The weather here has been strange to say the least. We have had the odd day in the mid to high 20’s when thoughts turned to putting away the winter woollies and baring the legs once again but then the temperature plummeted and we got three very welcome inches of rain with snow falling on the high ground! Rather odd to see snow laden cherry blossoms! We have been able to make the most of the damp soil to pluck out a gazillion weeds and transplant flowers while the soil is receptive. Our lovely friends Wayne and Kathy came to stay bringing with them a gigantic bucket of clivea from their garden. She had read my comment in the last blog post and now just like magic I am the proud owner of flowers around my pear trees after all! We had a huge old clump of the creamy pale yellow clivea tucked out of sight next to our woodshed so I dug them out and planted them in between the others and hopefully they will thicken up in the next few months and provide some low maintenance colour in the garden. The few flowers that broke off are now adorning our table!

Luckily it was just before the weather took a turn for the worse that Berry hosted it’s inaugural Food and Wine Festival at the Showground and we as eager foodies had bought tickets to the long lunch held on the first day. We are always keen to support local endeavours and we have always enjoyed the paddock to plate philosophy that comes with these type of lunches, usually some strong local involvement with the food either as producers or suppliers. This one was slightly different with a local Huskisson restaurant successfully providing dishes from it’s usual menu to about 200 of us which is never an easy task! Although tasty it didn’t resonate the same way as our previous lunches had and we all agreed there is some tweaking to be done ahead of holding another festival as the queues were ginormous for everything. Once into the showground you could relax on a picnic blanket and watch the cooking demonstrations or spend up big time and enjoy all the food and wine on offer. I hope they learn from this first year and it comes back bigger and better in coming years. 4000 people came on the first day alone which just shows the high level of interest in food and wine for such a small country town.

The same weekend saw the occurrence of The Sydney Running Festival. This catered to serious runners with both a full and half marathon as well as a 10km run across the iconic Harbour Bridge and the addition of a very user friendly 3.5km family fun run/walk. All the entry money and donations go to various charities to do with health both physical and mental, and this year over $2 million dollars was raised. Sam, Liv and little Cooper took part in this to commemorate Liv’s young friend Anna who sadly died from Sarcoma two years ago and they chose to raise funds for the Chris O’Brien Lifehouse which does such an amazing job looking after sick people. Little Cooper just loved all the action, enjoying the ferry ride and being pushed by his Daddy over that big bridge his home town is famous for. It’s always lovely for a group of people to come together in such a positive way to show love and support for people suffering from loss.

Our little babies are growing fast! They are both now sporting two bottom teeth and sitting up (still at a rather jaunty angle it must be said!) I absolutely LOVE receiving photos and little video clips of them and it really helps reduce the disappointment of not living around the corner from them. Although nothing beats the real thing it is definitely heaps better than when I had my babies and I had to take a photo, get it developed and then post it to my Mum in the UK!!! Technology really has made the world smaller hasn’t it? Here are my two favourite tiny people …..

We may have some other very small additions to the family soon. We are currently incubating 27 chicken eggs in the hope that Le Rod has walked the walk and isn’t all show and no go. It is a pretty simple set up involving a polystyrene box with a heating element and a water tray which keeps everything at a toasty 101 degrees and about 60% humidity. We roll the eggs twice a day and tomorrow is the day that our Chook Man John comes to help us ‘candle’ them to see if we have any embryos. If the egg is fertile, then we should see a dark spot around the middle of the egg, with some spider-like veins beginning to form around it. If its not, we should just be able to see the shape of the yellow yolk inside the egg, without any signs of an embryo or veins. If we do have babies on the way we will then clear out our custom made baby chicken compartment complete with heating lamps that was already here when we bought the house and prepare for some fluffy little baby chicks! Of course knowing my luck they will probably hatch while the MOTH is away and I will be solely responsible for keeping them alive, yikes!

There is a phrase that has been popping into my head all week that I would like to share with you all. My friend and Pilates Instructor extraordinaire Leanne said this to us all when we were whinging about our aches and pains after a weekend of gardening. She said “don’t let the old man or lady in.” We all laughed but it really is so true. We can choose to claim middle age and let it stop us doing certain things or we can just get on with it and be grateful for still being able to have a go! That old adage ‘you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone’ applies equally to ourselves and being a bit silly (whizzing down the supermarket aisle on your trolley/splashing in puddles/jumping into a pile of leaves etc) helps keep that old lady out as much as moving your body and using your mind. Having grandbabies will keep us on our toes and help us still see the magic in the world and seeing things through their eyes will keep us full of childish wonder, we are definitely NOT letting the old lady in here thank you very much! (Apparently Clint Eastwood who turned 88 on the 1st day of filming his latest movie The Mule was asked how he keeps up his energy and enthusiasm and he said ‘I just get up every morning and go out. And I don’t let the old man in,’ and he inspired the song of the same name written by Toby Keith whose own Grandma never had a birth certificate and therefore never knew or acted her age!) Don’t let the numbers dictate who we are folks!!

So as we creep slowly towards summer we are looking forward to the change to lighter fresher food, walks in the great outdoors without battling 60km winds, getting out of our trackies and into our shorts and enjoying the longer days. Bring on daylight saving next week as I currently wake up as soon as the first light steals through my window usually accompanied by the throaty song of the magpies and in the background the unmistakable sound of Le Rod welcoming the new day in his own inimitable way. All this at 5.30am. Darker mornings and lighter evenings YES PLEASE!