It’s the first Sunday of winter and it’s gloomy. A fine mizzle is making me stay inside, log fire crackling gently, mug of tea and the newspaper in hand. There’s something about it being Sunday that gives me permission to snuggle up and enjoy indoor pursuits without judgement! My wardrobe cries out to be sorted out – the summery things folded and put away for another few months and the jumpers and jackets to be brought to the fore. I’m also sorting out my old “corporate” clothes as I can’t see me needing them much anymore. The tailored dresses, fitted shirts and the like are superfluous to my needs here in the countryside and spurring me on is the fact that my daughter is a similar size and will benefit from this clean out! Yesterday was a glorious day and I ventured out into the garden with my paints for an hour to attempt to capture the amazing golden russet colours of my crepe myrtle trees before they lost all their leaves. It feels good to sit in the gentle afternoon sun and just give in to creativity and enjoy the moment.

We have been lucky to have had our house full of little people over the past few weeks with visits from both sets of grandchildren. The girls came from Tassie for 10 days which gave us lots of opportunities to explore the local area as well as immerse them in country experiences. Little India, 21 months, was particularly enamoured with Bailey and the cows and chickens and it was lovely to see them happily accompanying Papa to do his daily chores. Everything is magical at that age – making a fire, feeding the chooks, baking a cake, mowing the lawn – the most mundane things become fun through their eyes.

The local playgrounds and bushwalks kept them busy and ensured they slept well at night and dinner eaten outdoors bundled up next to a fire was fun for all of us! Uncle Tom came down for a few days to join in the fun and it was nice for them to reconnect with him prior to our Cameron Xmas later this year. It will be a very busy and noisy one with 2 x 4 year olds and 2 x 2 year olds in the mix!! The year is already racing – hard to believe we are half way through already. Tempus fugit and all that jazz!

The little boys also love all the animal related pursuits but being boys they also LOVE Papa’s garage and his many tools and of course the ride on mower. Cooper who is ever curious as to how things work is now Papa’s helper when it comes to chopping wood and collecting kindling. He knows how to put the logs into the vice and then dons his headphones as they are cut with the saw. He loves nothing more than being given a length of wood, half a dozen nails and a hammer and then banging them in and taking them out! Simple fun but also teaching him something practical which is the best thing about 4 year olds as they are sponges and absolutely love learning new things. The littler ones are finding new words every day and of course think they can do anything that the bigger ones can which leads to the odd disaster but also lots of fun together as a group. It really is a unique and special time for our family unit.

Winter brings with it early morning mists and fogs, settling thickly into the dips of the hills and keeping us asleep longer with no sun to wake us. Huge flocks of Corellas fly further afield looking for nuts and seeds, we hear them squawking loudly from kilometres away and then see them resting, strung out like fairy lights on the power lines. Most of our outlook is still green thanks to the native trees but there are vibrant squares of red and orange where people have planted deciduous trees in their gardens, breaking up the green in the most delightful way. I still get much joy from the piles of fallen leaves, so many shapes and colours and the rustling and crunching as you walk through them takes me back to my childhood in England and walking through our local woods.

So this is the time of year to rest and recuperate, indulge our love of slow cooking and baking, finally managing to (almost) get on top of those pesky weeds in the garden, time to paint and stain the outdoor furniture and prune the fruit trees, read on the verandah in the sunshine and binge watch shows (especially the British ones) with a glass of red by the fire after dinner. A walk along the beach on a sunny day with the dog and catching friends for lunch at local wineries. Shorter days and colder nights when climbing into bed under the cloud of our winter duvet is heaven. If our chickens would just start laying some eggs again things would be perfect! Its been 2 months now since they started moulting and stopped laying but now they are all fully fluffy with feathers and STILL no eggs. We got a tip from an old chook guy who said to feed them warm porridge every evening just before they went to sleep all to no avail and now I feel they are having a lend of us. Trouble is I love them! All 8 of them are so sweet and love standing near me and making little crooning noises when I’m working in the veggie patch next to their chook house and when we let them out in the afternoon they run off together as a pack – wings flapping and clucking loudly – until they find a warm sunny space under the roses where they like to make little hollows to lie in with their wings out to soak up all that warmth. They are real little characters but are entirely useless. Even when we get eggs again each one will have cost about $10 each with all the food we’ve given them for no return over the past few months! I really love seeing them wandering around the place though and the grandbabies love them so for now they stay…….