Sue’s birthday weekend
Clive returned from his week in the UK on Tuesday evening, complete with a cold, but accompanied by half the Australian cricket team at the airport. By Friday he had recovered enough to enjoy a meal out with me in Garfish, a lovely fish restaurant at Manly wharf. We really enjoyed the meal and then walked back to the car accompanied by a fantastic lightening display over the water – luckily the rain held off until we were back home!
My birthday, Saturday, dawned warm but wet, so we had a really lazy morning and a great family game of Monopoly in the afternoon – well, I thought it was great, as I won convincingly!
We had been hoping to join the bike club for a long ride on Sunday, but as the weekend approached it became obvious that neither of us was really fit enough, so we pulled out. I then had a call from a tennis friend whose daughter-in-law’s parents own a 1,000 acre livery stables near Windsor, an hours’ drive west of Sydney. She was organising a ‘Tennis Day’ at the stables for the Sunday and would we like to come? Although an early start for the bike ride would have been difficult, getting to the stables for 11am was less so and we were pleased to accept.
We reached the livery stables - Haddon Farm - at around 11:15 and met the other 14 guests, all of whom were very pleasant and interesting people and the majority of whom played tennis. We sat in and around the ‘entertainment building’, which was like a barn with a large kitchen and living area, with 2 patios outside, one next to a pool with a bbq and the other by the tennis court. Everyone had chipped in with food and drinks and we had a lovely day playing games of tennis with lunch in between! Such hardship!
The building was surrounded by fields with a few trees for shade, leading down to a large dam. All the water comes from the dam, so we couldn’t drink from the taps and although it looked like a large volume of water, apparently there have been times of drought when the owners have had to buy water in for their and the horses needs.
The farm was built on empty land in the 1970's and in its heyday accommodated 180 horses, mostly racehorses 'on holiday' from Sydney, plus some riding school and privately-owned ponies too, but at the moment they only have around 50 steeds. The lady owner paid us a visit during the afternoon – she’s originally from the US but has also lived in South Africa before setting up the farm in Sydney, so her accent was interesting! She and her husband are considering winding the stables down, as the amount of work keeping them running is enormous, but their grown-up children don’t want them to – maybe they should run it?
We got home in time for a beautiful dinner cooked for us by Laura. I love birthdays at weekends, they last so much longer than weekday ones!
My birthday, Saturday, dawned warm but wet, so we had a really lazy morning and a great family game of Monopoly in the afternoon – well, I thought it was great, as I won convincingly!
We had been hoping to join the bike club for a long ride on Sunday, but as the weekend approached it became obvious that neither of us was really fit enough, so we pulled out. I then had a call from a tennis friend whose daughter-in-law’s parents own a 1,000 acre livery stables near Windsor, an hours’ drive west of Sydney. She was organising a ‘Tennis Day’ at the stables for the Sunday and would we like to come? Although an early start for the bike ride would have been difficult, getting to the stables for 11am was less so and we were pleased to accept.
We reached the livery stables - Haddon Farm - at around 11:15 and met the other 14 guests, all of whom were very pleasant and interesting people and the majority of whom played tennis. We sat in and around the ‘entertainment building’, which was like a barn with a large kitchen and living area, with 2 patios outside, one next to a pool with a bbq and the other by the tennis court. Everyone had chipped in with food and drinks and we had a lovely day playing games of tennis with lunch in between! Such hardship!
The building was surrounded by fields with a few trees for shade, leading down to a large dam. All the water comes from the dam, so we couldn’t drink from the taps and although it looked like a large volume of water, apparently there have been times of drought when the owners have had to buy water in for their and the horses needs.
The farm was built on empty land in the 1970's and in its heyday accommodated 180 horses, mostly racehorses 'on holiday' from Sydney, plus some riding school and privately-owned ponies too, but at the moment they only have around 50 steeds. The lady owner paid us a visit during the afternoon – she’s originally from the US but has also lived in South Africa before setting up the farm in Sydney, so her accent was interesting! She and her husband are considering winding the stables down, as the amount of work keeping them running is enormous, but their grown-up children don’t want them to – maybe they should run it?
We got home in time for a beautiful dinner cooked for us by Laura. I love birthdays at weekends, they last so much longer than weekday ones!
posted by Hawkins Family @ 4:31 pm
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