Love the fresh air!

In this beautiful Melbourne Autumn weather the first thing I do when I open the doors is take a big breath. The air here is so fresh and there are gorgeous scents in the air – eucalypt, the ginger flower, other flowers, herbs, whatever is around.  Occasional smoke from burning off or wood fires, but I like the smell of wood fires – providing it’s not the height of summer!

Graham and I are so glad we made this shift.  The leaves are turning and we have yellows, oranges, reds and browns on the trees and on the ground.  So beautiful to see and the leaves crunch under your feet as you walk along.  That scares off the birds, or at least alerts them to my presence so I’m having to learn to walk around very quietly and slowly if my camera is in hand.

Posted in My Thoughts | 1 Comment

It’s a cat’s life

Well, you could say our cats have well and truly settled into their new home. They love the property and can run at full speed along the lawns and under trees and up the long driveway.

Smokey sits for ages under the Fig tree watching the bird life in it. We’ve had to put bells on him to alert the birds. He gets very well fed but still likes to hunt. Toki is content – he eats as much as he can get and lies around sleeping and surveying the world. Shadow has caught a mouse and played with it but didn’t know what to do with it. I distracted him and it got away.

Posted in Pet News | Leave a comment

Life in the Dandenongs

Well, we’ve been in our new home 5 months now.   Still not fully unpacked but liveable. Guess that means what we haven’t unpacked we might not really need, hey?  But those things are mostly DVDs, books, videos and we periodically go scrabbling through the boxes to find a movie we want to watch or something.

We’ve pretty much got a routine happening now and each day I go out with camera in hand to see what photos I can get.  We have a family of 5 kookaburras here and tons of other birdlife so there’s always something.  And I’ve recently joined the local photographic society to go on photowalks and get to know other photographers.   So far I’ve been to William Rickets Sanctuary and JW Manson Reserve where there’s a creek and ovals.  I’ve got some photos over at my photoblog.

Our first Easter in our new home, the weather has been beautiful, but it’s been marred with some sorrow. Our second Easter without Miriam and her birthday is coming up very soon. Which has also highlighted my own personal sorrow at the loss of my son 30 years ago. He would have been 31 this week.

It is Oliver’s first Easter but at 4 months of age he’s too young yet to know what it’s all about. His mum and dad happily eat the chocolate though 🙂  Mel turns 30 this year and it’s likely we’ll hold her party in our home, which is designed for entertaining.  We’ll enjoy doing that.

Posted in My Thoughts | Leave a comment

Saw a wallaby tonight

Such a gorgeous evening out. Graham and I went for a walk in the scrub at the back of our property and for the first time I saw a wallaby by the fenceline next door.  Graham and Christine had seen wallabies before but I’d always  missed out. So this was my first sighting. It was shy and bounded away once it knew we were getting closer so I didn’t get very good shots, but here’s one for you to view.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

A new season begins

Today marks the end of our first summer here in our new home.  Can’t believe we’ve also been here almost 4 months. The time has flown.  Graham has had to mow the lawns every two weeks – it is good he now has a ride on mower.

Summer (thankfully) hasn’t been as intense as last year’s.  So many people were gearing up for what looked like was going to be a long hot (and bad) summer as the heat really began later October and didn’t seem to want to let up.  However, we’ve had quite a bit of rain over January and February and being in the rainbelt in our new home means we got more rain than many other areas.  It also meant that the area wasn’t as dry as it could have been during the bushfire season.

All the same, we still had high fire alert days and Graham was able to work from home some of those days which was a relief for me.  I felt safer with him home.  We’ve had to put a fire plan together and although it’s not yet complete we do have some idea of what we need to do for future summers.  We elected to host a fireguard community group in our home.  A good way to meet our new neighbours and locals as well as learning about looking after our home and our property.

I look forward to autumn here. The Liquid Amber and Oak trees will be dropping their leaves. Already the Liquid Ambers are showing signs of autumn with their leaves turning colour. Graham says we’ll have a ton of raking to do but I don’t think I mind that really.  Will make for good mulch and it will look so pretty.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Saw a fox today

Every day is a new adventure here in Selby – well, almost.  I love exploring our land and seeing things I haven’t seen before: a flower, a bird.  Yesterday I saw a fox but missed getting a shot of it. However, now I know where it hangs out I went in search of it this morning and was rewarded with getting some shots – although not very clear ones.  Also saw a grey fantail (bird).  Graham saw a wallaby a couple of days ago – I’m still to see that.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Photos for you

I’ve had a number of people asking about photos of our new home and surroundings so I’ve finally gotten around to taking some and posting them at flickr.  If you click on the image below you’ll get to see more.  This is of the side garden looking towards the garage and back of the property.

Posted in Life in the country | Leave a comment

Life in the Dandenongs

We’ve now been in our new home for 6 weeks and this is the first weekend since we’ve shifted here that we’ve actually had time to just enjoy our home, our new surroundings and explore some of the area.

We’d promised ourselves before shifting here that we would go to the Kallista Tea Rooms on Sunday mornings for breakfast. We’d been there for morning or afternoon tea before when travelling in the area, and particularly when we were house hunting, but this is the first time since shifting that we came as ‘locals’.

It is a very popular venue and even at 9.30am on a Sunday it was pretty full, although one part was closed off for a group of MG Car enthusiasts and unfortunately for us, it happened to be the very section where we wanted to sit.

The tea rooms have glass walls – well almost glass walls. Lots of windows and outside one long length there are feeders where the native birds come and feed alongside the tea room patrons, just separated by the glass. I’d come with camera in hand hoping to get shots and was disappointed I couldn’t.  However that disappointment was shortlived because when we went out all the MGs had arrived instead and I was able to get shots of them.

Click on the one below to see more MGs on display.

And this image is just an example of the views we get along the Monbulk Road, less than 10 mins from our new home. We travel along this road to get to the tea rooms and then back home again.

Monbulk Road, Kallista

Monbulk Road, Kallista

Posted in Life in the country, My Thoughts | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Another year gone by

Life has been very different for the Thomases this year and began slowly and badly but has improved as it has passed.

We’ve gone through all the ‘first’ milestones of being without our darling Miriam but she is never far from our thoughts – at least not for Graham and me.  We talk of her often but not every single day now.

Our trip to Canada and Alaska in June was well timed – we needed time out to just be ourselves and be with those who knew nothing of what we’d been through, so we could just be ourselves.  We had a wonderful time and now have a beautiful coffee table book filled with photos from our trip.

In May, on Mother’s Day, Melanie and Ryan announced they were pregnant and this became a welcome distraction and something to look forward to.  They blessed us just a week ago with a lovely grandson named Oliver.  He really is very beautiful and we look forward to watching his growing up and having lots of cuddles with him.

Christine has bought her own home in the country – one of her dreams to have her own place and garden now being fulfilled.  She is loving this and currently has a girlfriend sharing her home with her.

Angie and Ben continue to do work on their home and gradually renovate it or fix up things. They’ve been there 3 years now.

Meredith has been working interstate but will return home to Victoria early in the new year and then will do a bit more travelling before settling into a new job.  Her friend Sara has been a tower of strength and support and has been her constant companion in Canberra.

During the year Graham and I began looking at houses for sale in the country in earnest.  We’d spent years staying at B&B cottages in secluded country places and now we finally have one that is entirely our own – although somewhat larger than a cottage. Our youngest, Angela, said she thought we were downsizing and my response was that it’s less rooms – just bigger 🙂  We shifted almost 6 weeks ago and still have a few things to unpack but getting there. Our old home has been sold. We love the surroundings of our new home and continuously discover bird life we’d not seen around before, or a plant in the garden, or something else in our new home, or something in our new area and surroundings. I expect we’ll be on a discovery tour for quite some time to come yet.  The Dandenong Ranges really is a lovely area and my camera is well and truly working overtime.

Graham and I have just celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary and we spent a quiet peaceful afternoon on a cruise boat in Pt Phillip Bay.  I’d not seen Melbourne from the water like that before and the boat was not crowded. Most of the guests stayed upstairs with the band and their workmates, so Graham and I pretty much had the bottom part to ourselves most of the time.  It was a gorgeous day too – couldn’t have been better.  Thank you Father for such a beautiful time together.

Thank you for visiting this blog over the past years, for your comments, emails, encouragement and support as needed.  I look forward to what life will bring us in the new year and showing you our new home and surroundings as each season passes.  Below is one of our resident kookaburras. I’ve counted four so far on our property.

DSC_5168_edited-1

Have a Merry Christmas – make sure you spend it in the company of people you enjoy being with.  Happy New Year to you also.

Posted in My Thoughts | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

What are the odds?

Graham and I got married in December 1991.  My eldest daughter was all of 11 at the time and elected not to take on his surname but my other two daughters did.  When we married we had 5 daughters between the ages of 4 and 11.

Move forward 7 years and Melanie (our eldest) meets Ryan Thomas.  We thought that funny but more than that, Ryan’s birthday is exactly the same day as Graham’s.  Melanie married Ryan 5 years later and ended up with the surname Thomas after all.  When Graham turned 50 Ryan turned 25.  Ryan shares some similar interests to Graham including cycling – road and mountain.

Move forward another 5 years.  Melanie and Ryan have just had their first baby who they named Oliver.  Oliver’s birth date is 1st December.  3 Thomas males, 3 generations and sharing birth dates of 1st December.

Posted in Family News | Tagged , , | Leave a comment