The Rest of December

What else has been going on in December?  

We’ll start with the weather.  What a mixed bag.  There has been days up into the high 30s C, down to the low 20s C, storms, heavy rain, and no rain to speak of for the last couple of weeks.  There have been lots of windy days, resulting in a largish bushfire in remote country not far from here.  Thankfully, it is now nearly out.

We had an evening out. The background is that last year, while watching the cricket, we kept seeing ads for Australian Idol.  We don’t normally watch that style of show, but did this time.  Surprisingly to us, we both really enjoyed it.  There wasn’t the nastiness that seems to be the norm in reality TV.  The ultimate winner was a fellow by the name of Dylan Wright.  Well, at the beginning of December he had a show here in Bathurst, so we thought we would go along.

The venue was “Keystone 1889”.  This is the old Masonic Hall.  

After the Masons sold it, it became “Carrington House” and was a function centre for many years.  You can see where the inspiration for both names comes from.

The interior is lovely.

It was an intimate event with only a smallish audience. The support act was a young local girl who has been touring with Troy Casser Daley.  She was rather good.

Dylan performed solo and with his best mate.  They put on a really nice show.

He was happy to do the meet and greet with all the attendees.

It was a really enjoyable night and we hare happy we went along.

The vege garden is getting into full production.

The onions have been harvested and are curing in the shed.

We are getting plenty of beans, even enough to include in our Christmas dinner, small tomatoes and zucchinis.  

Our hydrangeas are putting on a show.  Mick bought the one in the pot at the church fete.  It is a beauty.

The dahlias are also starting to flower.

The golden rain tree out the front is also looking a picture.

Mick has been very busy down at the bowling club.  They had their annual tournament at the beginning of the month, so he helped lots in getting the grounds looking their best.

The main green keeper is currently on holidays, so Mick has had a crash course in maintaining the greens, mowing, rolling and watering.  He is down there nearly every day at present, and loving it.

Oh, and I made a cherry pie.  

So good.

And that about wraps up December, and 2024.  

Here, There and Everywhere - Cowra Open Gardens

This is a very belated post, as we visited these gardens in mid October.

The original plan was to have a couple of nights up there with the caravan and play the tourist, but that didn’t line up with what else we were up to, so a day trip it was.

We started with morning tea in Europa Park.  We drive past this park on the way into Cowra every time, but have never stopped before.

This plaque commemorates the migrants that passed through the town post World War Two.  It’s worth zooming in and having a read.

There was a grove on Chinese Elm trees planted in 1999 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Ukrainian Women’s Association in Australia, founded in the Cowra Migrant camp in 1949.  It’s sad to consider that Ukraine is once again suffering.

We really must go back and play the tourist properly one day.  There is so much history relating to the middle of the 20th century, as there was an army camp, prisoner of war camp, which became infamous due to the breakout by Japanese prisoners, and then subsequently the formation of the migrant camp. Cowra now has a peace bell and beautiful Japanese Garden, which goes to show that true reconciliation is possible.  On an aside, the shed in our back yard when I was a kid was one of the offices at the Cowra camp.  Once they were no longer required they were sold off and you can spot them around the place where they had been relocated.

Back to the gardens…..

We visited their open gardens during COVID when the Bathurst Open Gardens didn’t proceed.  They were mainly country gardens that time.  This time they were mainly town gardens and there were no repeats from our last visit, which was nice.

Quite a few were fairly new gardens.

This one just showed off the front garden.  Great street appeal.

The next one was one of my favourites.  The block had lots of natural granite boulders and the garden had been created around them.  There were also lots of beautiful roses.  Only 100kms up the road from us, but their gardens were a lot further advanced than ours.  The fact that there were quilts dotted around the garden may have been part of the appeal.

We got chatting quilts, as you do, and the owner brought out two that she had recently completed for potential grandchildren.  The little girl quilt was such beautiful soft colours and the workmanship was so fine. Sorry about the poor lighting.

There was one country garden, and it was a beauty.

On our way back in town we noticed a couple of painted water reservoirs.

One garden was to the side and back of a duplex.  Great use made of the terraced yard.  She didn’t have a shed, but had a very organised area for her gardening tools.

We had our lunch at Hart House, a grand old building, now used as a BnB.  Lunch was catered by the CWA, so there had to be tea and scones.

The garden was pretty impressive too.

The final garden was fairly new, surrounding a recently renovated house.  The view overlooking town from that front verandah was stunning.

On the way home we took a detour via Canowindra.  It was a hot day so we had an icy cold milkshake.

I always like to visit their local quilt shop called “The Plague and I”.  As it was Sunday it was closed, but the window display was nice.  She has a lovely collection of old sewing machines.

I love her quirky sense of humour.

So that was our day at Cowra, and a very enjoyable one, too.  Hopefully we will get up to see their gardens another year and try to play the tourist at the same time.