visiting Melbourne (Jan 2003)

In the days after Christmas Dave and I caught up with friends and family in Melbourne. At some of the gatherings people filmed. Much of it isn't great footage but it brought back memories so thought I'd upload it for posterity.

Sam's alpacas - we spent New Year's Eve with friends on their property in Deniliquin. They breed alpacas, who are wonderful creatures - so inquisitive and cute but quite bizarre looking too in an Australian setting. Especially so at this time of year where they looked so scrawny from only recently being sheared! Notice too that they all look like they're wearing legwarmers... this is because they don't shear below their knee as it helps to give them some protection against snake bite.



Horse riding with Dad - This is only a very short clip as Mum filmed it while we were just saddling up. I remember we went galloping up a dirt road in the forest and trekking along some overgrown parts you had to duck to avoid trees.



Trip on Puffing Billy - Puffing Billy is a lovely steam train that goes up through the hills past Belgrave. Most Melbourne schoolkids have fond memories of school excursions to ride on it. It's a lovely way to spend a few hours. I have especially good memories of it as we hired Puffing Billy for our wedding; we took all the guests up into the hills for the day and had a lovely late night ride back. Anyway, this is some snippets from a trip I took with Dave and Pete one afternoon.



BBQ at Pete's house - In the evening after going on Puffing Billy we went to Pete's house in Belgrave. Mum and Dad came over and we had a BBQ in the front garden. Dad did some filming and commentary including lots of Tummothy, our cat who Pete was looking after.



Garden at Upwey - This is some rough film of the backyard of a house Dave & I bought a few years ago, so we'd have somewhere to live if we needed to return to Melbourne suburbia. The house looks a lot more dilapidated than it really is, but the reason I fell in love with it is because of the garden. It is wonderful, nearly 3/4 of an acre with lots of established trees including enormous rhododendrons and treeferns. Because the garden is so nice one of Dave's friends Wayne (who maintains gardens for a living) looks after it so we don't have to rely on the tenants. On this trip back Dave helped Wayne clear out some blackberries that had run riot in the bottom of the garden. I went along to help too as this was the first (and only) chance I've ever had to spend any time there.



Gran at Sim's Lodge - this was the last time I saw Gran when she was living at Sims Lodge. This was a nursing home for people in the early stages of dementia and it really felt like a home. Families were encouraged to come and go as much as they wanted, so Gran usually had at least 1 or 2 visitors every weekend (it was 3 hours drive away from where everyone else lived, but it was the best nursing home Mum found and in the area Gran had spent the past 30-odd years). Gran was quite frail but still able to talk and move around on her own. It was a lovely visit.

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Evening BBQ at Dave's parents - they have a lovely patio area where we've spent many happy evenings. This film is from fairly late on in the night and the big event was the arrival of "Poss", the possum who came down to eat scraps left out for him!