Let’s hope this perfect rainbow is signalling an end to the past few months of health worries for the MOTH. His new knee is fabulous, you can hardly even see the scar and it is doing everything it is supposed to do. The infection he picked up in hospital however has NOT gone away and has really become a huge nuisance. He has lost 15 kgs as nothing is being absorbed properly and he was getting to the stage that he felt he couldn’t go anywhere or do anything and he lost his joie de vivre for the first time since I’ve known him. Luckily one of the local pharmacists recommended a Naturopath in Wollongong who could look a bit more holistically at his situation and hopefully come up with an alternative to regular medicine, which could only seem to prescribe antibiotics which is how the whole thing started! To say the visit was enlightening was an understatement, and he immediately began on some targeted supplements to calm his gut. Together with a stringent diet that restricted all fermented foods and histamine rich foods he feels he is starting to turn a corner but a follow up test in about a week will determine whether or not the CDiff has actually left the building or not. If not, there is a plan B lurking in the shadows so we have everything crossed that one or other of the ‘plans’ will get rid of it once and for all and normal life can resume!

At the very same time that we started our very restricted diet our son started a pie business! We managed to get three of his pies into us before we started the new regime and they were delicious! He has always loved cooking (we all do in this family with the possible exception of Cammo who only does bbq’s!) and in a break in between jobs he has started cooking them to stay busy and make some money. 15 years ago we had a Harry’s Cafe de Wheels pie van in Newcastle and this family are all great lovers of a good pie so we were excited to try his beef ragout, chicken leek bacon and mushroom pie as well as the butter chicken pie – all seriously good! Our Pie Man can be found on instagram as @thepiman1 and on his website the-pie-man.square.site/ if anyone fancies all the enjoyment of a delicious pie with none of the work!

My best friend has had a weekender in Kangaroo Valley for over a decade but with retirement imminent she and her hubby have pressed the button on a big renovation to make it the perfect place to live all year round. Somehow despite being here a lot more than normal to oversee the build we have hardly been able to organise any catchups, but everything came together a couple of weeks ago when we met up at Silos Estate near Berry for a girl’s lunch with our mutual friend Kirsten. It was good to remind ourselves of the reasons we moved down to this beautiful part of the world, to forget about the weeding and the to do list for a couple of hours and just enjoy ourselves! A new chef has made it a great place to visit once more and we had a perfect winters day to sit out overlooking the beautiful view…..

The following day the little boys arrived for the weekend and somehow we got lucky with the weather (which had been very wet) and scored a dry, non windy warmish weekend! We had fun at the skate park and with a stone painting kit before dusk fell and we could light our bonfire! The boys were super excited to sit around the fire and once it had died down enough to find the perfect stick to roast their marshmallows! Some stories around the fire before bed made for a perfect end to the day.

The next day was deemed suitable for fishing! Uncle Tom had bought the kids fishing rods for Xmas so off we drove to Shoalhaven Heads and the pier to drop a line or two and try our luck. They enjoyed it despite no fish being caught and it was lovely to see the three generations of Cameron men together in such a wholesome pursuit!! Patience isn’t their strong suit but they gave it a red hot go!

Our 4 chickens are apparently on strike. They too are opposed to the constant rain and corresponding wetness underfoot. Mud is the name of the game on any well frequented path, doggy footprints (and the odd rabbit ones too) make patterns on our back deck, towels are in high rotation for drying off Bailey when she finally begrudgingly has to go outside for a wee. She sticks her nose tentatively outside and then looks back at me as if to say “you’ve got to be kidding Mum!!” We take turns in squelching across the lawn to let the chooks out and then shut them back up again at night. They are often looking rather bedraggled as they are happy to peck about outside as the upside of the rain is that they have a plethora of worms to feast on, but still there are no eggs! Our gardeners who have lots of chooks saved the day by gifting us a dozen last week and they looked so pretty in the carton with all the different coloured shells – I love how different breeds produce different coloured eggs and I look forward to when eggs on toast are back on the menu for us so we can use them – thank you Ethan and Sage.