02-13/14-2025: Final Days in Rylstone

Thursday, Lou and I walked to the cafe for a cappuccino. I am going to miss this morning stroll and sitting outside the cafe greeting people. I feel like I’ve become part of the community. It’s a nice way to start the day.

I mentioned to Lou that I’d like to go to a nursery in Kandos. We have been thinking of getting him a crepe myrtle tree as a remembrance and thank you. I’ve been kind of stumped about how to get to a nursery to get him a surprise tree, but then I just decided to ask him to take me to a nursery. He agreed, but then nothing more was said

Later in the day, Lou said we’d drive into Mudgee to Bunnings, a store similar to Lowes or Home Depot, that has a gardening center, to look for a tree. He also said we would stop at the Cudgegong Water Park, where he and I had gone earlier in our stay, for an afternoon coffee. We rounded up Christine and off we went to Mudgee, on a Thursday, not Wednesday!

It’s a beautiful drive and I never get tired looking at the scenery. I suggested we stop for coffee on the way rather than on the way back home. We got there at about 2:40 to learn that the cafe closes at 2:30. However, the lady that runs the office also runs the cafe and she said she’d be glad to serve us. So with cappuccinos for Lou and I and a chocolate milkshake for Christine, we sat out on the veranda that overlooks the caravan park and Windemere Lake. It was a pleasant half-hour and I’m glad we stopped there first.

Then on to Mudgee. Again, the scenery along the lake was just beautiful, brilliant sky and white puffy clouds.

We arrived at Bunnings and found several 5-feet tall crepe myrtle trees. However, their flowers were pink or white. Lou’s favorite crepe myrtle color is a really dark magenta or red. We asked a staff person if they had any in that color and they did, but the trees were very small and hadn’t really grown very much. But Lou said they’d do. We picked out two of the red ones. Christine then weighed in on that and insisted we also get a taller tree even if it was pink. Lou thought that was too much, but we insisted. And so we wrestled a 5-foot tree into the car along with the two smaller crepe myrtles and two other plants Lou bought. We were very satisfied with the purchases and on the way home we talked about how tall the trees would be the next time we visited. Once home, I helped Lou clean out an area where he will plant the taller tree. We also planted the Cordyline plants he purchased. A decision on where to plant the two smaller crepe myrtles will come later after Lou mulls over where he’d like them

After dinner, we watched the film Hidden Figures. Christine had seen something on Facebook about Katherine Johnson and her involvement with NASA and she was interested in seeing the movie. We had seen the film several years ago, but we all enjoyed seeing the film. Lou was quite surprised by how poorly the black women were treated. Seeing the film brought back memories for Christine of her years at IBM and the programming that was being done in Fortran.

Friday, Valentine’s Day, Christine took a couple of nice photos of the sunrise.

In addition to Valentine’s Day, this is Christine’s and my 44th anniversary as a couple. Hard to believe it has been so many years but we both feel blessed to have found each other and that we are still madly in love and very happy.

I took a final walk to the cafe with Lou. We met up with Arthur at the cafe and he did what he does best – talk. After the cafe, we went across the street to the church because Lou had to do something there. On the way back across the street, Margaret came by in her school bus as she was returning to the depot in Kandos after her morning run.

Once back at the house, we had breakfast and then I began to get things organized for packing. We’ll be leaving Rylstone in the morning. We’re feeling very sad about leaving.

Christine and I spent the afternoon packing. You’d think it would be easy to pack for leaving, but it feels like all our clothes reproduced and we have so much more than when we came, and we didn’t even buy anything! So it took extra time to figure out how to pack, as we’ll be at Marilyn’s Saturday, and in a hotel Sunday and Monday. Don’t want to bury in the suitcase things that we’ll need over the next few days.

Friday evening we had a going away celebration with Margaret, Clare and Daniel at Pepino’s, the Mexican restaurant in Rylstone. It was rather a bittersweet evening with laughs about our time here and a few tears related to leaving. We gave Margaret a card, a tea cup with forget-me-nots painted on it, and a small book of inspirational sayings with adorable illustrations. I think she was touched. Clare made us a small cake with passionfruit filling in recognition of our anniversary. It was delicious. I don’t think we really wanted to get up from the table to leave the restaurant because it finalizes our time in Rylstone. Off to the central coast in the morning for a dinner with family there, a night at Marilyn’s, and then Sunday we’ll get dropped off in Sydney.