Moonee Ponds and Healesville

Well my last day at Maisie's was fraught with the drama of the first, as her dear Mum was admitted into hospital with severe hallucinations. She is not well at all and the doctor decided she needed constant observation andi skilled care, which of  course Maisie wasn't able to give her. But Eithne is a very stubborn woman, and it needed the doctor to say, 'time to go to hospital' for her to accept the situation as it was. So Maisie dropped me at Strathmore Station and is now by her bedside at the Royal Melbourne, not very  far away at all. It is now up to the ECK to work out her future. Baraka Bashad!

I am now having a coffee and the Fuel Café in Moonee Ponds before I visit my friends Tom and John, then later I take the train to Lilydale and bus to Healesville to meet Mary and Fred to stay the night.

The man needs to be brought to justice...on page one of The Age.

Quiet scene at Moonee Pondsfrom my café.

My meeting with John and Tom was as originally I had thought to be, in a local cafe and having a nice coffee. They are both cinema buffs so there was much to talk about with my having just seen four  movies in the last five days! John is supremely intellectual, and can be exhausting, but his Irish partner Tom, is a good foil for his sometimes lugubrious state of mind. They are, in effect, a lovely couple.

Tom making a point....

...with John considering it.

Waiting at the Station for the train toSouthern Cross.

My brief foray into the shopping centre at Moonee Ponds was also successful, with a Post Office visit to put a card insde my sister's gift, something which I had earlier omitted doing, resulting in the discovery that, dyslexic as I am with my brain sometimes, I had succeeded in putting the wrong gift in the wrong envelope for the her daughter. On making this discovery I was able  to transfer the gifts to their rightful packages and all was OK. The comic book for James was never the right thing for my sister, as was the calendar for Kim not her intended gift, although she would have accepted it happily I am sure. That out of the way, my Christmas duties are practically over as I am not indulging in the orgy of cards and presents that perennially occur at this godforesaken time of the year.

Having  a Mexican lunch, a burrito,at Southern Cross

Arrive at Healesville early,just time for a much anticipated ice cream, but....

..happily, at the designated bus-stop was the perfectgelateria! Tiramasu and watermelon flavour was a just reward after two hours travel!

The bus inter-change at Lilydale prepared me for the country mentality, slower talking and no bullshit. This area ironically is also the famous region for vineyards and the Opera in the country, the venue being in the nearby Yarra Valley. 

However there are also more sombre echoes of Black Saturday, the disastrous bush fires of 2009, where townships perished, many lives were lost and Maisie high-tailed it from Kinglake with her sister, the deathly flames literally licking at her bottom as they escaped the Valley. The memories are getting more distant now, but the effects of that awful summer are etched in the memories of those who fought, mostly in vain, to counter the awesome power of nature unleashed in all its fury. This weekend was also the stimulus for my escape the following year to the cooler confines of Hobart, Tasmania.

Let's hope the rather brown landscape does not herald in a similar catasprophe again, but at least they will be better prepared as there was much blame laid at the door of the official protectors of the country, the police and the fire brigades. Now to meet lovely Mary at the bus stop...