a nice spot, so we sat by the duck pond to eat.

The park was looking a picture.  It was so good to see the garden beds full of colour.  Such a contrast to when we visited in November 2019, when there were no flowers and they were struggling to keep the mature plantings alive during the ongoing drought.

There was nothing else we wanted to see or do in Orange so we decided to have a wobble tour on the way home.  There is a veritable labyrinth of little roads in the area, so we went on a route we haven't been on for probably over twenty years, through the locality of Byng.

I mentioned to Mick that I was surprised that we hadn't been out this way on any motorcycle rallies.  I understood why, once we hit the dirt road.

When you look on the map, Byng shows as having a few little streets, but when you arrive there, there is only the one road going through.  What  are shown as roads no longer exist.  There are only a few scattered farm houses and this gorgeous little Uniting Church.  The notice board tells us that it was built in 1872 to replace an earlier 1840 Wesleyan Chapel.

Even the gates were cute.

Across the road there was a small pioneer cemetery, with more lovely old gates.  There was even a small section of tarred road in front of the church.

We were wondering if Byng had been founded as a mining village, but when I had a little google I read that it was settled in the 1830s by Cornish Methodists, so predates mining.  It was always a farming area.

As we continued on our way we noticed how much things have dried out in the last few weeks.  The countryside was looking decidedly summery.

I love this expansive view as we headed towards Bathurst.  The clouds were nice and fluffy.

It was a nice, scenic, detour for our return trip and we were back home just after 2 o'clock. 

We do enjoy these little Friday adventures.  I wonder what we will do next month?  We certainly have no idea at this stage.  It is always a nice surprise.