We celebrated the last of the summer at a beautiful long table lunch in the paddock of a local farm. Our friends Steve and Sue who are former winery owners came down from the Hunter Valley to stay for a few nights and were informative guests at the lunch with their hands on knowledge of all things wine. The location, delicious food and quality wines made for a lovely afternoon and the ‘wear white’ theme made it feel special. As we very rarely get a photo of us both together this is going straight to the pool room!

Three young local chefs collaborated on the menu and after canapés on the lawn we enjoyed burrata cheese, roasted grapes with charred radichio, shaved fennel and flatbread which made for a delicious entrée. The mains were shared platters of slow cooked lamb shoulder with roasted local garlic, lemon and chimichurri and Bangalow pork belly baked in local milk with bay, thyme, garlic and ginger served with nashi and watercress salsa verde. The meats were accompanied by charred broccoli with chilli, garlic and yoghurt sauce and black sesame seeds; roasted and raw fermented carrot salad with tahini dressing and smoked beetroot marinated in citrus oil with roasted hazelnuts. Bloody delicious!

The event was run by wine importers ‘Decante This’. They are French and German wine specialists focussing on family owned small producers who create sustainably made, bio-dynamic and organic wines and champagnes. They had a small but interesting range of wines for us to try and we are now trying to track down a few bottles of the ones we loved in the hope there may be some still available in Australia!

It was a pleasant distraction from a very busy couple of weeks as we prepared our Sydney house for sale, madly scanning documents and contracts to and from the Big Smoke and organising to pretty it all up for the next owners to fall in love with it as we did! Luckily we were in Sydney for a work function for the cocoa trader so I could do a bit of work in the garden before changing into my glad rags for the big Arnotts Gala Charity Ball. This is an annual affair and gets bigger and better every year. They put on a great night of entertainment and food and wine and in return people dug deep and this year they were super happy to announce they raised over $500,000 on the night for Camp Quality and childhood cancer. They have a family or two speak to us all every year about their individual cancer stories and it never fails to bring a tear to the eye and makes us realise what the entire family has to endure when their lives are turned upside down with this disease.

As it was my birthday weekend we managed to coerce the sons into meeting us for yum cha the next morning which was a perfect cure for the late night and slight headache! One of Cocoa man’s colleagues from Singapore joined us as he was in Sydney alone and he introduced us to a few different dishes which was great as it’s so easy to just order those things you know and love and I think we may have found a couple of new favourites! So I had a lovely few days celebrating with some gorgeous gifts from friends and family and a welcome change from the routine with a trip to the movies and dinner out. Thanks Guys!

One of the best gifts turned out to be free, with our first decent rain in a LONG time and our rainwater tank is now at least 2/3 full with forecasts predicting another couple of days of rain next week to top it up. It was so lovely to be surrounded by gentle rain for 36 hours and all the plants were happy for a good drink.Bailey had been rather concerned by the absence of her master while he was showing the Singapore mob around Melbourne and Sydney. Every morning she refused to believe that he was still away and lay outside our bedroom door waiting for him to appear. Their loyalty is amazing. Thank goodness he eventually came home!!

She has been quite amusing lately. Wayne has joined the local golf club and sometimes spends 20 minutes in the evening chipping balls into a bucket on the front lawn. Our ball obsessed dog cries at the door to be let out and join in the fun. She sits quietly until he’s hit the ball and then she runs and collects the ones that don’t make it to the bucket (quite a few!!) and brings them back to him. She LOVES it. She also finally got brave enough to go into the pool. We have been using our neighbours pool in the hot weather and she runs around and around it crying and ‘talking’ as I think she is a bit worried about us and despite absolutely loving the ocean and river she wasn’t game to get into the pool, until Tom came to stay and encouraged her in. She would immediately swim into his arms where she was happy to stay until he popped her back on the edge when the whole thing would start all over again. I so hope she works it all out before we get our pool installed as it is NOT relaxing to hear her so upset!

As the MOTH revved up the whipper snipper the other night to trim our messy lawn edges a tiny little bundle of fluff hopped out from the hedge and sat petrified in the driveway. Bailey immediately went to investigate but she was so good, just standing quietly sniffing this strange little visitor. The poor tiny thing couldn’t have been more than a day old and happily let me scoop it up in a teatowel and relocate it to a safe pozzy under some greenery. I left it some water but I have no idea if it knows what to do. Hopefully Mum found it and they are living happily somewhere in the garden, most probably eating my veggies!!So as the sun sets on another summer we slide quite happily into Autumn with its cooler weather, golden leaves and some different food options. A time to enjoy working in the garden or walking in the countryside without sweating to death and a time to appreciate all that we have here in The Meadow.