Ballarat

bottlebrush

We have come to Ballarat for a change of scenery. By the weekend we had both got tired of looking at our empty house and were needing a change of scenery, however the really good news is that now we have a date for the delivery of our shipping. It will arrive on Monday the 28th of November. Finally! We can't wait. So we've driven up to Ballarat for a few days for a break and when we get back to Melbourne we can get the house ready for our furniture.

Ballarat is about an hour and 20 minutes drive from our house in Essendon. You drive West out the city and up into the Pentland Hills. You drive through scrub and bush (bush is the Australian equivalent of forest - there is mile after mile of eucalyptus trees) until this gives way to rolling farmland and then you are in Ballarat.

Ballarat is Victoria's third biggest city - population almost 100,000. Its success was built on the big gold rush in the 19th Century. One of the main tourist attractions is Sovereign Hill, where they have the original working mine, a gold museum, you can pan for gold and there is an excellent boiled lolly shop (lollies is what Australians call sweets). Ballarat was named by a Scotsman called Archibald Yuille in 1837.

http://www.sovereignhill.com.au/

Julia's parents, Larry and Ange, have lived in town, in Ballarat for the past 14 years or so. Before that they lived down the road at Bungaree on a 40 acre farm.

Driving to Ballarat always reminds me of when I lived in Edinburgh and used to drive home to Bridge of Earn. There's the same sense of leaving the city behind and getting into open country. When you arrive its colder and the sky is clearer and you can see a lot more stars at night. Ballarat is known for being cold. Snow even settles on the ground through some winters. Today I am wearing a jumper for the first time in the last month; its about 14C. I'm glad that its cooled down a bit. On Friday in Melbourne it was 35C! It was the first day where it was actually too hot to go outside. Julia and I stayed in with the curtains drawn and the air conditioning on. Stepping outside was like stepping into an oven. And summer hasn't even begun yet!

Another storm rolled in on Friday night and things cooled down over the weekend. In fact it didn't stop raining on Saturday.

Things have been quiet for us over the last week. We've been feeling as if we're stuck in limbo. Waiting for the furniture, waiting for my shoulder to improve, waiting for the baby to arrive. At least now we have a date for the furniture and the physio is definitely helping my shoulder. I'm now able to tie my own shoe laces and I can get my arm out of the sling for long periods each day.

The weather was nice on Sunday so we took a walk through the local park. We sat on a bench watching the ducks in the lake and then from over the other side of the park I could hear, drifting over, someone singing 'Caledonia'. We wandered over and there was a banner which said 'Clan Mac Lennan Gathering'. There were a dozen or so elderly men and ladies having a picnic and playing bowls. Some of them were wearing kilts or tartan skirts. One old guy was providing the music with a harmonica. I resisted the temptation to introduce myself or burst into tears and belt out the chorus (... let me tell you that I love you . . . that I think about you all the time. . .). I'm not quite ready for the whole mad scotsman thing yet.

succulent plant

roses in Larry and Ange's garden

Our plan for the next few days is just to relax here and maybe take a trip to Daylesford for a day. Daylesford is a local, scenic spa town where Larry and Ange have a caravan. Julia is very pregnant now and she gets cramps at nights; she wasn't feeling too hot at the weekend with lots of heartburn. She can't wait for the baby to come. One of the nice thing about Larry and Ange's house is all the plants in the garden. The garden is overflowing with life. Larry has green fingers and seems to be able to make anything grow. Perhaps his secret is talking to the plants. There are plants everywhere. It appears that if you leave anything out in the garden for long enough plants and flowers will spontaneously sprout. I will need to ask Larry the names of them all. He has been very generous and our own little courtyard in Melbourne is beginning to sprout with gifts from Larry's garden. I hope we can keep them alive through the hot summer.

Local news in Australia - the country is still basking in the glow from Barack Obama's visit last week. 'Schoolies' has started; teenagers everywhere have finished school for the year and travel to the Gold Coast to celebrate and party, and most worryingly Cows have been killing Koalas. Its true! Cows are not the peaceful animals you imagine.