20190126.1 – Saturday – The girls

20190 126.1 – Saturday – The girls

Around lunch time on Saturday, Australia Day, I arrived at Bremer Farm.

Kate and Selina had not yet arrived but Lorrely L had! 

Lorreley had ridden her bike from her home in Callington to Bremer farm, on the off chance that she would find Selena home. 

Since Selena was NOT at home, she was about to leave on the return journey.

But now we both went inside and made a cup of tea and sat at the big country-style dining table and settled down for a “catch-up.”

I had first met Lorrely way back in the 60s when we were both visiting the Samwell’s at their original farm in Summertown, where they had a market gardening business.

My eldest brother had built a factory on the Samwell’s property at Summertown, and here he conducted his research and development of agricultural machinery.

I remember at the time my brother had just developed his first wool-coring machine and the prototype was sitting in the shed.

It was a very large and complex computerised machine. 

Whenever my brother had to “invent” something new, he never used to look at anything that had ever been made or previously designed that currently “did the job.” 

He said, that that would limit his ability to make new decisions about the way to achieve a machine to do the task.

He was soooo clever. 

It sometimes used to annoy me that he was so clever.

I had spent years gaining skills in dressmaking, drafting and dress-design.

One time I was having a problem with a particular dress design and he came up and looked over my shoulder for half a minute, and then pointed to a spot on my draft and said “There’s your problem, your measurements are wrong right here,” and of course, he was right, and all I had to do was make some minor adjustment to my patter and problem fixed. 

Shearer’s were the largest agricultural equipment company in Australia and my brother often did contract work for them. 

They would bring him problems that their own R & D department had been unable to solve.

If he ever needed new skills, like the ability to understand complex computing problems, and the workings of computers, so both hardware AND software, he would just ‘binge’ on all the literature and somehow absorb it all in no time and then “invent” something new, and design a new way of doing whatever the task was that he had been asked to solve.

I remember at that time he had also just completed the prototype of a hydroponics machine and the wool coring machine was stored inside the shed and the hydroponics machine was stored outside. 

Then came the Feb 16, 1983 Ash Wednesday fires in which 75 lives were lost.

My brother’s factory had two petrol tanks, one on each side of the main door to the shed, and in the fire these exploded and completely destroyed the factory and the experimental machinery that was in it.

The prototype of my brother’s wool coring machine simply melted to the floor in the heat of the flames.

But, my brother had stored the plans of the prototype at his home, so he was able to build another machine at a later date.

The fires were the deadliest bushfires in Australian history until the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009. 

Anyway, it was back in the 1980s that I first met Lorrely so we had a lot of history to catch up on in our musings around Selena’s dining table at Bremer farm.

Then Selena and Kate arrived home, and Selena set about making dinner for her and Kate and I ate my lunch which, of course, I had brought with me in my little esky.

Bremer farm is such a beautiful place and Selena is doing wonders with it.

But the work only progresses with her personal inimitable spirit and hard work with whatever money she can afford to put into it.

Every time I go there I look around to see what else “she has done” since I was last there.

What she has done this time is prepared the front of the house to have a verandah built the full length of the house, so the ground is now all levelled which it wasn’t last time I was here.

And of course, said verandah, Selena herself will build.

She amazes me, this wonderful talented woman.

I also noted the “wedding” area is beautifully grassed now and is looking really great.

But she tells me part of the roof came off during the last storm and so that has to be replaced before the next wedding.

After lunch, Kate and Selena and I all decided to go and have a nap.

Kate prepared “my bed” in the side room and Selena and Kate proceeded to explained to me that there were two rooms on the side of the house that I was free to use when I visited.

They were for “guests” they said, but when there were no “guests” I was welcome to use these two rooms whenever I liked.

If I felt like a time in the peace and quiet of the country, I could come and stay for a few days at a time (with the proviso, already mentioned, that there was no-one already sleeping in said bed). 

They told me that I could park my car right beside the house and go through the door into a room where there was a table where I could work away in peace and quiet, whenever I visited.

Then next to that there was a bedroom with a double bed that I could sleep in.

From there I could go into the kitchen and store my “green bag” full of groceries in the large fridge that was there and prepare my meals whenever.

Then through to the outside bathroom which I could access through the kitchen or walk around the outside of the house if I chose.

How could I resist such hospitality. 

I wouldn’t even need my trailer!

So we all lay down on our respective beds throughout the house and had a nap.

Then I got up and found Selena and Kate in the study. 

Kate was working on some legal stuff, reading long documents and processing the information and Selena was “cleaning up!” And that was a sight to see. She is so efficient in an office as well.

Kate’s and Selena’s “office” has two computers and screens set up where they work side by side.

And the walls are lined with shelving right up to the ceiling where all their “stuff” is stored.

So they worked away for a while.

And then Kate asked me if I had seen the rest of the house since when Selena had had her daughter and family sharing the space with her.

I said that I hadn’t and so she took me on a tour.

Well we only made it to the music room, where there was a grand piano and a set of drums.

Selena said that it was for when the family all got together for a “jam session.”

Then Selena sat down at the piano.

To that moment I had no idea that Selena could even play the piano, let alone that she was a very talented musician.

Well, I was soon to find out.

Kate and Selena BOTH are very talented musicians and each play the piano AND the flute.

So for the next hour they entertained me playing “all the old songs” of her grandmother’s era, which of course is MY era too).

It was beautiful.

They swapped around, Selena playing the piano whilst Kate plated the flute, and then Selena playing the flute while Kate played the piano.

Song after song they played.

Either one of them would suddenly go to a large cupboard full of music and rummage around until they found a particular piece that they had “just remembered” and wanted to play.

I could have stayed there forever, but eventually I had to leave because I was due at Ali G’s place for dinner that night.

So regretfully I left and drove on my way back to Adelaide.

Then I made a discovery.

I tell you this with a certain reluctance, because you will know that I can sometimes be a bit THICK.

I was driving down the Adelaide road and I knew that at the next turn off I should go right and join up with the free-way.

BUT my GPS kept telling me THAT was NOT the way to go.

I pulled over to the side of the road, and out of interested decided to check my GPS and find out why?????

And what did I find? 

I found that I had set my GPS to  AVOID tolls and ferries AND MOTORWAYS!!

I had one of those Lightbulb moments when I realised that in all my recent travels around Victoria, that I had had my phone set to NO MOTORWAYS for the whole of my travels through Victoria.

THAT was why I had travelled on weird and wonderful roads throughout the whole of Victoria and not on any MOTORWAYS at all!!

No, freeways, no main roads.

And that is why I had noticed that there was almost no traffic in the whole of Victoria where I had travelled. 

I saw almost NO people on the roads I drove on. I seemed to be the only person int he world.

That is why my spare wheel could drop off my trailer and go bounding down some nameless road somewhere and not hit a thing!!

Who else could do such a thing but ME!!

Anyway it had been a wonderful trip along country roads where there were almost no people.

Sigh…..!!

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