A Q&A with Lilydale Croquet member Clare Tindall

Clare Tindall is a member at the Lilydale Croquet Club. Picture: STEWART CHAMBERS. 307721_01

1. What is something people don’t know about you?

Many people would know in my time I was quite a capable walker and in 2009 I walk the Spanish Camino from St Jean pied de Port in France, over the Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela in western Spain. 780 kilometres.

2. How long have you been involved with the Lilydale Croquet Club?

Quite a few years. At a guess, seven years.

3. What do you enjoy most about playing croquet?

Well there is the challenge of getting the hoop. Which is hard to resist trying even if it would be more strategic to rid of someone else’s ball. And of course there is the social aspect of meeting up with friends.

4. What has been one of your most memorable moments?

Maybe discovering Confest in the mid nineties…a conference/festival that was held twice a year along the Murray River. A wonderful cornucopia of activities and all night music, dancing and camp fires.

5. What do you love most about the Yarra Ranges?

The trees, the birds and the hills…and the Lillydale Lake for an easy walk and where I used to kayak.

6. What event, past, present, or future, would you like to witness?

To experience before I was born.

7. Which four guests, dead or alive, would you invite to a dinner party?

My parents to apologise and express my gratitude for all they did for me. The poet who recently died, Mary Oliver and the author/philosopher Goethe.

8. Who do you admire the most?

I will keep this anonymous but a friend who lives locally and has so many wonderful qualities that I would like to emulate.

9. What are some of your hobbies?

Reading, dancing, drawing, various crafts, pottery, spinning, linocuts, weaving, knitting, gardening.

10. What is your favourite book and/or film?

That is hard. I read Mary Oliver everyday. And a book called ‘The Snow Leopard’ by Peter Matthiessen that expresses much Buddhist philosophy.