Early morning and the mist hangs like icing over the top of the mountain, the cows languorously wander into the field in single file blithely following the leader without a care in the world. Midday and the heat is throbbing, lying heavily over the house, we escape to the pool and watch the dragonflies hover on their search for a tasty morsel. Late afternoon and its Golden Hour when the sun is low in the sky and everything looks like a painting tinted in yellowy gold, the chickens are wandering around the garden looking for delicacies and run squawking every now and again to catch up with the others as they roam far and wide spreading out like a search party to who knows where and we sip our happy hour drinks on the veranda watching them and pondering how lucky we are to live here – simply and happily for the most part. The city isn’t too far away if we feel the need for more “action” and a trip overseas always makes us feel adventurous and richer for the new experiences yet by the end of it craving home in equal measure!! 

The weather has returned to pre La Nina normal and we have had some beautiful summery weather. The odd hot day or two but mostly just about perfect. We have had some amazing storms though where the sky darkens ominously and an hour later we are left battered with branches scattered around the lawn and another 10-20mls of rain in the gauge saving me from too much hand watering thankfully. We have tomatoes and zucchini growing like crazy in the patch and I’m about to plant some beans and silverbeet and maybe some asian greens to help us through Autumn. A big batch of passata will be made in another week or two as there are literally about 200 tomatoes about to ripen on our bushes! The rest of our garden is looking much better after some love from us and some compost and fertiliser, my pots are enjoying some love thanks to gogo juice and all the microbes found within and my hydrangeas that were on the brink of death are looking decidedly happy at last. The dead trees have been removed and the lawn is starting to grow over the patches already. I feel like we can breathe again and with things about to slow down with the seasons I might just have things back to normal by Spring!!

I made a solo trip to Tassie last month to help out Loz and Berry as they were moving into their very first own home which needed a lot of TLC and Lauren had every day organised with military precision. They had 2 weeks to paint everything, install new carpets, flooring and fitted wardrobes and buy some furniture and appliances as they have been living in furnished houses for the last 10 years as expats! It was a steep learning curve for them but they did a wonderful job completely transforming the old tired green, lavender and yellow rooms into fresh clean white rooms which made everything brighter and became a perfect background for their furnishings. I looked after the little girls when they weren’t at daycare and helped paint, weed the garden (I can never get away from this job it seems!!) and generally helped to get the new place ready for a family when they were! There is something about investing time, money and lots of hard work into a house – it makes you bond with it and it starts to become a home. I am proud of them for saving hard for so long and then getting stuck in to do the hard yards and slowly seeing their vision come to fruition. The girls are the most gorgeous age now, loving getting dressed up (Frozen is huge) singing and dancing, reading books and playing outside with anything watery and in their mud kitchen (so simple and such fun!) They are becoming a real team now and Indi copies EVERYTHING that Myla does so we thank our lucky stars that Myla is a pretty good role model! I absolutely love this little video of her trying to explain to me what Cold Rock Ice-cream is……

I came back and met up with my friend who had been in the UK for the past 3 months and we decided to go out to Merribee to have a look around their gardens and get some inspiration along with our coffee. It proved a very educational visit as we chatted to their in-house horticulturalist about the state of our gardens post the cataclysmic rain we’ve had over the past 2 years. They had also endured a similar fate with lots of their hedges showing dead patches and whole stands of dead trees. Their lavender field had to be completely replanted and this time they decided to plant them on little raised mounds just in case of further heavy rain in the future. She was the person that told me about ‘Who Flung Dung’ and ‘Gogo juice’ and the general importance of soil biology which was fascinating! It was encouraging to me that even the professionals were having problems with their gardens and not to give up.

The following weekend was The Berry Show, back for the first time in 3 years and a very welcome addition to this little country towns calander. It is a mini version of The Easter Show in Sydney and there is lots for the locals to get involved in – cattle showing, horse jumping, rounding up cattle and sheep shearing to name a few. There was the ever popular wood chop, a petting corner, a poultry shed full of the most exotic and amazing looking and sounding birds and of course Side Show Alley. Sam bought the boys down for the weekend and Cooper got to go to his first ever fair – going on the dodgems with Dad and loving bumping everyone! The mirror maze, laughing clowns, fairy floss, fluoro slushies and tractors galore all made for a good day for the little boys and then all hot, sweaty and sticky we went home for a swim and an outdoor dinner on a perfect summer’s evening. The huge new park in Berry continues to be on our must-do list when the boys are here and Cooper is getting braver every time – climbing high up to the big kids slide and loving the human hamster wheel and flying fox. Ollie is more into snacks and watching everyone but it won’t be too long before he’s up there too! A ride on our local model railway which opens on the 1st Sunday of the month topped off our fun filled weekend and they both slept, happily exhausted, all the way back to Sydney!

So here we are, Christmas is but a distant memory and 2023 is well on it’s way. I’m getting very excited as my Mum and Sister arrive here mid March and I am excited to show them a bit of the south coast and Tassie that they haven’t seen before. They are getting excited to see the grandkids and great grandkids and hopefully some sunshine after a long few months of winter in the UK and as usual we will just relish being with each other and enjoying the simple everyday things which is actually what you miss most when you are away from people you love. Bring it on!!!!!