Kai, the quiet achiever

Kai, grandson no.2 has his own bit of glory at school this year.  He is the best and brightest year 2

student at Nightcliff Primary School.  We are so proud of Kai, he's obviously beavered away and was

rewarded at the school's prize giving assembly.

Good on you, mate!

Spring cheer!

Spring in Toowoomba, QLD at the Carnival of flowers


In September David and I enjoyed a few days in Toowoomba, staying with friends and visiting many beautiful gardens.  

Geographically Toowoomba sits on top of the range (Great Divide) and is endowed with rich dark soil, the climate is extreme in Winter and Summer but during Spring there are ideal conditions for dazzling blooms. 

Toowoomba has long been recognised as the “garden city”and it's clear the city residents work year- round transforming their private gardens into stunning showpieces.

Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers is a great horticultural event going over 10 days in September.  The city comes alive with spring blooms, floral design, private home garden displays, and community floral events. A real gardener’s paradise.

We went mainly to see the prize-winning gardens and the top exhibition gardens which were absolutely awesome.  There were small, large, cottage, formal, acreage, courtyard, native, annuals and flowering bulbs gardens - a huge variety of gardens that would appeal to any gardener.  We joined the many visitors, lots of tourists and enjoyed the many spectacular displays of gardens and blooms.  

We spent a full day at Queens Park that also hosts the Botanic gardens.  It was like stepping back in time, meticulously tended, beautiful Camphor Laurel lined avenue, bright flower beds, large canopies of trees and acres of expansive lawn.  The main festivities for the carnival took place here.  The food and wine festival was the big attraction throughout the day, the fellows were particularly interested in the craft beer and BBQ tastings.  The talks by the crafters covered beer styles, flavours and food-matching.  In the Greenhouse,  Sophie Thomson (ABC presenter) gave a great talk on sustainable gardening.  There were avenues of tree floral displays, a henna hut, chocolate stalls, a huge wine alley and Latin and jazz music to entertain the visitors.

Another of the city outdoor spaces was the Laurel Bank park.  It had a very festive atmosphere, dozens of flowerbeds in spectacular bloom adorned the place.  There were some great topiary displays -a great caterpillar and train topiary.  There was an Australian  map theme to the garden beds complete with a raised  for optimum viewing.  Musicians played at different venues round the park and provided a nice Carnival atmosphere.

Sample pictures of the different displays ...

 manicured front garden

 

just a few tulips

Ranunculas, my favorite blooms

Thomas the Tank engine shaped carefully for the kids

Ornamental Kale and whites in flower

                                                     Some nifty creations

Beautiful orchid took Dave's eye ...

Solid outdoor setting

Dave the secret garden lover

a backyard garden with it's own waterfall

Massive Chinese Lantern tree

Lovely Ornamental Peach Tree

a flowery kangaroo

An abundant Wisteria arbor

 An unobtrusive sign seen hanging in a garden, a massive understatement

Carnival of Flowers was a thoroughly festive event.

Dirt Girls!

Our daughter ...

Not only is Jodes a terrific teacher but she also has TV personalities visit her school.

Costa from the Australia Gardening show called in to see how the Kitchen Garden program was progressing.

Apparently there was a lot of interest in the Bee Hives,  Jodes and the kids established.

Costa the garden gnome, Jodes and the Dirt girls

What a job, gardening, harvesting, cooking, selling, maintaining, recycling and teaching it all to kids!

Highlights of my golfing year ...

Winter or the cooler months is when most club championship matches are played.  Ours being in June through August are all over and finished.  I had a couple of little successes which are always hard earned and greatly enjoyed.

  Last Saturday we held our presentations over a barbecue lunch.  It was a relaxing way to deal with something that is usually quite formal.

Don and I  were the nett runners up in the 27 hole foursome championship

Most of the tournaments are women's only but there is the occasional mixed match.  Don's usual playing partner was away touring so I ended up playing with him.  I was very apprehensive as he is a single digit golfer and I'm still very inconsistent with my game.  On the day we combined quite well.  He is an extremely straight hitter (unlike a lot of males) so he got us out of trouble a couple of times with my wayward shots but I putted really brilliantly so I redeemed myself in that department.  It turned out to be a lot of fun.

Marj and I were the gross runners-up  in the ladies championships over 27 holes

Marj and I are similarly rated with our handicaps so we are both as good or as bad as each other.  Marj is 80 years old and has only just started using a motorised cart.  She is very hard on herself and abuses her ball unmercifully.  Hope I can follow in her footsteps without all the grumbling ...

Yoey and I were respective nett winners of our grade in the single Stroke Club championships over 72 holes.  I was division 1 and Yooey for division 2.

This event is probably the toughest - it goes over 4 days so fairly demanding on the stamina and changing weather conditions so also testing different skills.  I find my fitness probably wins a large portion of this for me.  Anyway it was particularly gratifying cause it was my first season in Division 1 therefore I expected to not really achieve anything in the prize department.  However on the days I had some absolute blinders and erred only marginally.  I was really rapt cause I beat a lot of the "big girls".  Very satisfying!

Anyway I have a long way to go towards my golfing goals, last year my handicap was 22, this year it's down to 20.5 which I'm consistently playing to so that is largely gratifying as well.  My goal is to have a handicap of 18 which doesn't sound particularly great but unless I spend more time practising I think 18 is a realistic target for me.

A young notable award ... young Vance

One of those nice moments when the offspring shine ... a particularly proud time for Mum and Dad Poke to share the occasion with young Vance.

A very pretty Mum, clever Vance and gummy Kai

A group entry by Vance and some classmates contributed towards a winning entry in the Young Territory Authors Award for their school.  It was a collaborative effort with apparently Vance's efforts being in the illustrating department ( I reckon he was the brains behind it all).  If he is in anyway creatively-inclined, it's probably his dad's genes, a teensy-weensy bit of his mother and probably most of it is from Pops Peters.

Proud authors!

Whilst the school benefited financially, it's probably a very good feeling for the kids to know they are a little better in some way and pretty rewarding for parents too!  Well done group and especially Vance - good job.

Junnie's (Gladys) wedding ...

On Thursday 24 August 2017 Junnie married Ralph in the garden of the Potters in Maryborough, Qld.  The bride was beautiful, the weather was brilliant and poor Ralph endured the service with an excruciating painful back injury.

We have known Junnie for many years but lost touch around 2007 but luckily reconnected again in the last year.  We had always known her as Gladys but since her divorce reverted back to the name her family had affectionately named her which was Junnie.  Junnie resides in Malaysia where she met Ralph (a Brit) and they chose to get married in Australia.

The celebrant going through the ceremony ...

A very serious occasion! Denzil and Sue Potter officiating as witnesses

Mr and Mrs Unwin

Signatures all round ...

A more relaxed party!... everyone remembered the vows

Dave and Jean, honoured guests

The small but important wedding guests ... even the bloody little dogs couldn't stop barking during the ceremony!

The cake, Sue's creation...

Ralph already whispering sweet nothings ....

It was a wonderful day, Denzil was a great barman and Sue and Chris wonderful hosts and really lovely to meet Ralph and spend some with Junnie on her special day.

All the best to Mr and Mr Unwin.

Potter's grand daughter singing "The Prayer"

Denzil and Sue have a pretty talented grand daughter.  She is an amazing soprano who has won many awards from local Eisteddfords.  She graced us with her beautiful rendition of The Prayer.

Another fishing charter ... 24 July 2017

1770 Charter (near Agnes Waters, QLD)

The Fishing Club finally got a trip out of 1770 for a day's fishing.  Dave starred in that he caught the largest fish of the trip, a cod weighing in around 8 kgs. (lots of feeds)  Apparently his photo of he and the fish goes up on the pub wall at Burrum Heads for the year until the fish of the year is decided.  He caught about 7 fish in total, a Maori Cod (2.7 kg) and Red Emperor were a good size.

Winners are grinners!

For about 5 years the charters out of  1770 have been cancelled due to high winds so it was a real surprise when this trip got off the ground.  Dave was a real happy chappy with his efforts and apparently he put it down to using fresh bait.  Others got smaller fish and were using lures.

Dave's latest pursuits

The title sounds more intriguing than the actual thing, but guinea fowl and tiling are something new at our place.

Dave has a natural interest in birds (except crows) so to add to the flocks of native birds he feeds, he now has 4 guinea fowl.  He's in the process of domesticating them as they have an instinct to fly off to greener pastures if they aren't caged (trained) for a short period. The three weeks are nearly up for their penning period so in a couple of days they will be temporarily released.  In the first instance for an hour a day then it's gradually extended til they 'know' if they return home each night they will have a meal waiting for them.  They can fly pretty well so it's a bit of a gamble if they nick off, we'll see in a few days.

They are supposedly excellent at keeping pests and bugs down in the yard and are renowned at creating a huge din if there is a snake in the close vicinity.  We shall all see how they perform!  First signs of digging up the mulch or annoying the neighbours  then it's the roasting dish for them.

Guinea fowl on the verandah of their digs (formerly a cubby house)

The other improvement to the household is the final finish to the deck which occurred about 2 years ago. The bench area has now been tiled which David undertook all by himself.  It looks quite good despite resembling the Pizza Hut interior (so Dave says).  It's weather-proofed and we can happily sit and watch the birds out the back whilst sipping away.  It's a good job.

Evans Head Fishing Trip 2017

It's that time of the year whereby a bunch of fellows, some ex-RAAFies, some from NSW, meet up in Evans Head for a week of fishing fun.  It's an annual pilgrimage, apparently the charter skipper knows his stuff - when and where they are biting.  When conditions aren't good they head to the golf course and into Casino to the race track and there's always the bowling Club up the way when they want a night off from cooking.

This year produced quite good results which was better than last year.  The fish catch is a communal one so whether an individual catches more or less, at the end of the week they all take home an equal amount.

Dave with a king fish

Col, TC and Dave with prizes

Spanner crabs

The fellows!

On board

Col with a nice looking snapper

Some of the catch - not a bad effort

There were over 200 fish caught so there was plenty for all to have and to put a couple in the freezer as well.

Grandson no. 1 is 10 years old!

The birthday boy, Vance (in blue hat) blows out his candles, watched by his mates - Heath and Callum and little brother Kai

L to R Heath, Callum, Vance and Kai

 Vance was especially lucky to receive an (Android) mobile phone as a present from his Dad.  The phone has limited capabilities but Vance has promised he will send some photos of them fishing.

 Jodes has generously combined the boys birthday presents into a fishing charter with the family and some friends out of Darwin Harbour.  Very lucky lads, and hopefully that is a memorable and fun time for all.  Even if they don't get fish or big fish Vance is still going to send photos on his new phone.

Vance and Dad

The boys devouring the cake.

Out in the backyard in Darwin.