Happy Birthday and many happy returns comments of the day, to Sally and the Blue Monday gang on your fifth birthday today – whoo hoo.  It is my blogging birthday on Wednesday and I thank you seasoned fellow bloggers for being so welcoming last week, and for making me feel, at one year old, so young this week!!

I had a week visiting many of the blogs which I really enjoyed, and thank to those who left a comment here. I especially enjoyed the last of the gorgeous August summer days around the world, in particular those involving boats and water. I’m a Pisces who loves the water as long as I’m not the one getting wet! We have our long Aussie summer ahead to enjoy so I thought I’d take you to the beach this week – yippee!

We were heading off to the Mornington Peninsula, an hour out of Melbourne, supposedly for some spring cleaning at our beach house… but I’ll let you into a little secret, the weather was so lovely this (above) was as close as I got to my trusty old feather duster, instead I spent most of the time taking blue photos!!

Don’t you just love these beach huts? I want one, far less work and right on the beach!!! Shall I put one on my Christmas list? I kid you not, the Christmas decorations are up in David Jones at Chadstone already…

Our winter August days have been above average in temperature at both ends of the scale. If you picked the right week at Mt Buller, about three hours out of Melbourne this season, you would have found some pretty decent snow and no one has complained as the temperature in Melbourne soared on Fathers Day yesterday to 23 degrees.

Well we’re happy as our temperatures are set to reach a balmy 26 degrees Celsius (79 degrees Fahrenheit) this week. So it’s off with the coats, just as it’s off with the gloves – don’t forget we are going into a General Election next weekend, and our Pollies (it’s ok, it’s polite Aussie slang for a politician) are into their final week of campaigning. We may well have a new Prime Minister by next Monday…



Blairgowrie foreshore with views to Arthurs Seat

Anyway, easily distracted from the hoover and the myriad of jobs to be done, we had a lovely walk along the Blairgowrie foreshore. What we love about the Mornington Peninsula is that you have the choice of the calm front beaches facing Port Philip Bay, or the wild and rugged surf beaches of Bass Strait in the south. The surf beaches are my favourite, but if you want a decent coffee at the end then you need the front bay beaches, plus the crazy poodle can come too…

Walking the crazy poodle

Beautiful Blairgowrie is a seaside village originally named after Blairgowrie in Scotland – hello Scotland!! This region is such a popular holiday weekend escape that we prefer it at this time of year when as you will see we can have the beaches all to ourselves… Holiday makers love it here because of the mass of things to do in the region – from the vineyards, golf, the world famous Peninsula Hot Springs and a myriad of associated spas that have sprung up (sorry ha ha!) in the region…

We came across this boat at the Blairgowerie yacht squadron boat which was being winched out of the water along the slipway and we later saw was having a spring clean wash down – at last someone was getting their house work accomplished and everything shipshape for summer!

There is a very cool webcam at the Yacht Club so if you want to check out what it looks like Click here

There are some very nice yachts in what is one of the safest harbours on the Victorian coast, which is why it is such a popular beach in summer for swimmers. All year round you’ll see divers and people fishing off the jetty. 

There are great views of the sea, mountains and even the distant skyline of Melbourne, although I’d need extra strength glasses to spot this!

Blairgowrie Yacht Club jetty

We had a lovely morning admiring all the yachts, the sun was out and everyone was really chatty. It was a fantastic end to a busy week.

A week in which we sadly waved goodbye to the two lovely Japanese nurses who had been staying with us (hello Japan!)

We are still flat out playing soccer matches (well not me, the kids!) and hoping for some good news on this next week… Our Aussie Rules footy team Hawthorn are into the finals and I’m hoping there is no Blue news on this in the next few weeks because if there is, it means our team (gold and brown) haven’t won! We won’t mention the Cricket… Except this is a win-win for me being a British Aussie

We still cheering on Andy Murray and Lleyton Hewitt in the US Open tennis… I told you we were a sports mad family…

Well will sign off for now. If you would like to pop over to see Sally and the other Blue Monday blogs I know they’d be pleased to see you… 

Thanks for stopping by and hope to see you soon!

Bye for now!

Little Wandering Wren

All typos for the pleasure of those who enjoy finding!