A long long weekend in the rain

Last weekend I  drove down to Berry to stay over at Janice and Rauri's before heading further south to Moruya with Janice to spend the weekend at my new holiday house with the family.

When we arrived, the first thing we had to do was cut our way down the ramp removing all the tendrils of Pandorea that trapped us as we walked down. Luckily Janice and I had both taken our pruning tools.

Sunrise on the Saturday was a bleak affair with just a tiny bit of pink showing. Of course with all the rain the dam is full.

Once the rain had stopped we were able to walk around the garden receiving instructions and suggestions from Janice and Geoff about how to manage the garden. It is huge with lots of unpruned plants that need a good hair cut.

The kids all had a great time even though it teemed most of the time we were there. Piano, guitar, jigsaw puzzle, very little TV, cooking Halloween cup cakes and brownies, and Take Two entertained them all.

The small children and the big children and the adults were entertained with the cutting down and removal of one plant that was in the wrong place. A huge amount of pruning and then digging out Lomandra was also achieved.

People had lots of opportunity to drive the tractor dumping the larger prunings to the burning off pile.

Halloween evening was spent eating the ghost brownies that the girls made and being entertained in an hilarious game of charades. We were all surprised when Ivy actually guessed a clue that none of us could guess - The Little Mermaid.

At 8am on Sunday morning the house water pump failed so most of us left leaving Pete to remove the pump and the family to bucket water for the toilets while they did the packing up. Janice went south to visit friends. I went back to Berry with Geoff and family who enjoyed lunch there then headed home, leaving Rauri and I to an afternoon of chat before Janice returned around dinner time. 

I drove home to Sydney on Monday morning, stopping at Ellen's for a pit stop on the way. She had arrived home to find her bed and carpet all wet from the downpours over the weekend.

In all a very wet and soggy weekend but lots of fun with such a crowd (still within Covid rules).

As my other bush block is called "Underhill" I'd love to call this property "OnTheHill" with its beautiful view of the distant ocean (though no whales this visit).