393. Sunday 9th November 2014. Every once in a while we are allowed to have a quiet week…

Tuesday 4^th November

Melbourne Cup Day.

Our village social committee organised a Melbourne Cup luncheon with sweeps, raffles, fashion parades, mock horse races and lots of bonhomie. Normally on Melbourne Cup Day I enter several sweeps just to be a part of the atmosphere. Of course we never win anything. This year we entered 6 sweeps and ended up winning or placing second in three of them. We also won a prize for a last placed horse. Of course our winnings are not enough to buy a new car. Our winnings were enough to cover the cost of our meal and the price of the sweep tickets.

On a sad note, the favourite horse to win the cup placed last and a few minutes after the race collapsed in its stall and died. Another horse in the after race parade was spooked by a child waving an Aussie flag and reared up then kicked with its rear leg. The leg became entangled in fencing and further kicking resulted in a broken leg and other injuries. Those injuries were so bad the horse was put down. The Melbourne Cup has been an annual event and one I recall even as a child. I can never recall when horses died in this event. To have two horses die in one event, especially horses worth millions of dollars is very sad.

Saturday 8^th November

Next to our village is a huge plot of level ground with much of it having canal frontage. It is prime residential land.  Other villa owners and we, understood the local house zoning was for a maximum of three stories to be built. We were all unaware the zoning was changed to 12 stories. A sign was erected last week to show a new development on the land of eight high rise buildings of 18 stories!

Naturally the residents here object to the proposed development on several grounds. We have all written objections and placed them with council. Several nearby resident action groups have joined us and had a meeting with us yesterday. A plan of strategy is being drawn up. First is to bring public awareness. A local TV news crew arrived today and interviewed several of our residents. We all know we cannot stop the development but hope that with our objections we can delay or modify the buildings particularly in relation to height. It could be a year or two before any approval is issued and work begins.

Sigh!!!

My sister Bev and hubby Peter called in for a visit. They were in Brisbane last night for a graduation dinner for son Mitch. We picked them up from the railway station and had a picnic lunch in the gazebo beside Biggera Creek. After lunch we had a drive to The Broadwater, Surfers Paradise and The Spit. After coffee we drove them to Coolangatta Airport for their flight home to Sydney while Donnis and I drove the slow way home along the coast road.

Sunday 9^th November

Yahoo! Donnis son finally got the keys to his new house. We took the opportunity to load up RALLYE with some of the bits n pieces we have stored and delivered them to the new house.

That was our exciting day.

Usually, I do not like to forecast our plans for the coming week. Or weeks. Today I will make an exception. We are planning our new adventure to commence in a couple of weeks  The travel should take us through four states. Stay tuned.

Tags: Cup Sweeps, Melbourne Cup