Australia Day 2022

 No words, just photos that speak to me about  the Australia that I love.

                 Happy Australia Day

A Trip Back in Time

OLD TAILEM TOWN

Another week has gone by and we decided to do a day trip to Old Tailem Town Pioneer Village which is about 90 km from home,  so I packed a picnic lunch as we are still trying to keep away from crowds, and thought Old Tailem Town would not be busy mid-week.

The entrance to Old Tailem Town

Plenty of parking out the front

Map 

Old Tailem Town was opened in 1982 and we first visited there with our children in about 1988 but it was much smaller then.

 

The village is set out in streets with shops and trades as it would have been many years ago.  Inside, the buildings are set up as they were in the "old days", and most of them are completely filled with the things of the era around 1860 to 1960.  It was great to see how much the shops resembled the days when I was a child and we shopped in similar stores, especially the clothing shop.  Now I am feeling very "old".

View of the interior of the clothing store

When we first arrived we were greeted by the owner, Peter, who gave us a map and told us the history of how he started the business.  There was only one other couple there but by the time we left there were many more families arriving, so we were happy we had an early start and although we wore our masks it probably wasn't necessary as we were out in the open air almost on our own and felt very safe as far as Covid.

Grocery store

One of the many sheds with old cars

More old cars - Ron was in "heaven"

We have over the years been to many similar historic villages, but this one was really good and so much to see.  Although it is not interactive, we enjoyed going around at our own pace and there was no pressure  to purchase anything. 

I have not seen so many trucks and old vehicles in one place, some in reasonable condition and others a bit rusty, but all very interesting.  Before we left Peter invited us to have a cup of tea with him and he told us some wonderful stories of his very interesting life and his business.  He certainly enjoys his "toys" and loves meeting the different people from different parts of the world who come and enjoy Tailem Town.

That's all folks!

New Year 2022

It has been quite a long time since I posted on my blog as I felt I had run out of interesting things to write about, and Covid certainly added to that.  Anyway, I am hoping to continue my writing, but perhaps not on such a regular basis.   I am not sure that I still have followers now, but I hope some are still interested to read about my life and travels.

In the months that I have not been blogging, we have sold our house and moved into a small retirement village.  We have been in our new home now for 5 weeks and feel quite settled here, although we still have some boxes to unpack.  Life has been very hectic with all the hassles of selling, and preparing the house for sale, as well as a ton of decluttering which has been very stressful.  I am actually surprised that we have come through the whole "ordeal" without any major health issues and fortunately we are still married!

Now that much of the hard work of moving is over, I am feeling more like writing, and although we probably won't be travelling as much, we hope to be doing some day trips around our lovely State.  As some of the reasons we decided to move was to give ourselves a lifestyle we could enjoy without having the constant maintenance of our house which we had lived in for 53 years.  Our physical health has been stopping us from being able to do many of the jobs around the house like gardening, as our large block and house was on a hillside and we also had a lot of steps into and around the house.  My osteoarthritis and more recently Rheumatoid Arthritis and Sjogren's has meant I struggle walking more now than I used to and I have fallen a few times which makes me worry about  more broken bones.

Our new house is smaller, but open plan, and has no steps so I feel very safe here as I go about the house.   We have a lovely pergola off the living area and a small garden at the front, and a maintenance man that does any of the work that needs doing if we don't want to do it ourselves.

As we still haven't been travelling, I am starting 2022 with some photos of our "old" house and garden, and some of the "new" house and garden.

New house

Our new house is smaller and we are now trying to downsize our patio furniture which is too large for the smaller patio,  so sometime soon we have to decide what to keep and what will have to go, but we have a few more things to do first.   As it has been very hot so far this summer, I think some of the hydrangeas will have to go as the sun has burnt them.  It is a pity as my hydrangeas at our old house were magnificent as they were in shade most of the day, but here the sun beats down on most areas in the patio.  I will wait till Autumn and find some more sun tolerant plants, probably Australian native grevilleas as they like the sun.

I hope I still have some of my previous followers, and perhaps some new followers, and if so I would love to hear from you in the comments.

I will be trying to do some day trips soon, so look forward to a weekly or fortnightly blog of some of the lovely places near Adelaide.

That's all for now,

Stay safe and well.