On Sunday, Lou’s sister Marianne arrived in her caravan. She has a very nice rig in which she travels around with her dog Bella. Marianne is a golfer and so she travels to golfing outings with her friends. Marianne lost her husband in March, 2024 after several years of Alzheimer’s, and so she is working on establishing her own life now. Marianne is the cousin with whom we’ve spent the least time and it is nice being able to spend a couple of days with her so we can get to know her better. She’s the next to last sibling of 10 and is closest in age to Margaret, the youngest.


Of course, we all wanted to see the inside of her rig and silly me, I forgot to take photos of the inside. But it is a really tidy layout with queen size bed over the cab, a nice size refrigerator, cook top and oven, bathroom and separate shower. It has solar panels on the roof so she can go off grid. It seems very comfortable with all the comforts of home. Marianne says it’s perfect for one and could work well for two.


Sunday evening we went to a Thai restaurant here in Rylstone. For such a tiny town, it has several food choices, Thai, Mexican, Vietnamese and a couple of traditional Aussie/American places. The Thai restaurant was really nice. We sat outside in a covered patio area. The food was good and we had a lovely evening.


Monday morning I walked down to the cafe with Lou. Lou loves starting his day this way. He says it limbers him up. He had a knee replacement a few years ago (at my urging). Unfortunately, there was a delay from the time he had the replacement to when his physiotherapy started and as a result, he did not get the best results from the replacement. He has to work hard to keep his leg moving. The morning walk to the cafe does help.
Here’s a couple of photos near and on the main street in Rylstone, which is not very busy at 7:30 in the morning. Lou situates himself at an outside table near the cafe’s door and he greets everyone who comes in for their coffee.



On the walk home, we pass by a couple of beautiful little cottages that I just love. I’m struck by the smallness of most houses. Traveling around, the houses are typically one story, brick, with a front veranda. They are very charming.




Later I spent some time trying to get more bird photos from his aviary and bird cages.





I think my favorites are the cockatiels. These 4 stick together and they shuffle back and forth across the perch as a unit. And I think they look like they have rouged their cheeks. They are so cute.
We’ve had very hot weather the past couple of days, in the mid-to-upper 90s. Monday afternoon was a great day to go to the public pool in Kandos, a sister town to Rylstone just about 5 miles south. Lou, Marianne, Christine and I enjoyed a wonderful swim. When we arrived, we had the whole pool to ourselves. The Kandos pool is an Olympic-sized pool. It cost $3 for “pensioners” to enter.


Lou made one of his famous baked dinners Monday evening. This involves roast pork and lots of baked veggies. Everything was delicious. Margaret and Clare joined Marianne, Lou, Christine and me for dinner.


After dinner, everyone but Lou played Uno for a while. Christine then got tired and so Margaret, Marianne, Clare and I switched to a game I just learned called Phase 10. The Caruana siblings are quite competitive and there was a lot of trash talk during the game, which had Christine in stitches so she ended up videoing us for a while to document the table talk. It was a very fun evening and we appreciated getting to know Marianne, who has a wonderful sense of humor.


Tuesday morning Marianne packed up her van. She has a place for everything and everything in its place. She was very methodical in how she packed up. We were sad to see her go. She’s going back to the Central Coast to her home for a few days, then off on another caravan trip.


For the rest of the day we all stayed in the house in air conditioning. It was nearly 100 degrees with very high humidity making it very uncomfortable to do anything outdoors.
Wednesday was Mudgee day. Lou went to the insurance agent to inquire about a claim on the damage to his clothesline and bird aviary from the wind storm. The clothesline took a second big hit from wind and got even more mangled. These clotheslines are quite expensive, so even with a $500 deductible, it makes sense for him to file a claim. The company will send an adjuster out to view the damage. Hopefully, he’ll get some replacement money.
We met Lou’s friend Angela (the sacristan) and her husband Raymond for coffee. Angela is such a pip! She is very opinionated, and very funny. I’ll have to get a photo of her as a reminder.
With shopping done, it was back home for the rest of the day. I cooked dinner, my “shrimp goop” dinner. I think Lou liked it. And then we settled in to watch an episode of Married at First Sight. The Aussie version started a new season on Monday. I got hooked on this stupid show the last time we were here. It’s totally ridiculous, and I’m really hooked.