ANZAC Day

Peter had the privilege of joining with his school in this year's ANZAC Day march at Whittlesea. The march made its way through the town to two significant places, the remembrance shrine at the park and the statue of the soldier at the end of Church street (main street). Children are encouraged to be involved so Peter's school has a traditional involvement.

April Market

Our April market was Easter Saturday so we did not know how many people would come. It was OK just. Some stalls had good sales and others... well, let's hope for more people next month. We have been blessed with good weather so that is a real plus. The Market FaceBook Page continues to grow and that is also encouraging. Do have a peek.

Sausage banter...

International visit...

Winter Barbie fashion...

Los Amate

Bec arranged a place about the Fitzroy area called Los Amate where we could all eat Mexican food. We all had a super time. Parking wasn't a problem and we kind of worked out how to eat the food. The collection of pictures (except for the last one) is from that night and mostly in the restaurant.

Susan visiting from Brisbane was also at Los Amate. Thanks for visiting Susan. 

Funk Visits

While we were up at Gembrook for the four days we were able to visit with Bec and her children on two occasions. On the first one we brought a construction kit, given to us to bring by Grand-Nan, Barb's Mum. The kit turned out to be just right for the visit and the various tasks were divided by the three children without a single squabble.

On our second visit there was some amount of experimenting using an iPhone Photo Studio ap to add lightening and other strange things to an original image. Fun for kids, and adults...

Gembrook Sketch

The lounge is the stomach of the place where the fire warms the body, and words warm the soul. Phone chimes are answered by the closest resident; the coffee table is a good gymnastics vault, as well as the couches; and books, fat ones devoured. So doing a sketch was just that bit different and a curious thing for children who hovered and pointed out to Peter what he had missing seeing. It was an interesting conversation.

Chestnut Harvest

Our last day at Gembrook Retreat was their community chestnut harvest day. It was the first time the sun peeped out and so the day was very perfect indeed. We both went into the large chestnut orchard along with many other and found more than enough to bring home at the end of the day. We can't take too many because chestnuts don't keep too long and any we don't roast soon enough will go bad. The fresher the better for easy roasting and pealing.

A fire at the ready for immediate roasting of chestnuts, and because a fire is a fire

Score the chestnuts across one side before roasting, or they might explode

We actually spent more time socalising at the fire than gathering chestnuts

There were even carrot cannon shooting sessions for the kids

Gembrook Dramatic

Peter's camera has an art filter that can make images dramatic. Since it is very difficult to catch both the distance mountain shapes and foreground details without overexposing one and underexposing the other, Peter has used this tool to marry these extremes, albeit very dramatically. But hey, the pictures give the Gembrook retreat a new look to remember it by. What the eye sees the camera can be made to see.

Gembrook Stay

We have recently returned from four delightful days at Gembrook Retreat, a Quaker oriented retreat. It was wet most of the time but that did not seem to matter. We had gumboots and an umbrella. Every where we looked was a new vista, 25 acres and God's quiet call.