Today I played in the Women's Silver Spoon playoff at Lakelands Golf course. The course is surrounded by strawberry farms, flower farms and paddocks of horses, a little different to my inner city golf club. It was a dreadful day weather wise (you can see why it is called Lakelands) but I enjoyed the game, played with Jan from Mandurah and Joy from Bolgart.

 

Murray Street mall in winter....Pete and I had a lovely afternoon shopping, bought him a new suit for the wedding...it is so unfair how easy it is for men to buy clothes!

 

Saturday morning walk....Floreat Beach

 

Tash, Todd and Rusty came to dinner tonight, Rusty's first visit to our house. After exploring the back yard and running after a ball countless times, he fell asleep on my lap. I'm glad Todd picked up my phone and took this as he won't fit on my lap for much longer!

 

Well today it rained...we still went down and had a look at the beach, very wild and bleak it looked. Still, we had an enjoyable day looking about the local shops and stopping again in Busselton on the way home for coffee and cake. 

 

Another stunning day down south,how lucky! Pete and I went for a lovely bushwalk around the cape, there were wildflowers in bloom everywhere.

 

And we were fortunate to see some whales and lots of seals (below).

 

Sugarloaf Rock taken from further north at Windmills.  Not just the bay, even the ocean was like glass!

 

After a quick swim we headed over to Hayshed Hill, the winery where Tash and Todd are getting married, to taste a few wines for the wedding.  I was absolutely thrilled to see the proteas that they had around the place that had been given to them by the protea farm, nearby.

 

All the vines had recently been pruned which made the area look quite different to when we were down last. 

 

After my swim at City Beach this morning, Pete and I drove down south, stopping to visit Dean on the way. By the time we had reached Busselton is was quite warm so we really enjoyed a walk around the foreshore. The water was so calm, the sky so blue, it was so pretty.

 

 

 

These are some of the little apartments of the Bunker Bay Resort where we stayed (ours is in the corner).

 

 

In the late afternoon Pete and I walked around the point then had a swim. Shortly before the swim, I took this photo of the sun shining on the rocks.

 

We quickly raced back to the apartment to change then ran back down to the beach to see the sunset, we weren't disappointed.

 

Today Natalie, Cathy and I went to Cirque du Soleil and saw their latest production "Totem"...this was my birthday present from the girls, how lucky am I. The show was fabulous, I have only seen Cirque du Soleil once before and that was years ago and I was blown away again by the amazing performances.

 

It was looking very dark as I was waiting for Mandy to pick me up this morning.

 

And darker still over the ocean...we decided to have a coffee and wait and see if it cleared. It did a little so we  had our walk. 

 

  After a very cold and rainy day Tash cooked us a delicious  meal (one of the best Pete said) and of course we also had a happy time playing with Rusty before he fell asleep in his crate.

Kevin and Julia at work today...Kevin is demonstrating the Aeropress coffee maker which we will be giving to our volunteers in the upcoming coffee study.  It is nice to know that I be needed again next year for this study.

 

For the first time, Pete and I saw Simone Young conduct WASO this evening. They performed one of my favourite pieces of music too, Faure's Requiem, it was marvelous performance.

 

A new experience....the Classic hot chocolate from San Churro in Subiaco...absolutely fabulous! I went out with the ladies that I used to learn italian with, first to dinner at a local Japanese restaurant and then to San Churro...

 

One always has to go and have a hit before the game, so after dropping Pete off at the course I returned to the foreshore to take some photos. What a gorgeous morning it was, so very calm...and cold!

 

Most of the birds were still asleep on this small island...

 

 

....and  very few people around.

 

Mandurah Golf Course was looking terrific as usual, both Pete and I always enjoy playing there. Pete won his game against Patrick from Royal Fremantle and the team went on to win 6/1.

 

 

The winners of Division 4 ...a really nice bunch of guys they are too.

 

This afternoon Pete and I drove down to Mandurah to stay for the night as he has to play in a pennant final at Mandurah Country Club tomorrow morning. After a quiet hour of reading we went for a lovely long walk at dusk. I was pretty happy to see the pelicans.  

 

The old Mandurah traffic bridge, soon to be replaced is always a good spot to catch a few crabs. These young ones were catching quite a few. The pelicans were amazing how they held their position in a really rather strong current.

 

The Mandurah War Memorial...very impressive and quite beautiful at sunset.

 

Walking back to our accomodation past the canals was just delightful, the colours and the reflections were stunning.

 

The quality of this photo isn't the greatest as Colleen took it on her phone, messaged it to me then I transferred to my home computer then posted it on the blog. But, I really enjoy working with Nicky, who is doing her PhD and I wanted to put a lovely photo of her up on the blog...she will be finished before I know it...we thought it fun that we had worn the same colours. (I am glad I wore my high heeled boots!)