All Saints Estate, Wahgunyah

We went to lunch at All Saints Estate recently.  The restaurant is called The Terrace and in the past was in a permanent marquis type structure.  But they are undergoing some major renovations and so the restaurant has moved to their events hall.  This is a large hall, lined with wine barrels that are still in use.

Why was this a trigger?  Well, 22 years ago our daughter was married at All Saints Estate in their rose garden, with the reception in this very hall.  While the marriage did not last, it was interesting to look around and try to remember it as it was set up for the occasion.  I could not work out whether it looked bigger or smaller.  It was hard to picture how we had set up the venue.  Memories from the past are not always as clear as we expect.  And the layout as a restaurant and tasting room were a far cry from a wedding reception arrangement, overshadowing what it would have looked like many years ago.

Northeast Victoria

But there is even more. 

Our daughter had met her husband in Wodonga; his family came from Yackandandah; they bought their first home in Chiltern. 

The weekend after our lunch in Wahgunyah we had a visit from my sister-in-law, escaping Melbourne for the first time.  She had some business to conduct in the area, as well as wanting to spend some time with us.  The areas she wanted to visit from a business perspective were Wodonga and Chiltern.  Then she wanted to visit Beechworth, with signs to Yackandandah along the route from Chiltern to Beechworth.  A long day in the car with her but seeing places and place names from twenty years ago.

So in the space of five days I visited and saw much from our daughter’s past.

Ballet

Is this one a trigger?  I am not sure.  But maybe.  Perhaps though it is just history repeating itself.

I have just been speaking with our granddaughter who had some news.  She has been accepted into an elite dance program at her local ballet school.  This effectively involves full-time ballet/dance.  Schooling is by negotiation with her local secondary school, or distance schooling.  A lot of discipline required to keep up the studies while spending much of every day at the dance school.

Why is this a trigger – or history repeating itself?  Our daughter, her mother, also attended an elite dance program from around the same age.  The advantage our daughter had was the school she attended had a program in place for the young people involved in elite dance training.  In years 8-9 two of their elective subjects were dance, and in year 10, three subjects were dance.  Their sport was dance rather than school-based sport activities.  They spent four afternoons a week at dance classes, so only spent one full day a week at school.  Add to this all-day Saturday every week, and often Sunday as well if there was a visiting dance teacher.

I am yet to find out more of the details of what is involved for our young granddaughter.  It does seem after trying lots of different activities she has at last found an activity she is passionate about. 

Joy Shirley
​November 2021

​Triggers rule our lives. Remember that. At least they do mine.

For me only some triggers are welcome. Sometimes we cannot remember a name. A simple thing. An everyday thing. A common thing. It can be very frustrating. And annoying. And at times depressing. It can only portend of bad things for the future. The trick is to tie it to a trigger. Tie it to an object that comes into contact with what you are seeking and it can suddenly become clear.

Some triggers are repetitive and well meaning. Our lives are definitely more enjoyable when we are reminded of benign memories.

Whenever I see a middle aged man holding a baby I am reminded of my uncle holding my brother and telling me that there was a special way of holding a baby if you want him to stop crying. Hold him just like this and he will stop crying he said. He demonstrated how to hold him by holding with his left hand and gesturing with his right. I was 4 years old. My brother stopped crying. My uncle laughed self satisfactorily. He did not have any children himself. I was never allowed to hold my brother by himself.

I enjoy it when a trigger sets off a series of happy thoughts.

Sometimes a trigger can remind me of a job I once had where I enjoyed every minute of it. I was happy doing this job from 9 to 5.10 every day with a full hour for lunch. The work was interesting and varied. It was never tedious or dull. There was always a problem to be solved. Every problem was enjoyable and sometimes required a certain amount of thought. Sometimes I was involved in quite important things I thought could end up historical. None did. All my work colleges except one were helpful and friendly. My day was a total joy from beginning to end. I was certainly never bored. I was always happy to go to work every day. I woke up each day with an expectation I would be doing good things. I was aware of the concept of the pursuit of happiness.

I am reminded of this job when I see a person in charge of their desk. When a person sits at their desk and says via their body language that they are in control of the desk and with it the job I am always thankfully reminded of my earlier life. I was in charge of my desk also. I controlled whatever situation that came up. I knew that I was the best person for this job. There was no one else who could do it as well as me. I sat happily in the chair at the desk.

But unfortunately I have more bad triggers than good ones. I have a lifetime of triggers. Hardly any are benign.

I have done a lots of things I regret and they all have triggers that remind me from time to time. I am always filled with a sense of deep remorse when a bad memory is triggered. After the trigger is set off for some time I am filled with an overwhelming sense of shame. This is sometimes hard to erase. I am sometimes filled with such regret that I cannot function for some minutes.

I like to believe this is common for all humans.

Triggers rule our lives.

But I am not so sure if this is for all Australians.

Neville Gibb
November 2021

During lockdown I read an article in 'The New Yorker', 'What if remote work didn't mean working from home?'  While reading it, I began reflecting on times in my life when I've WFH (Worked from home), WFNH (Worked from near home) and WAFHOOWH (Worked away from home).

The author*, in a quirky, thought-provoking article, presents a compelling case for why working from near home can be better than working from home as relational noise and cues  abound at home, particularly if living with other people.

Living alone, I’m not distracted directly by other people, but it seems that I’m super tuned in to ‘object related’ visual cues at home, jobs of various types which need attention, and can find it difficult to focus.  It seems I have three options…

• Stay at home and keep responding to object related cues
• Stay at home and blot out all object related cues while focussing to the extent that nothing gets done
• Find somewhere else to work where I’m less distracted… even calm

History suggests I prefer the latter!
​
During the late 1980’s early 1990’s I returned to University, taking Master of Education courses and completing a postgraduate Bachelor of Social Work.  All required essays to be written.  At the time my sister and her husband had a holiday house on Phillip Island, not a long walk from the Woolamai beach which has a view across to the bridge from San Remo.  They generously allowed me to use the house as an escape to write.  I’d work on an essay, then go for a long walk on the beach.   My unconscious seemed to keep working on the essay during the walk and I’d invariably return to my desk refreshed, with a new angle or other way to improve my essay. A car ride from the Woolamai surf beach for a bracing walk was also a wonderful way to blow the cobwebs away.

In the late 70’s, early 80’s, I volunteered to produce a newsletter for the Daylesford Arts Cooperative.  It was great fun.  I rented a room in an old hotel in the middle of town which had empty studios to produce the newsletter.  I can remember it now – my state of the art golfball typewriter on a desk in the corner, a trestle table to layout the copy.  It was a space set aside from my working life at school and home life in a miners’ cottage on Wombat Hill near the now Convent Gallery.

When did this habit of ‘working away from home’ begin?  During my high school years, I attended a school in East Malvern in Melbourne, not far from my grandparents’ home in North Caulfield.  I was a book worm, enjoyed school, reading and working on my assignments, somewhat difficult in a small war service home where I shared a room with my sister and also had to cope with a somewhat temperamental war veteran father whose mood swings troubled me.  Being able to stay with my grandparents during the week was a great relief, enabling me to focus on the essays and tasks I had to complete.

There are many other examples – usually involving deciding to work at school after hours rather than work at home which, as I had a key to the school building, I could do.  This was a common pattern in my early teaching years when teachers would often work at the school out of hours.  In the last 13 years of my paid working life, I worked at GOTAFE in both Wangaratta and Benalla.  My car could often be seen in the car park out of hours, as I found it easier to focus on tasks at hand.

I’ve occasionally been known to go away when the newsletter is being transferred to the website, working on it while on escape to Daylesford, even to Watson’s Bay on Sydney Harbour. 

Even as I finish this, I’m sitting in the U3A office – where, in between other tasks, and having read the article on my email listing, I’ve been able to focus on (and enjoyed) writing this piece!
____________________________________
 
Cal Newport ‘What if Remote Work Didn’t Mean Working from Home? We need to separate our jobs and where we live’.  The New Yorker.  May 22, 2021.  https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/remote-work-not-from-home? 

​This is a similar image to one of the windows in the room.

We did not have a lounge at this window, but a café style booth with bench seats on either side of a central table.

​However, the view is the same as we had from our room. The other window in the room contained the king sized bed.

Trigger No. 2: I was watching the news about yet another change in the Japanese Government, when I reflected on some of the more unusual events that took place during my visits to Japan on business. I was part of a group of engineers, marketing and sales people from around the world, who were asked by Nissan Diesel to work on a world standard specification for vehicles that could be sold in any country in the world, with the only option being right or left hand drive. 

One day we were to take a break from our meetings. We were collected from the proving ground at Gunma, and taken to the nearby village of Mashiko. This is one of the areas in Japan that is renowned for the production of ceramics and pottery.  The coach stopped outside this very narrow lane within the village. Myself, and Johnny Marks from South Africa, were the tallest members of the group, both being around 190 cm. An older Japanese gentleman walked down the lane towards us. The older gentleman was from the business we were about to visit, he would have been all of 150 cm tall, and when he stooped over he was even shorter. He took myself and Johnny Marks by the hand, one on either side of himself, and walked us back down the lane. One of our group did take a photograph, however I do not have a copy. 

The man took us to what appeared to be a small factory building, which was in traditional Japanese style and looked very old. Inside there were potters throwing dinner plates in one room. In the next, were mainly women, decorating these plates with two blue bands, similar to the one shown here, but the bands were about half of the width. In the next room the plates were dipped in glaze and placed on racks. I believe that the kiln area was off to the side of the facility, however we were not taken in there due to space restrictions and safety concerns. As we walked out of this smaller building into a huge enclosed space, we were greeted with the sight of literally hundreds, if not thousands, of these plates on racks. There were also rows and rows of racks with serving trays, bowls of various sizes, and a variety of other crockery items, all decorated with the same two blue bands. It was then explained to the group that this business supplied the crockery for most of the 5 star hotels in Tokyo, and they had been doing it for over 400 years. These hotels replace their crockery every 12 months, so there is a constant flow of work for the factory.

Trigger 3: Whilst watching the telecast of the Melbourne Cup, I noticed a horse called ‘Tralee Rose’. This brought back a flood of memories from times past when my father, who had a magnificent tenor voice, would sing this song to my mother, when coaxed at public events.  The original Tralee Rose was also Mary O’Connor, the beautiful young girl who inspired the annual Rose of Tralee International Festival. The song ‘Rose of Tralee’ dates back to an original poem written in 1846 by Edward Mordaunt Spencer. The words of the song are credited to Edward Mordaunt Spencer and the music to Charles William Glover, and from records, it appears to have been written around 1850, although no accurate date was located. The song had a revival in 1930, when John Mc Cormack sang the song at the Tralee Festival. It was later recorded by such greats as Mario Lanza and Bing Crosby. 

The chorus,

Though lovely and fair as the rose of the summer
Yet, 'twas not her beauty alone that won me
Oh no! 'Twas the truth in her eye ever beaming
That made me love Mary, the Rose of Tralee.

Barry O’Connor.
November 2021.

The U.S. Open Golf Championship has been played recently. When I am asked if I play golf I sometimes say, “I’ve played at Royal Melbourne.” The golfers look at me with admiration and ask what my handicap is. Then I explain.

When I was at primary school at Black Rock during World War 2, my friends were Italian children who lived in an old house in the bush up Cheltenham Rd. Their father was a prisoner of war who  worked on farms at Tatura and their mother worked long hours in a factory. I sometimes went home with them at school lunch time.

The Royal Melbourne Golf Club is also at the end of Cheltenham Rd. This is in the days of petrol rationing. The members catch the tram to Black Rock and are picked up by a horse drawn coach that takes them up the scrub lined road to the Club.

It’s on the kid’s way home from school. When they hear the horse approaching at a stately trot they hide in the bushes. When it’s abreast they leap out, calling out in high falsetto voices, leaping alternately into the air. I am given a place in the leaping order. It’s a very impressive operatic performance and someone is always in mid air; great choreography. The horse is a big fiery, half draught chestnut mare. When we leap out she turns her head to look at us, rolls the whites of her eyes, shies across the road and then bolts. The driver is a big man with a red face who wrestles with the reins; he looks as if he has no sense of humour. The coach is completely enclosed in black canvas blinds so the golfers can’t see what’s going on!

We sometimes jump in the bunkers on the way back to school. A running jump over the edge and you’re airborne like a bird, then land on your heels and slide down the beautiful white sand. If the golfers see us they run at us, shouting and waving golf clubs in the air! We don’t understand why they get so excited.

Somehow Mother gets to hear of these escapades. I am sent to a polite girl’s school at Sandringham. It's a culture shock!

Two years later my sister goes to work in the office at the Royal Melbourne Golf Club. The green keeper, who used to burst into the office before important golf tournaments, fuming about those damn kids in the bunkers again, is off work with high blood pressure.

The horse drawn coach no longer runs up Cheltenham Rd. The horse Ginger has been retired because of her dangerous behaviour. She would bolt up the road and into the long driveway to the Clubhouse at flat gallop, and then stop dead on a white line that the coach wasn’t meant to cross, causing the members who were seated in the back to be thrown onto the floor!
I was eight, for us it wasn’t malicious, just a lot of fun and it was only a game. 

Bev Morton
​November 2020

'Challenged' ... a story about Christmas and Easter Dues triggered in my memory when talking to someone who always seems to want to be superior... 
​
When I was child in the 1940s and early 1950s there were loosely five classes of people. The upper classes who lived in mansions and had servants, followed by the middle classes who were business people and farmers with larger farms. Not huge farms, but not ten or twenty acres either. The doctors, solicitors, and teachers were part of this class too.   The next group was the working class, labourers, shop workers, truck drivers, cooks, seamstresses, and a host of other occupations. These people lived mainly in cottages. Then there were the people who had ‘come down’ in the world and those who had ‘gone up’ in the world.
 
Every Christmas and Easter, parishioners were expected to contribute to the upkeep of the greater institution of the church. This was in the form of ‘Dues’. At Mass on a Sunday soon after the day the ‘Dues’ were paid the priest read the names of the head of each family and the amount they had contributed.
 
Patrick Brady, as I will call him, was one of those people who had ‘come up’ in the world. He was not a well-liked man, being a harsh employer. He paid very low wages and his employees had to work long hours. Even we children didn’t like him. The biggest, juiciest sloes grew on the blackthorn hedges in one of his fields. If he discovered we had been in his field he would complain to our teacher.
 
Twice a year, every year, his name would be top of the list when the priest read out the names of the donors. Patrick Brady - one pound. Then came the names of the upper classes. Samuel Moore - 15 shillings, Michael Rigby - 15 shillings followed by the middle classes, several names - 10 shillings. The next block of names was the vast bulk of the parishioners, mainly families where the husband/father was fully employed. So and So - 5 shillings. After that came the 2 shilling and sixpence (half a crown) contributors. Finally the names of a couple of widows with very little income, Mrs. A – one shilling, Mrs. B – one shilling.
 
This was the norm year after year. People barely listened. Everybody knew what each family had given or if they had not given anything (horror of horrors).
 
One Christmas it all changed and it sure caused a stir. The priest read;
William Devine – Three pounds.
Patrick Brady - One pound.
The rest of the list was as usual.
 
The Devine’s had come ‘down in’ the world, but now with their children finished school they must have been on the way up again. The community considered them a peculiar family, not like most of the other families. For a start they named one of their boys ‘Virgil’. They liked to do their own thing no matter what the local community thought.
 
Everybody knew Patrick Brady would be ‘ropable’ at being pushed into second place. He thought being top of the list gave him supremacy.
 
There was great anticipation what would happen with the Easter ‘Dues’.
I think not one family missed Mass on the Sunday of the reading of the Easter contributions.
The priest read;
Patrick Brady – five pound and continued down the list to William Devine – 10 shillings.
 
People were delighted. Patrick Brady had been made to pay fitting ‘dues’, both those to place him at the top of the list and some of what he owed society. It would be difficult for him to return to his usual donation of one pound.
 
But the Devine’s weren’t done yet. The following Christmas the game continued;
William Devine – eight pounds.
Patrick Brady – five pounds.
 
Then at Easter;
Patrick Brady - Ten pounds.
William Devine – 10 shillings.
And that’s where it stayed. ☺
 
 
Elizabeth Kearns
​November 2020

​Triggers! Really! Sounds like a horse or a dog. But my last story has triggered many more memories of Glenferrie and Hawthorn in the 1950s. 

Despite our stage three lockdown restrictions with only four reasons to leave home, I’ve snuck out and  illegally driven to Wangaratta to the Park Lane Plant Nursery to buy more Bergenia and what a surprise--- they had red flowering varieties. And I bought a rhubarb crown. Red must be the in colour and that brings me back to the red bricks of the Glenferrie of my early childhood, from about 1952 to 1955.

Of course the district is built of brick. The speckled Hawthorn bricks are famous and are still highly sought after. Melbourne sits on a rich basalt layer and by the 1860s there were fifty brickyards in Melbourne. Bricks slowly replaced the huge quantities of bluestone that were quarried as the bricks were lighter.

The open gutter lined with Bergenias in our back yard then carried the household water waste to the laneway at the rear. Attached to the building was our smelly outhouse and all the laneways were there in part to give access to the night man. And beside that was a huge patch of rhubarb. So I’m planting another memory.

I vaguely remember eating stewed rhubarb or stewed apple or plum. Everything was stewed and bottled then. How I survived I can only wonder. For school lunch there was a pork sausage and sauce sandwich one day of the week. The next day was sauce only. Next day was a banana sandwich and the next day was a sugar sandwich. One day a week I was given threepence to get a lunch order that was written out on a brown paper bag. Mum never knew but I didn’t ever hand it in. I used the threepence to buy a cream bun with a dollop of jam in it. They are still made the same, well they look the same. I think we really got by on the daily dose of Hypol and Saunders Malt to take up any vitamin slack.

​I watched the children enjoying themselves at the newly opened Splash Park and it brought a smile to my face to see the brand new colourful equipment, and the clean, crystal clear water. It triggered a memory of the fun times we had all through the summer, down at our local pool. Our swimming pool was a far cry from the pristine pool and splash park the kids enjoy today.

I am not sure when it was actually built, but it was one of the earliest and biggest ones around, with a length of 44 yards and 22 yards in width. The sides were brick, the bottom was gravel and the shallow end had a rusty old pipe running along the bricks as a kick bar to aid children and non swimmers. The water came in from the lake situated above the pool.  It certainly wasn’t crystal clear and there was no way we could see the bottom, which made diving for things a challenge.

The biggest challenge, however was keeping clear of the leeches. It meant we had to keep moving while we were in the water, otherwise we’d find the black bloodsuckers hanging from our leg, which meant splashing vigorously until it dropped off. The young boys would catch them and pass the time turning them inside out on sticks and lining them up in the sun.

Just before the ladder halfway down the length of the pool there was a slide which provided hours of fun, and the kids came up with all sorts of ways to come down it into the water. I can’t remember any accidents and I must point out that there was no adult supervision other than a parent or two that may have accompanied their child or came for a swim themselves. Warm weekends meant the pool was enjoyed by many of the locals.

Each summer Chiltern hosted a carnival attracting swimmers from visiting towns. It was a big affair and the kiosk was opened to provide drinks, ice creams and other refreshments. There were events including breast stroke, backstroke, butterfly and relays, but the most popular to watch were the diving events and the skill demonstrated on that springboard.

Besides the big annual event the town held its own night carnival for the locals and the pool was lit up by green metal lights strung across the water. I competed in some of the events and am proud to confess to winning places in events including the diving. But the most exciting prize was the duck. The final event open to all was the Duck Hunt, where everyone lined up around the pool and someone released a duck in the middle. Everyone jumped in to try to catch the poor scared duck, which swam in all directions. I caught it once (only because it swam towards me), which meant I got to keep it. Although father rigged up a pen to keep it overnight, it was gone by morning.  I could only hope it wasn’t a fox’s breakfast.

I am pleased to report that there were no drownings or diseases eventuating from our times in the pool, except for the odd earache. The only precaution taken was the pool was drained and cleaned during the season.

​
Betty Milligan
November 2020

In the back of a wardrobe I recently came across an old apron, one of my mother’s many aprons. It was a dainty floral cotton material, edged with green bias binding, made in a wrap-around style with two large pockets. I associated aprons with my mother and grandmothers, who were great believers in keeping their clothes clean and tidy.
                                                                                                  
Thinking about the history of aprons over the years, they were basically to protect clothes, especially in the times when women didn't have an extensive wardrobe of dresses, and laundering was an arduous chore. Aprons had many other uses as well. When cleaning house odds and ends could be collected in the huge pockets, and small toys picked up. When unexpected visitors were sighted coming up the path a room could be hastily tidied, things stashed in pockets and the apron hastily pushed behind a cushion in time to answer the door.                                                                        

In the garden, those large pockets carried small forks, seed packets, and vegetables. Around the farm yard eggs could be carefully carried in the pockets. Shy children could hide under mother’s apron and it was even used for wiping runny noses.   
​                                                                           
School  and church fetes would have been bare without an array of aprons on their stalls. I even remember parades of aprons to decide the prettiest. One of the first things I made in needlework class was an apron.  Perhaps they will make a come-back again as a fashion statement!  My mother often supported the stalls by buying an apron.


Margaret Nelson
November 2020

​A story I was reading brought back memories of swagmen. They were men who travelled from town to town, carrying their belongings in a swag (or bed roll). Mostly they were victims of circumstances, such the depression of the 30’s, men who couldn’t find work after the war, or even running from the law. There was no dole then, so they were mostly dependent on the generosity of people.
                                   
I remember swaggies coming to our farm, I don’t remember them coming to the door, though usually the dogs made such a racket they waited outside the yard. There was one man in particular who turned up regularly, known as Mr. Flannigan. I remember seeing him standing there with his swag  slung from his shoulder and his black billy and tin mug. Mum always made him sandwiches with meat if it was available, filled his billy with tea, and gave him extra tea leaves, salt, sugar and flour. Sometimes they cut some wood, but Mum usually didn't take up this offer. After he went on his way, I’m sure she went to the party-line phone to alert the neighbours that he was headed their direction. One swaggie surprised us with a request for boot polish.  We found out later that it made a potent drink when mixed with methylated spirits.                                                                                                                                         
The swagmen mostly went from farm to farm, dodging towns as the police moved them on.  I do remember another swaggie who regularly came into Violet Town, known as Farmer Hill.  A tall thin man with long flowing hair, he was always bare footed, even in winter. I was a little scared of him!  
                  
The swaggies were harmless, but the gypsies were another kettle of fish. They arrived in big cars, the women in long dresses with large pockets, and entered the shops in groups, with some men distracting the shopkeepers while the women looked around, fingering goods and pocketing some. Their visits were not welcome!  However the swagmen were tolerated and fed.

Margaret Nelson
​November 2020

​When you think about it, there are triggers all over the place. 

Walking with some friends last week, somehow the conversation turned to young couples and marriage.  Or perhaps it was lack of marriage, as many couple do not actually marry these days.  Here was a trigger.  It started me thinking about my nieces and nephews… as well as our own children.

I have 11 nieces and nephews, all adults these days.  And there are my own two children.  All the children from the generation are in long term relationships, most with children.  From memory, I think most of these young people lived with their future partner before marriage.  I can only think of two who were still living with their parents before marriage.

My nieces are all married, including one who thought she would never marry!  And our daughter is married – her husband wanted a family but thought they should be married before having a baby.

As for the boys, that seems to be a different story.   At this stage, only two are married, although all are in a relationship.  Our son is one of the two who are married, and 18 months before marrying he had raised the question with me as to how I felt about couples not marrying as he did not think it necessary.  He had even told his now wife that he did not belief in marriage.

​It was an interesting exercise thinking about these young people and raises the question as to why it is the boys who are not marrying.  Although one has been interested in marrying his partner, somehow it has not happened.
 
Joy Shirley
November 2020

I had used several triggers in previous contributions and had run out of ideas.  But the other day, as we were talking about our newly renovated bathroom, my husband and I realised that we have often undertaken renovations.  We had just said that we were not renovators when we remembered that in fact, we have often undertaken renovations.  We are just not people who do the work ourselves.

Our first home was in an outer suburb of Melbourne. We had just had our first baby and I was no longer working.  We added a garage and sealed the gravel driveway with bitumen to help keep the weeds down.  Not a major change and nothing inside the house.

We moved to Adelaide when our second child was around 15 months.  We extended the house, but I cannot remember the driving force for this.  The extension “gave birth” to a second room.  The proposed family room ended up with a second room as a study/spare room.  This was a more major renovation.

The home we bought on returning to Melbourne was a fifty’s house in Box Hill.  The kitchen was certainly dated, with little (NO!) bench space.  I used a table in the kitchen as a bench.  But eventually it had to change.  This was the first kitchen we renovated.

Then came a move back to Adelaide.  This was a lovely home with no changes required.  Still we managed to make a small change.  It had a pitched roof, with the ceiling space high enough to stand.  So we put a floor into the ceiling cavity and added pull down steps for access to form a workshop area.

In 1987 we moved to Canberra.  A year later, after selling our Adelaide home, we looked for a larger home to meet the needs of our teenagers.  Not finding anything suitable, another renovation was required.  The family room we added includes a major change to the kitchen.  So another major kitchen renovation.  Of course, it was less than 18 months later that both our children decided to leave home.  We ended up living in this house longer than any other home and ended up making another renovation.

There was a further move within Canberra.  This was a brand-new house, so really nothing to do.  We did manage a minor change – a new pergola over a large courtyard after adding some coloured patterning to the concrete.

So this brings us to Benalla.  Over the last two years we have renovated the kitchen and main bathroom.  And we have had the house painted and new carpet.  With a planned en-suite bathroom renovation for next year, we believe we will not need to do anything in the house for the next twenty years.  It will be interesting to see if this is the case.

So for a family that are not really “into renovations”, we seem to have made quite a few.

Joy Shirley
​November 2020