12 of 12, December 2017

Today was a very busy day, which ended up being rather odds-and-endsy from a photographic viewpoint.

On my way to picking up a friend to help her do some errands, I passed this young vineyard. We’ve watched it grow from an empty paddock to this, but it’s a bit strange: all that we can really see that they’ve “planted” is a huge number of poles and plastic tubes (actually you can just see the vines inside the tubes, but we didn’t ever see these being planted).

While my friend was getting ready, I watered her vegetable garden. I’m afraid that this is the entirety of the raspberry crop.

At one of the errand stops I had time to get some international Christmas cards addressed and stamped. This may not have been done soon enough!

Later in the afternoon, with nearly all the errands accomplished, I boarded a flight to Melbourne. My friend probably doesn’t know that I waved to her as I flew overhead.

I think I managed to get the Sudoku done before takeoff (I can’t remember for sure now; it really was a busy day) and then I wrote in a few Christmas cards.

As we started to fly around Port Phillip Bay I tackled the code-word puzzle, which was a little harder than usual, but I got it finished before we landed.

One of my Melbourne friends and past work colleagues is retiring, and my reason for flying across was to attend her retirement function the following day (and another friend/colleague was being similarly acknowledged at the same event).  She lives in Ballarat, and she and her husband kindly picked me up from the airport and we headed out to their lovely peaceful property nestled among the trees.

We had pre-dinner nibbles on the balcony as the sun set (and the mosquitoes lurked) before heading inside for a yummy dinner of slow-cooked Moroccan lamb-shanks accompanied by some convivial conversation that continued well into what remained of the evening.

[And, bother it … I forgot that this was going to be the 100th 12 of 12. I feel a sense of anticlimax and disappointment. Of course, I hadn’t actually planned something special but I had thought about planning something special. Sigh. Anyway, the “12 of 12” project involves taking 12 photos on the 12th of the month. This provides the opportunity to get snapshots of different aspects of your life, from the mundane to the fundane. I have been doing this since 2009; this is the 100th 12 of 12; I apologise for the lack of gravitas and/or spectacle.]