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

​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