This lucky paddle boarder has the whole beach to themselves!

It’s so lovely to be back home in our little white house in The Meadow. I have fallen in love with where I live all over again. Maybe it is the time of year? Spring is so beautiful in this little corner of the world. The rolling green hills have brightened with a couple of good downpours and the plants have all sprung into flower, the jacarandas are in full throttle, purple puddles amongst the green and the roses are blooming profusely. The temperature is perfect, the skies are blue and it’s hard to find fault with the world.

Except of course that sad things happen on a daily basis. My lovely friend Leanne lost her beloved golden retriever Cooper while I was away, sadly run over by a neighbour – surely one of the most traumatic things for EVERYONE concerned and VERY hard for both his owners and his four legged companion, another chocolate Lab called Captain who has been his best mate for a couple of years, always there to play with and to just hang out with. In their usual instinctive way Captain ‘found’ Coopy and lay on his grave crying and whimpering which broke Leanne’s heart. As a result Bailey has been going over for some doggy play dates to keep him from being too lonely and they have a marvellous time running and scampering around their garden and rumbling in the bushes for an hour or two of unadulterated fun! Bailey also enjoyed an afternoon of fun with Gloria, the not so little puppy down the road. I love to see them tearing around like idiots until they drop like a ton of bricks under the shade of the huge pear tree, panting and content.

On the 2nd Tuesday in November we enjoyed The Melbourne Cup function put on by The Shoalhaven Heads Hotel, a lovely pub right on the river and about 70 odd people came to enjoy the lunch, the races and a tongue in cheek fashion parade with some fun girls modelling clothes found at the local St Vincent de Paul op shop. There was actually some amazing outfits which were sold off at the end of the day with all the money going back to the charity. It was great fun and some men and women also received a ‘best dressed’ award after going to some considerable trouble to look the part on our biggest race day. Incredibly I somehow managed to back the winner of the cup!! As usual with me it wasn’t because of it’s recent form, the jockey, or anything else other than the name – Rekindling. This name leaped out at me as there is an ongoing battle between the Man of the House and his sons re kindling for the fires. He spends ages collecting it and they burn it all within 5 minutes when they come down in our absence! Anyway, however it comes about, Winners are Grinners!!

We had a lovely weekend with the boys, catching up on all the holiday news and they lent us a hand in the garden, cutting back errant branches hanging so low they scratch and cut the ‘Man who Mows’ as he sails by on his favourite toy (the ride on mower). They also helped with the final coat of paint on the wood fired pizza oven. It was installed before we left but there was quite a bit of work to do curing it gradually and then sealing and painting it etc before we could put it into action. We decided to give it a whirl this weekend and using a tried and true pizza base recipe courtesy of Jamie Oliver we whipped up a batch for dinner. The fire was lit around 5.30pm and with much anticipation we checked on it regularly waiting for it to reduce to coals instead of leaping flames and smoke but we had completely underestimated the size of the fire needed to heat the oven to the required 350-400ºC and the 1st pizza languished in the oven for 10 then 20 minutes and still didn’t do it’s stuff. Luckily I had put the electric oven on indoors in case of disaster and we ended up cooking them in there. I must say they were delicious, we just need a bit more practise to get the cooking side of it up to par and we will be laughing. The idea is to blitz the pizzas in the initial heat and then pop in a roast or some bread to take advantage of the heat of the oven to the fullest. It retains the heat so much that it was still registering 50 degrees the following morning!

As usual when you have a productive garden you really pay the price when you go away on holiday. In a blink of an eye (and especially in Spring) the weeds will outgrow the plants and the veggies will bolt and go to seed, the crops you had so lovingly nurtured over many weeks peaking and dying before you get a chance to use any of it!! Our wonderful house sitter, Smutzer, had listened to my beseeched pleas to water my newly planted tomatoes and they were alive and already starting to fruit on my return much to my delight. I have spent many, many hours since returning home in the veggie patch and the beds are now wrangled into some sort of order, freshly planted with the summer herbs and veggies. The garlic has been harvested and we have a small but tasty crop to use over the coming months. We also have apricots, plums, lemons and limes, rhubarb, blueberries and apples all happily growing on our trees. Fingers crossed we get them before the birds or the bugs do! We have another little mouth to feed in the garden too. When I was watering the garden the other day the tiniest little baby rabbit hopped out of the bed and lay quivering in the sunshine. It didn’t run away when I came up to it and I managed to pick it up and move it to another part of the garden but the next day it was back when I watered the veggie patch. I hope it’s ok, it looks so tiny and of course the MOTH (a.k.a the voice of doom although he calls it realism) says it will eat all our veggies, and that it will probably die as it’s so small and has no survival tendencies. I really hope he is wrong on all counts…..

It was really nice to catch up with some of my city girlfriends down here whilst they were staying in Kangaroo Valley. They popped in to see the house extensions before we toddled off to Wharf Road for lunch. Located right on the banks of the Shoalhaven River it has a beautiful outlook and a nice menu to match. A simple meal and a couple of aperol spritz later they were beginning to appreciate the life we have down here!! Not as much of a backwater as people may think!!When we announced we had bought a house in the country the number one response that most people had was “What on earth are you going TO DO down there????” Needless to say we have never been busier, but in a nice way; enjoying the fruits of our labour in the garden and in the kitchen, walking on glorious 7 mile beach, eating at local wineries or with family and friends in our garden and counting our lucky stars that we plucked up the courage to Move to The Meadow!!