In my life: 2025

Friday, 5 September 2025

A Winter Wonderland! (Maybe not). Saturday 2nd August 2025

Boy, did it snow. This is the heaviest snowfall in Armidale since the 1980's.

It started off fluffy, nice and pretty..

It confused a Magpie.

Then it didn't stop.

We wouldn't have got out of the driveway.

I'm glad I am now retired as it would have been a nightmare trying to get nurses into town to work.

Also getting them home from work. I imagine there were a lot of double shifts that weekend.

That's our red roof completely white.

The roads are all closed, people are stuck on highways.

THEN THE POWER WENT OUT!

We were lucky that ours was only off for several hours, but many people had no power for days.

There have been so many horror stories of older people stuck at home with no heating.

THANK YOU to the poor essential energy people having to go out and do their best to fix things with impassable roads and in dreadful conditions.

Hi my Mum's Dear Readers,

It's Miss Lizzy here to tell you how much I luvvved the snow!

It was sooo much fun.

At 4 o'clock, when we took Graham out for a play,

he'd throw our toys and the toys disappeared into the snow!

I had to dig around to find it, snow flew around everywhere, hilarious!

I got covered in snow. Mum said I looked like a big snowball.

Teddy didn't like it, it was too close to his undercarriage.

Did you know that I think it is my job to monitor the goings on in the park next door?

When people visited the park to look at the snowy view

I had to lope down the hill, barking, to let them know I was keeping an eye on them.

Then I found that the snow came up further than my leg pits and it was hard work getting back up the hill because I needed to jump through it.

I can eat snow, its a bit cold like ice cream, but tastes like water.

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Until next time

Love and (cold) wet noses from

Miss Lizzy

I'll take the blog back now, thanks Miss Liz for your thoughts on the snow event.

You can see how heavy it was by how the tree branches are weighed down.

The trees that suffered the most were the pine trees, surprisingly for trees from the northern hemisphere huge trees just collapsed, in a concertina effect. What a mess and the whole town smelt like pine.

Wattles didn't fair well either, but the biggest damage was to the gums. Branches down everywhere. A lot of branches were just bent but when we had big winds a couple of weeks later huge limbs where crashing down. A month on its still bad, dying branches are everywhere.

Worse was damage to peoples roofs, gutters, collapsed sheds, the roads are a mess. Everything's a mess.It was just a total disruption to normal life.

Then Sunday morning all silence under a blanket of snow. (See first photo of the post as well).

It was gone by the end of the day and melted into great rivulets of water and slush.

Thursday, 4 September 2025

Sydney Opera House Concert 28th June 2025

So back in Sydney and time for the second concert

which featured a very young artist named Christian Li.

Not as packed as it was for Lang Lang.

We sat in a different place this time. With lots of steps!

Then during interval a lot of people left. They only wanted to see the young fellow.

Which was a shame as the second half was really good, and a great concert to be able to see the percussionists of the SSO.

Symphonic dances from West Side Story was fantastic.

MAMBO!

Two more concerts later in the year.

Friday, 29 August 2025

Melbourne 23rd to 27th June 2025

As we had Sydney Opera House concerts on two weekends in a row I decided we should fly to Melbourne for a 4 night stay.

We stayed at the Sebel Apartments in Little Flinders lane.

(Matthew Flinders again,, that man seems to pop up in my life everywhere.. A true friend of the blog).

This is a vacation club property so we used our points to stay there. (Free, sort of)

A short walk to the trams, the trains and lots of fancy restaurants.

It was very 'noice'..

Not as fancy as the Fairmont in Amman, but still pretty great...

They are about to do a big renovation..

Still looks okay to me.

I accidentally managed to get us both in the mirror in the below pic.

Anyway,

what did we get up to in Melbourne this time around.

Tuesday

Rippon Lea

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We are National Trust members so its nice to get some free entries to things.

So we took a train ride out there and walked from the station.

I've been here before but it must have been 1980ish.

After a bit of a hunt around I found the photos!

Here is Peter with new baby Alice my Aunt, Merrill and Mum.

In the old school days of film cameras.

How old was I, taking these photos.. 16 going on 17? (I must have been using my first Canon camera, the current SX70 is my third Canon).

Anyway, 45 years on its time for a return visit to the marvelous house Rippon Lea.

I didnt take a photo of the facade as there were film trucks everywhere.

There is lots of kids running around in 1950's tennis dresses and it was freezing and windy.

Ah Ha, I've just googled it, they are making a mini series about Evonne Goolagong Cawley.

https://www.ripponleaestate.com.au/

One of my favorite book series, and then later a TV show,

Miss Fisher filmed a number scenes here.

Here is Miss Phryne Fisher looking dazzling and dangerous.

We had a guided tour.

And my photo from 45 years ago

Wednesday

Melbourne Museum

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I've been here before, back in about 1998 with the boys on one of my single Mum trips.

But I can't find those photos... hummm, in a box with other albums I suspect.

Then I was very taken with this fellow, named the Sad Otter.

And as if I don't have enough fluffy friends, in my life, for a 62 year old girl, I bought my own sad otter.

Here she is with the Harrods bears. She is named Midge and when you feel a bit sad give her a cuddle and you will feel a whole lot better! Those of a certain age will remember the book and movie 'A Ring of Bright Water' and its star was an otter named Midge

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But now onto something else that's not only stuffed but extinct.

I wonder if we'll see Tassie Tigers again?

I think there is every possibility... but maybe not in my lifetime.

And we pay our respects to the great Phar Lap.

Then after a very expensive lunch (fish and chips, the prices are extraordinary) at the Museum it was back into town for the..

State Library of Victoria.

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I didn't take the above because it was raining and my hip was feeling dodgy so I borrowed this pic from online. I like the pigeons.

But I did take all the rest of the photos and I was particularly fascinated by the Lego model...

For a change it's one of the places in Melbourne that we haven't been to before and it was absolutely wonderful. Beautiful building.

We took another guided tour that went for about 90 minutes which explains why my dodgy hip was growling at the end.

Merrill worked here before she retired.

As you know from previous posts, I do like a bit of graffiti.

Here's Ned.

I'm sure this was in the Old Melbourne gaol when I was here in 1998 with the boys.( I'll have to find those photo albums).

Look at how beautiful this reading room is.

Then that night another adventure.

Queen Victoria Market

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Now we have done this before in 2016. It was great then, great food, packed with people, and lovely stalls to buy stuff. So here we are in Melbourne on a Wednesday, so lets GO!

On a tram, which still in the free no pay tram zone.

So much choice on what to eat. You could come here every week and eat something different.

We started with mulled wine which wasn't up to spec. The Christmas Markets in Germany do it better and serve the Gluwine in beautiful china mugs. Here's Graham after returning our plastic mugs...