Warm and hearty greetings, dear readers,
Here we go again with a little update of our life Down Under. We are getting some nice early summer weather and hubby is out every morning checking on his plants. Unfortunately they are not always doing so well. Plants that used to grow like weeds in France where we lived before struggle here and even die.
We went to visit some friends that have bought a house just after we did in a place called Epping. It took us a good two hours to get there. There were lots of blossoming jacaranda trees there, something that we don't have a lot of where we live.
Their house was built on a previous farm where they grew apples in the old days and neighbouring their property lived a lady called Maria Ann Smith. She grew little green apples that got the name Granny Smith and are now sold all over the world. There is a Granny Smith Memorial Park in her honor but we didn't have time to go there this time. By coincidence, Granny Smith apples were a clue just two months later on one segment of my favourite Swedish TV program, På Spåret (On the track), and the train trip shown went from Wollongong to Sydney, passing just a few hundred metres from where we live.
Our friends had prepared a delicious lunch with steamed oysters as a first course. Tell you the truth, I was a little hesitant at first since I had had a projectile-vomiting episode involving oysters some time ago but it turned out to be delicious.
The day before this I was invited to a local Swedish girls-night-out dinner which was nice. The fact that we all ordered something Thai beforehand to be delivered at the hostess' place made it easy for everyone. It was a very nice evening. It turns out that there are quite a few Swedes down this way so I look forward to more of theses get-togethers in the future. We can now have 10 people together which is nice.
Two of my friends from the painting group have also been down for a visit. We have not had any painting lessons at all this term due to Covid so it was very nice to see them again.
