Some outings on our Victorian visit.

Just to assure you that I wasn’t stuck in a motel room with 2 little girls all the time we were away recently, I thought I’d write about some of our outings. 

Although I must point out that our ‘grazing plates’ of cheeses and antipasto in our motel room were fun and delicious! 

One particular day I ended up having a most enjoyable outing in the town of Maryborough. My girls, along with their daughters were paying a condolence visit to their dad’s partner who had suggested they lunch with her. So the girls dropped me at the Maryborough library with me clutching a bag which contained my knitting and the library book that I was currently reading at that time. I read a chapter of the book, then thought that a cup of coffee might be nice, the day being quite cold.

So I went for a walk. I came to a bakery but thought the lack of a coffee machine might indicate that the style of coffee I like wasn’t available. Have I ever mentioned that my children describe me as a ‘coffee snob’ 🤨😜. 

Any way I kept walking and saw this imposing brick building on the corner in the next block.

I think the sign might have been the original business because as I got closer I saw a smaller sign on the corner door saying Madame Chi Chi. I went in and received a really warm welcome, both from Madame Chi Chi herself ( Belinda) and also from the beautifully heated interior of the cafe. It was like someone had just wrapped me up in their arms and said ‘There there, no need to worry...’ 💕

Belinda described the items she was offering for lunch.

The view through the servery showing all the delicious panini fillings...

Belinda explained that she used local products...

I chose a vegetarian panini and a cup of coffee. While my lunch was being prepared I sat in the dining room and admired this lovely old building’s interior. 

A poster in the dining room...

My lunch...

After my delicious lunch, I settled down to knit as I expected to need to fill in a lot more time before the girls would be back at the library to pick me up. 

I’d hardly knitted a row when my phone rang. It was DD1 and they were at the library waiting for me...a bit early I thought! So I directed them to the cafe. 

Turns out their stepmother was too upset to make lunch after all so they’d left after a polite interval. So now Madame Chi Chi made them feel very welcome and then took their orders for some lunch and I had another coffee. 

And because there were 3 of us, I felt no guilt whatsoever of buying a very exotic looking slice that was in the glass case in the store part of the cafe. It’s made locally by a Romanian lady and those eclairs on top are filled with berry flavoured cream.

We got it cut into 3

Delicious and almost guilt free at only a third each! Lol 😆 

What a special place to find on a day when I think I needed some TLC. 

My son in law Cam ( DD1’s husband) has an uncle who lives in the town of Avoca, and this Uncle David would be celebrating his birthday on the Friday and mine was the day after. So the girls took us both out to lunch in Maryborough on the Thursday. The venue was the Highland Society Club. Holly was rather taken with the statue out the front...

( My choice from the menu wasn’t great but the rest of our party said theirs were good...don’t you hate it when you make a not so good choice 😏😂🤪)! 

An unexpected trip interstate

Last week I had an unexpected trip interstate to Victoria. Unfortunately my daughters’ father had passed away and I was needed to accompany them to help with their 2 children. 

Here we are at 6am at Brisbane Airport...

Travelling with little children has always been a challenge and in our case we had a 2 hour flight, followed by a 2 1/2 hour drive before reaching our destination. 

The girls had lots of appointments etc so my job was to look after the little ones. Most of the time we stayed in the motel room as outside was quite cold and there was even some rain. 

I had brought some items in my luggage to help occupy a 1 and 2 year old.

Two little cuties ‘reading’ some of the picture books I brought with me 😍

And of course I had a scribble pad plus some coloured pencils...


And who doesn’t love a picnic? Even if the picnic cloth is a towel and the picnic is inside 😜

No photos but one day that I was minding the girls, we went outside to a little grassed area in the motel grounds and had ‘races’. Holly loves playing what she calls, ‘Ready Set Go!’ So with me pushing little Carrie in the stroller, Holly, Carrie and I played races...I got puffed before them! 🥴😂

We also played dressups with items in my suitcase...

And because DD1 and DD2 are modern young mums, they had downloaded children’s shows on their iPads and this Grandma was quite happy to use these to amuse my charges. 

And 2 of the teddies that live at my place also came on our trip as I knew that Miss Holly loves playing with them...

The brown bear is called Billy Bob and he averted a few ‘meltdowns’ as he is a particular favourite of Holly’s. 

The 5 days flew past and we were all relieved when the funeral was over.  It was in Maryborough where the girls’ dad had eventually relocated. I made sure I introduced myself to their dad’s partner as it was ridiculous how we had both pretended we hadn’t noticed each other. 

And so on the Saturday we drove from Avoca where we had stayed, back to Melbourne to catch our flight home. 

It was great to be home!