It has been a lovely couple of weeks in The Meadow. Australia Day marked the end of the school holidays and despite some recent controversy about the date it is celebrated most people just carried on as usual, the barbies were fired up, picnics packed, the beach and local swimming pools were full of families and friends all appreciating what it is to be Australian. I absolutely love this photo of my friend and neighbour taking a dip in her “pool” on what was a very hot day. Together with her faithful kelpie and wearing her akubra she is the archetypal country Aussie!! We had a bbq with our neighbours, enjoying a lovely local grass fed steak and way too much vino and went to bed happy and grateful for our new life and friends in The Meadow.

The next day we decided to brave the holiday traffic and go to Callala Bay, a smallish town on Jervis Bay to see our old mate Nifty who was home alone for the weekend and lives a mere 150 metres from the beach. We all enjoyed a lovely walk with the brown dog and soaked up this glorious beach with the most beautiful turquoise water and white sand. I’m pretty sure The Maldives are the exact same colour! Back to his place for some  of his freshly caught Flathead fillets, cooked simply and served with homemade tartare sauce and a salsa of cherry tomatoes from our garden. Enjoyed with a glass of chilled chardy. Heaven.

 

A certain chocolate labrador was rather exhausted on her return and couldn’t even make it to her favourite spot before crashing out and gently snoring for the next hour or two!

She certainly knows how to relax!!!

This month’s book club meeting in Sydney coincided with our little city house being up for lease and I made the most of the opportunity to do some maintenance. It was lovely to be back in our old neighbourhood and to tizz the garden up, check out the interiors and freshen it up with new paint and some new carpet. Hopefully we will attract a great new tenant this week. I don’t know how some landlords can sleep at night with the condition of the houses they rent out. When I see the state of houses costing the same if not more than ours in Paddington and Bondi where the young ones like to live it makes me cranky. Just because the tenants are generally young doesn’t mean you should ignore the aesthetics and the general state of repair of a house. Why is it that tenants have to pass muster but for some reason landlords don’t?!

 

Our book club meeting gave us an opportunity to celebrate one of the girls ‘special’ birthday and we had the best night reminiscing over our last 23 years together! We must be one of the longest running clubs in Sydney, ahead of our time, starting it before it became a trendy thing to do and it has been the most wonderful group of girlfriends to have as we have progressed through all the stages of our life, sharing all the ups and downs as they come, being a shoulder to cry on if necessary and to also sharing the happy times, new marriages, grandbabies and personal achievements. We are indeed blessed. (Incidentally we have just read the BEST book, The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah if you’re looking for a good read)

 

This weekend we finally got to host the Boys Surfing Weekend. It had already been rescheduled 3 times and despite a weather forecast for cool nights and some rain it went ahead and was declared a BIG SUCCESS! Two of the “boys” hadn’t been on a surfboard in 20 odd years and I had to admire their enthusiasm at the early start to the beach (to catch the perfect conditions prior to the breeze coming up) and then their commitment in the water to standing up. It is EXHAUSTING and much harder than it looks. The youngest (and fittest) member of the trio was showing them how it’s done but he is a regular surfer and made it look easy. In the end the other two decided enough was enough and settled for a good body surf instead! Lots of laughs ensued and their aching muscles were soothed by an afternoon beer or two whilst watching the cricket on the telly. An afternoon nap may or may not have been had and was followed by a loin of pork done in the wood fired oven (the crackling was amazing!!) and then a raucous game of ‘cards against humanity’ was enjoyed before tumbling into bed knackered but happy.

 

At the beginning and the end of the day my favourite place is out here on our front veranda. In the early morning we see mist hanging in the hollows of the hills and the cows moving slowly across the paddocks, following each other in single file as they wander out to start their day. The local hares are often out darting crazily across the dirt road and into the fields in search of goodness knows what, causing a certain brown dog to race to our boundary fence and bark as if to tell them exactly what she thinks of them and to dare them to step foot onto her property! The afternoons are what we refer to as the golden time as the sun starts to lower in the sky and throw shadows across the land and the light changes to the most beautiful golden citrine. I can easily while away an hour watching the willy wagtails dance and dive around the lawn, on the prowl for an afternoon snack of insects. They are so lithe and energetic, dipping and darting at an amazing pace like well trained synchronised swimmers. They really are the loveliest little birds and I’m really chuffed that they make a nest here a few times a year and raise their babies under our very noses.

Taking a leaf out of nature’s book we have decided that simplicity is going to be the key for us this year. We all know that life can be complicated but we sometimes don’t help the situation by making things more complex than they need to be. After all these years I think we are finally going to eat better, drink less and move more (we must have been reading that same advice for the last 30 years to no avail!!) We are going to take time to smell the roses, chat to our neighbours, read that book or have an afternoon nap. When we work we will work hard and then we will enjoy the fruits of our labours and try to feel less guilty when we have a day slobbing around on the couch! It’s all about the balance!

♥♥♥♥♥

ps….we have an exciting little project coming up with plans for a pool and I’m REALLY trying to keep things simple which is proving remarkably hard. A huge Vegas style build is seemingly easier to whack up than a restrained-natural-yet-in-keeping-with-our-house-type plan so wish me luck folks!!!