Last full day in the megatropolis of Melbourne and we have pretty much everything done at this stage. Fraser went early to have a coffee with our old friend Neil whilst Di stayed behind as she has the hives back that have been plagueing her for the last two months. She had two huge fat lips, eyes almost closed over with a swollen face and welts all over her torso. Everyone kept saying she looked like the Simpson hence she didn’t really want to go out as she felt pretty hideous.
After some antihistamine things calmed down sufficiently that we drove to the suburb of Prahan to meet up with Frasers mum and Aunty Jen. Aunty Jen is in a care facility and we thought it nice if we took her for a day out. We drove around some of the area where they grew up and visited their childhood home but of course it has been pulled down. There were just the two girls in the family and Aunty Jen had no children and Frasers dad was an only child, so hence he had no cousins to beat up on.
We took them down to the Brighton Boxes where we had been a couple of weeks ago as this is the area they use to come down to for a swim as kids. They were saying that when they were kids, the boxes were not painted brightly like they are today and were mostly in a derelict state. There was talk in the 1970’s of pulling them all down but the locals saw the heritage value of them so petitioned to keep them. Probably a number of caveats such as keeping them in good condition and painting them in bright colours enabled their survival.
We then headed back to our old hunting ground of Elwood for a cup of coffee at our Turtle Café. Jen does some outings organised through the care facility but not involves herself this much. She did enjoy coming out with us but after two hours she was starting to tire very quickly.
Before we left Elwood, we popped along to see this dry cleaners that had their front window filled with Singer sewing machines. There is a lot of relevance for Barb and Jen regarding Singer machine. Their dad started his working life with Singer Co. and later went into business with his two brothers. They formed Smith Sewing Machines working for 35 years in the city centre.
We dropped Jen back at the care facility and made our way into Henty House for the last time for two months. We had a cuppa and said our farewells and then off out to Heidelberg in the heart of rush hour traffic – ughhh. It took us a full hour to get home. Tonight we enjoyed a meal with Belinda out on the back patio in great evening weather which had cooled down to about 20c. We played our second night of 500 with us, Belinda and Will, her youngest son. He was absolutely stoked as he won the game with Fraser as his partner. There will be a replay at the end of March when we are back in town!!!
Rowkin Rovings Blog 