Catching Up with Kerrie Robertson in Rutherglen and Milawa

 I had a trip planned to Rutherglen and Milawa to catch up with my friend Kerrie Robertson. Kerrie and I went to Rusden Teachers College back in the late 70's early 80's, We have been friends for over 40 years. Kerrie lives in Warrnambool so we decided Rutherglen might be a good half way point to catch up and also an opportunity to go to Amberesque- a delightful Bed and Breakfast that is a favourite for Amy and I. Amy was coming with us when she heard we were heading to Amberesque. It was only a week after I got back from Melbourne and I wasn't really ready to head out again, but it actually worked out well as it was a good chance to just relax and regroup.

Amy and I left Tuesday morning and met Kerrie at Amberesque that afternoon

This is our favourite Bed and Breakfast, it was such a lovely place to stay for a couple of nights. We got spoilt, enjoyed a lovely breakfast each morning. Sat by the fire at night and just relaxed. Kerrie and I went for an early morning walk each morning, one morning around the lake and another morning up the only hill in Rutherglen to the old water tower made into a wine bottle.

Kerrie and I headed out after breakfast to check out the local tourist office and ended up doing a Bilson's cordial tasting. We then collected Amy and checked out the shops in Rutherglen.

Then later on headed out to Corowa where we went to the Whisky and Chocolate Factory, where we enjoyed a late lunch. The old flour mill had been sold for $1 on the proviso they turned it into some sort of tourist attraction. The buyers were also the owners of the Junee Liquorice Factory.

It was a pleasant afternoon and a lovely setting.

The next day after breakfast we headed off heading to Beechworth on our way to Milawa where we were staying for the next two nights.

We explored Beechworth and had a lovely time in the Honey Shop then headed to our accommodation in Milawa.

Our accommodation backed onto the Brown Brothers Vineyards. We visited Brown Brothers, went down to a Gin Distillery where Amy did a tasting, an interesting place.

Kerrie and I outside our accommodation in Milawa. We were disappointed to see the Olive Shop had gone, and the Mustard shop was no longer there. Fortunately we found the Mustard Shop on the way down to the Cheese Factory, where we enjoyed a cheese tasting and had morning tea out on the deck, it was a lovely morning.

On the last night the three of us enjoyed a lovely dinner at the new restaurant Ada's which was just 3 doors down from where we were staying. Kerrie and I enjoyed this lovely Pearsian Mocktail- pretty yummy!

We headed home the next day, it was a lovely chance to catch up and a nice chance to just relax and regroup.

Goodbye to Bill's Blue Hilux

I had driven Bill's Hilux down to Melbourne to bring home some of mum's stuff from her place at Fiddler's Green. Unfortunately the day I left saw me driving through some stormy weather, and just when I was about 10km out of Benalla it was dark, and there was water across the road that I couldn't see, until the car in front of me braked, when I went to brake I was in the water and aqua planned into the car in front of me. Unfortunately no one was hurt, the others were able to drive home but it wasn't the same for the Hilux. Fire, police and a tow truck turned up, they looked after me, and the tow truck driver drove me into town and  helped me find a motel for the night. I settled in, rang Bill with the bad news, lodged the claim with the insurance company. I didn't sleep that night, after phone calls to Bill and the insurance company the next morning, we worked out Bill would hire a Hilux and drive down and pick me up. So I had time to kill in Benalla. 

I enjoyed a wander around Benalla, they had lots of lovely murals on the walls throughout the town. I enjoyed a walk around the lake, had some lunch then had a bit of a snooze. Bill arrived around 7pm in a hire Hilux, we had some dinner and an early night, slept well thank goodness, it had been a bit of a traumatic few days. 

Bill and I drove to Wangaratta the next day, where the Hilux had been towed too and where the assessment would take place. We unloaded the old Hilux into the hire car and made our way back to Canberra. It was good to finally make it home.

Zonta 2024

 In July I was involved again with helping out the Zonta Ladies for their Annual Birth Kit Packing Day. They have been using our church hall for at least 15 years now and I have been helping open up and set up for them for the last 7 years. It is such a fantastic service project to be involved with. This is a bit about what they do.

Who we are

The Birthing Kit Foundation (Australia) is a humanitarian organisation that provides birthing kits and education in clean birthing practices to women birthing at home in remote regions of the developing world.

What we do

We work in partnership with the Australian Community and a number of Global Organisations to pack and supply Clean Birth Kits to pregnant women living in rural communities and low-resource settings around the world. To date, 2.8 million Clean Birth Kits have been distributed to women in need. Kits are given to mothers through community outreach programs, supplied to health facilities for use by doctors, midwives and nurses or distributed to traditional birthing attendants. They are designed to support hygienic practices and environments during childbirth in under-resourced settings.

Our Achievements

We have supplied over 2.8 million clean birth kits to women in remote regions of over 30 countries, trained over 10,000 traditional birth attendants and contributed to the prevention of FGM in communities that were killing their women in childbirth. The impact of our work can not be underestimated, with many unexpected benefits for the women and communities we support. 

This year they made a presentation to me to thank me for the help that I had given them over the years. It was such and unexpected and lovely surprise. It has been such a privilege to be involved with them.

Mum's Memorial Service

 Mum had prepaid for her funeral, she was prepared! She didn't want to have her coffin at the funeral, so she had issued instructions. The funeral home was to organise a short graveside funeral service at the Berwick Cemetery, where mum had purchased her plot, this was to be for immediate family only and then there was to be a Memorial Service later, organised at the chapel, by the family. So that is what we did.

So mum's graveside service was held at Berwick Cemetery, it was a beautiful, sunny day. The cemetery was just up the road from our old house in Lyall Rd ( the house is no longer there). There are lovely views across Berwick, with lovely gum trees and there were some native birds to serenade us. 

Berwick Cemetery was at the back of the Berwick Tennis Courts where mum and others of the family had played tennis for years. You could hear the sound of the tennis balls being hit. I remember back when I was a teenager, if you hit the ball over the fence you had to scramble through the graves to find the ball. Mum was to be buried in the new lawn cemetery area which was just lovely.

Simon's ashes were also being put in mum's grave as well, so that made it an emotional time for Bindi, Mia and Charlie

The family began to gather

Some of the grandson's acted as pall bearers, which was a nice touch.

After a short service the coffin and ashes were lowered and we had a chance to file pass and throw in a rose.

Some of us then headed back to mum's place at Fiddlers Green and the grandchildren had the chance to look through mum's stuff and choose some keepsakes to remember her by.

It was a nice opportunity for the grandkids to catch up. All the females selected one of mum's shell jewellery pieces to keep and wear at the funeral in her honour.

Bindi insisted on taking a photo of me with this photo from my mission days- rather a long time ago.

Kelly and Mia, looking at the quilt Amy made for mum's 70th birthday.

Mia, Bindi, Charlie and I then headed down to the Narre Warren Chapel where we were having the Memorial Service for mum. We took down the food I had brought from Costco for the refreshments. Gary had dropped off the Costco Sandwiches. Some of the women from mum' ward were going to set up the refreshments. They were happy to help and do something for mum.

Setting up the display for the Memorial Service

The ladies from church did a wonderful job taking care of the food, it was great not to have to worry about that side of things.

There were a few grandchildren photos taken. Lachlan and Amy had already left, they needed to head to the airport with Bill, they also called in to see Hilary and Stuart on the way which was nice. Hilary had come to the funeral so was lovely to catch up with her.

Even managed to get a family photo earlier in the day a rare occurrence.

It was a long day, but it was a lovely celebration of mum's life. I am sure she would have been pleased with how it all went. The weather was perfect, there were lots of familiar faces that I haven't seen for many years in some cases. Was nice to finally get home and process all that had happened that day.

August and My Mum's Passing

Losing My Mum

 August was a very intense month for my family. In early August I got a phone call from my brother Mike to say that mum was up at the hospital, waiting to be admitted and she was going to have surgery the next day to have her gall bladder removed. I had spoken to mum on Sunday and she had complained that she had been having chest and stomach pains the last few days. I had encouraged her to see a doctor and call and ambulance if necessary. It sounded like she was going to do it "maybe latter in the week". The pains must have gotten pretty intense as she had made a doctors appointment for the Monday night and Mike had taken her. In the meantime she had run her  U3A Current Affairs class on Monday, been to her 500 Card Group Wednesday morning and then driven herself up to hospital in the afternoon after the doctor had rung and told her that she needed to get herself up to the Emergency Department. 

Mum had her surgery Thursday afternoon, but there were complications, she had pancreatitis, also her kidneys were not working so mum ended up in ICU. She was transferred from Casey Hospital to Monash Hospital on Friday night, and after a phone call from my brothers on Saturday morning I decided I would head down to Melbourne that afternoon.

I arrived Sunday to the hospital, mum was hooked up to various machines, which she was not happy about, including being on temporary dialysis. Mum has had problems with her kidneys for a number of years, so it seems her internal organs were not working as they should be, the surgery was probably too much for them. Mum was alert and issuing all sorts of instructions as we came to visit- like reporting her U3A class numbers, picking a cauliflower from her garden and taking it over to Mike and Leeanne. Letting us know who we needed to tell that she was in hospital and so forth. She struggled to talk at times so then was writing messages down in a notebook. She was certainly very with it.

 Mum was very clear, and had been for years that she did not want to be kept alive on machines. Her mum, had a stroke in her early 70's that left her pretty much in a vegetable state in a nursing home for about 5 years where she could not talk, sit up, feed herself, could only lie there, so this was her greatest fear. She had also made it very clear to the medical staff that she did not want to be kept alive on machines either.

My brothers and I all got to spend time with mum, her daughters in laws and some of her grandchildren were also able to visit. On the Monday mum got very distressed about being in ICU and with  all the procedures that needed to be done- their job was to keep her alive. So later that afternoon mum after a discussion with the medical staff and my brother Mike and I that she would go down the Palliative Care route, be taken of the machines and transferred to the Palliative Care House that was on the hospital grounds. We were blessed, it all happened quickly, mum was taken off the machines, given painkillers, the Palliative Care doctors were able to come by that afternoon, not long after our discussion, a bed was available, so later that night mum was transferred by ambulance (out the hospital and 200 metres down the road) via ambulance. I was able to go with her and spent the night there. 

Mum was pretty exhausted when we arrived, she was settled into her room and fell asleep for an hour or so. When she woke up, I was just sitting down the end of the room, I could see her looking around at her new surroundings, her reaction when she saw me was "Damm! That's bad luck, I am still her, I thought I had died!" She was ready to go.

On Tuesday mum was sleeping quite a bit, she was on a 24 hour pump of medication. She was awake a bit when family came to visit, and was alert when the Bishop from our church came to visit her and read messages he had gotten from members of the congregation. Mum loved that. He gave her a blessing before he left.

I had been staying out at mum's in Berwick and had been catching the train in as the hospital was just a short walk from Clayton Hospital. I was on my way in when I got a phone call from Mike to say the staff had rung to say that they had increased mum's pain medication that morning as he had seemed to be in a bit more pain. The end was not far away.  My niece Natalie was there with her mum ( my sister in law) Leeanne, so they sat for a while. Arlene ( another sister in law) came for a while, then it was just me for a while. I had brought mum's CD player in with some of her music and had that playing for her, the sun was shining, and the view of the garden was nice, mum was just sleeping. It was very peaceful. My brother Gary arrived and not long after that we noticed her breathing was getting more laboured, the nurse told us she didn't think that mum would be there for much longer. Sure enough about 30 minutes later mum peacefully passed away, with Gary and I sitting by her side. It was quite a special moment to have that privilege of being by your mothers side as she quietly slipped away.  

Gary and I rang our brothers and Bindi, and our families to let them know. This had all happened within a week. Her children had a chance to gather and say goodbye, mum was independent and with it till the end. We felt blessed.