Aireys Festival of Words

The wattle at our gate. Just some of the masses in bloom

The program for this year's Festival of Words did not grab me as much as last time, but as Celia was down there working on her reports it seemed a  good idea to spend some days in Aireys Inlet.

So I drove down Friday afternoon with Spencer and she arrived about 30 minutes later. It was cold when we got there but the fire soon warmed the place up and we had a quiet evening watching The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's nest.

The next morning I woke with a really stiff back that did not settle as usual, but I went up to the morning session that was an interview with Kate Herd  on her book Kitchen Gardens in Australia. Garden designer and author Kate traveled around the country documenting eighteen diverse kitchen gardens. A really great discussion and  I bought the book as inspiration for my garden plans.

I also bought a book for Celia by June Loves, the Shelly Beach Writers Group, a really funny book we had both enjoyed my library copy. Gina, a barely 50-something corporate high-flier, is counting her losses when a chance meeting throws a sea change her way. A job as a house/dog-sitter – albeit in a minus one-star leaky cottage in windswept Shelly Beach – seems the perfect opportunity to relax and regroup. But Gina hasn't counted on the locals, and soon finds herself reluctantly convening the writers' group, babysitting, baking, seal-watching, bicycling . . . and perhaps even falling in love.

After I got back home I was feeling achy all over and even took to my bed for a rest. Unheard of to anyone who knows me. But we were going up to Melbourne to see MTC Hamlet with Ewan Leslie and to catch up wih Fran and Bridie.

The play was fantastic; a modern interpretation with sms messages and spy microphones. A great treat was the new to MTC talent Eryn Jean Norvill who as Ophelia was very impressive.

I still felt weak and pathetic and as soon as we got back to Aireys I crashed into bed and I think didn't move all night. Woke at 8am and felt fine and not a twinge of backache!!

So today we went to Literary Lunch at A La Greque http://www.alagrecque.com.au/aboutus.html and had  a great meal on the verandah in the sunshine! The Literary talk was from Pam Talimanidis about the sense of Community spirit at their village in Greece, where they go for 3 months in Winter every year with one or other of their boys.

Kostas in the black t shirt

Pam talking as we loll in the sunshine

Kosta had Kostas Taverna from 1976, in the main street of Lorne and he gained the reputation as the host who made everyone feel welcome and special, while Pam developed a menu based loosely around Greek family recipes, After 27 years at ‘Kostas’ it was time for a break to reassess their lives. A year off was long enough to know that they were too young and energetic to retire, so when a property came for sale just up the road in Airey’s Inlet they opened A La Greque with their sons .
How lucky were we!! It was renovated last year and now has a wider verandah, and some shelter glass panels in the front.

A new flower out in the garden