Parsons Beach and Melaleuca Court at Minlaton

So now it's July. Wow. Here in Australia that's the start of a new tax year, but enough of depression-inducing things.

My blog is currently called Tall Ships and Tall Tales. Today you get a tall tale - even if it is true.

Mind you, I still travelled to Parsons Beach on the Spencer Gulf shore of the Yorke Peninsula - thanks for the ride in your midnight blue station wagon, Gwenda - a beach with five kilometres of little-visited scenic solitude: a beach from which you could have watched the windjammers coming to or going from Port Victoria not far north on the same coast, of which I wrote some notes during June.

And why the trip to Parsons Beach? Aha! A home there, one of a small cluster of year-round homes in the tiny community, is where our singing group rehearses on the morning of our monthly concert at Melaleuca Court, performed for the residents of that nursing home in the charming inland town Minlaton. Minlaton - or Minlacowie - was named for the old aboriginal sweetwater wells, which can still be seen.

Glad to say that today's concert went O.K., the audience was appreciative and the six piece brass section and the dozen singers were fed cakes and tea or coffee afterwards. A satisfying start to the new tax year :) Wendy even played the piano and sang to accompany her dog Sam who rendered Singing in the Rain, with some competition from the cockatoo in a corner of the residents' lounge who was singing How Much is That Doggy in the Window. My main concern now is that this dog might oust the newest member of the group ... me. A small compensation is that the bird was already offered the job but turned it down.