A family photo at last!! (no matter how hard we tried Bailey would NOT turn around!!)

What a wonderfully busy family filled two weeks we have had. Our family from Switzerland joined us as well as Scotty, our ‘other’ son who shares a house with Tom and has been part of our Christmas morning for many years now.  All my pre conceived dreams of a country Christmas were fulfilled – a house full of people and chatter, a fridge full of food, a driveway full of cars and several eskies full of beer and wine! We somehow found beds for 10 people and despite the flies we managed a few evenings outside under the stars and during the day we were grateful for our large dining room and the veranda. It was made extra special by the fact we were celebrating Lauren’s engagement – a proposal from Berry on the 21st December enabled us to all celebrate together as a family and give our first Xmas in The Meadow an extra special flavour. As they hope to hold the wedding here we had an opportunity to discuss things before they head back to Hong Kong. Very special times for us all and we are very excited for the happy couple. Needless to say I am SUPER happy!!

Congratulations beautiful daughter!!

As we had guests for 3-4 days we spread the Christmas deliciousness over a couple of days and had the big hot dinner on Xmas Eve night (this also happened to be the family patriarch’s 89th birthday) which was lovely. The room twinkled with the candles and fairy lights, some champers and big reds were consumed with many a toast for a happy Christmas, health and happiness for everyone and generally it was a lovely warm fuzzy evening.

We backed up the next day with an early morning swim at the beach before heading home to unwrap our prezziess and bake the ham. Today was the future son-in-law’s birthday and another reason to break open the bubbles. We ended up eating a very late seafood lunch before adjourning to the veranda for an afternoon of games of bocce and cricket.

Beautiful unspoilt 7 mile beach

Tom – did you steal some of that ham????

Merry Crimble everyone….

The weather was perfect – 25 degrees and sunny – enabling us to enjoy a highly anticipated game of cricket. Cammo and Berry measured the pitch and then Cam mowed it nice and low – spray paint designated the crease and the whole family participated in the fielding. Bailey of course was by far the best out fielder as no-one had the energy to run across an acre to get the ball! Pop was the official umpire and I was the only injured party copping a ball just above the elbow from a rather apologetic son!

Measuring and mowing the cricket strip….then …..

action!!

So great that Pop could be with us for this special Christmas.

 

A bit of furniture re-arranging to better enjoy the view and a few coldies….

 Sam popping the 1st of many bottles of bubbly to celebrate

The table laid for Christmas Dinner

Now we are back to just three of us (plus the chocolate drop) and a steady stream of people popping by on the way to or from Sydney. I think we see more people down here than we did when we lived in the Big Smoke! We will be dropping the newly engaged one to Mollymook for NYE and we are continuing down to The Five Mile near Moruya to visit our dear friends. Hopefully next week the fridge will contain no more leftovers and the garbage bins will finally not be overflowing. The bottle recycling will have finished and the sheets/tea towels/napkins will have been washed and ironed ready for the next full house and Christmas 2015 will be a distant but fond memory. Another year has ended but for us it has been an amazing new adventure full of new friends, new experiences and new knowledge as we grapple with growing our own food amongst nature (my apricots were definitely more bird food than jam this year and the plums are heading in the same direction ). It is hard to think of living anywhere else now as we make our new life in The Meadow. Thanks to all of you for sharing it with us, I have been genuinely thrilled that so many of you have read this blog and I have thoroughly enjoyed writing it. In fact I have enjoyed it so much I have plans for a little writing project that I hope to be able to share with you all later in 2016!

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year from The Meadow

“Live the Life you Love”

I don’t know what I really expected when I moved to the country – apart from breathing in the fresh air and looking out over the vibrant greenery of The Shoalhaven, having a few chooks for fresh eggs and a dog to sprawl on the veranda. I didn’t really think about the other animals around us and what impact they may have on our lives. Needless to say living in the middle of a dairy farm we have become privvy to the day to day hiccups of having 350 animals with a 24/7 routine of care. It’s so easy for us to sit in our lounge and look out at the cows wandering past to the milking shed and see one that’s hobbling or very thin and think they should be better looked after. We judge with our city aesthetic what animals should have/look like/be treated like and the reality is a whole lot different. It doesn’t mean the farmers don’t care but they don’t look at them quite the same way as us city pet owning folk do. It is upsetting when you see a dead calf, or cow and it takes a couple of days for them to be removed and I’m getting increasingly upset for poor old Neddy the horse that lives in the paddock adjacent to us.

He is in a completely treeless field – rain, hail and shine. No protection from the near 40 degree days and from the relentless westerly wind. He gets no visitors and no exercise. He twitches constantly with the hundreds of flies that buzz around him and when I get up close his hooves are all tattered and frayed. The people next door are lovely people (and apparently are doing her sister a favour by keeping the horse for her) but with a new baby and 10 acres of their own to look after Neddy is the last thing on their mind. So every week now I add a bag of carrots and a bag of apples to my shopping list to give Neddy boy a bit of a treat and the sound of a friendly voice when I feed them to him. I’m also seriously considering spraying him (as some of the girls I talk to do with their horses) to help with his fly problem. Am I just being a silly city girl who can’t cope with the reality of country living???

Our trees give him some shade early in the morning at least….

On the other hand the respect I have for food producers is increasing on a daily basis as I discover first hand the problems of growing your own fruit and veg. Especially fruit. So many things can and do go wrong. The strong westerly and southerly winds both blow off any less than secure fruit, leaving it scattered all around for the rabbits and one apricot loving Chocolate Labrador. She walks past the fallen plums and goes straight for the furry little apricots and there is a trail of stones left to let me know exactly how many she has consumed. Then, if the fruit manages to stay attached to the tree, it makes it easy pickings for all the birds to fly in and have a few pecks (to check the ripeness)  and for any rogue fruit flies in the area to take up residence. If it escapes those hurdles we still have to get enough of the right kind of sunshine to ripen the fruit and make it eat worthy. At this rate I will be lucky if I get enough apricots to make one pot of jam and you can buy one of those from the supermarket for a few dollars – CRAZY! I still hold on to my dream of picking sun ripened fruit straight from the tree and biting into it’s voluptuous sweet perfumed flesh and thinking – WOW – that was worth all the hard work. If I ever get there I will let you know……

In the meantime I am harvesting some lovely zucchini, green beans and yellow teardrop tomatoes and I was very excited to part the leaves on my capsicum plants the other day to see beautiful shiny peppers staring back at me. The eggplants are flowering and the red tomatoes are ripening so I will soon have enough ingredients for a ratatouille!!!

At least our garden is providing us with some interesting veggies!! My home grown J-Lo tomato!!

I had my last trip to Sydney before Xmas this week. A flurry of hair appointments, the last few bits of gift shopping and dinner with my lovely bookclub girls to celebrate Christmas and to give our Kris Kringle prezzies. I discovered when I attempted to decorate the house this week that all my decorations which had filled my previous little house so well were completely lost in this new one. I barely had enough decorations to cover the two fireplace mantels and the hall table so I stopped off at a Xmas warehouse for a few more bags of goodies.

All my beautiful Book Club girls………….

We will wait until next week to buy our tree to keep it looking as fresh and happy as possible for the big day. We want to place it in our bay window which is the perfect visual location for it but unfortunately it gets the sun all day long and the pine needles will be struggling after 10 days. I am sure it will look lovely and Christmassy once it is installed and I even splashed out on a new angel/fairy to look over us all from the top of the tree!! A visit to the new Harris Farm at Drummoyne sent me into a rhapsody before heading home with the boot full of bags of beautiful produce that I can’t get down here – in fact it was the first time I’ve had a twinge that I don’t live in Sydney since I moved! We have a Harris Farm in Bowral and I think I will be going there to get my Xmas food as the choice is vast – with huge wheels of cheese and fabulous cold meats as well as all the fresh stuff….sigh………

Well,  Christmas is just a little over a week away and despite all the many, many lists, the meal planning, the gift buying, the decorating, the never ending shopping and spending, the wrapping and the cooking,  it is still something I love and look forward to. For our entire family to be together is the best gift I could have and I just wish I was a bit closer to England so I could share some of the chaos and fun with my Mum, Sister and family. This year we have 10 of us here for the big day and as we are so far away we will have all 10 staying with us so I have been madly buying bed linen, pillows and duvets so everyone can be comfortable. Throw into the mix the fact that my Father-in-law has his birthday on Xmas Eve and Lauren’s boyfriend has his on Xmas day and we have a very special few days in store! Cammo is going to mow a cricket pitch on the front lawn, the drinks fridge will be bulging at the seams, the table tennis and darts are available if the weather is gloomy and many a story will be relayed on the front veranda just as it has for the past 119 years! We are off to the Christmas tree farm this Friday to cut down our very own tree (very Clark Griswold of us don’t you think??) and as we have 12 foot ceilings we can get a lovely big tree to decorate. The turkey, ham and pork are ordered and we have a lovely home made pudding from our friend Smutzer. A game of golf is planned for Xmas Eve while the girls cook up a storm and Bing Crosby has been downloaded onto Spotify to keep the tradition going albeit in a new way! The Meadow will be echoing to the beat of a different drum this year but we are just the most recent keepers of the keys and the latest chapter in the story of the White House down the Lane in The Meadow………..

                     

Have a great Christmas everyone !!

 

It has been a very busy week in The Meadow. We had 3 different sets of guests in a 5 day period and it was like a little B&B with all the sheet changing! It was really lovely to see everyone though and well worth any extra housework! Sue arrived from Moruya just in time to celebrate Berry Merry Christmas where the whole of Berry seemingly participated in a big Xmas Parade along the main street which involved road closures and detours for the major traffic going to Sydney. So lovely to see everyone turn out to cheer on the Santa dash, with everything from sprints to bike races to 3 legged races and stroller races so that everyone could join in the fun.

About the only way that I would participate in a street run is if this applied……

The shops stayed open for some late night shopping and the pub was packed with contented diners after a fun evening. We enjoyed our girly sleepover catch up and after a coffee in The Burrows the next day I bid her a fond farewell.

I guess the most important of the comings (and more pertinently, the goings) this week was the fact that Cam resigned. It was a bit of a shock at first despite the fact I knew he had been unhappy since the company was taken over by a global company based in Brisbane. Two of them were essentially trying to do the work that 7 had done previously and something had to give. As he wasn’t prepared to move to Queensland and they didn’t want him working from home 5 days a week he wasn’t left with much choice. As his role is not an easy one to replace it looks like he will most probably have to work until next April whilst they hire and then train the new person. It still feels a bit scary. The prospect of not actually earning any more money and having to live on your savings for potentially another 25 years is enough to make you come out in a cold sweat but I guess we’re no different from everyone else that goes through this stage. It seems ironic that once you get the time and freedom to travel you have to be a bit more careful about how much you spend! No wonder there are so many Grey Nomads with their campervans and caravans out there!!

There were a lot of people coming to Berry this weekend for the inaugural Fairgounds Music Festival – an Indie folk festival that enjoyed a beautiful day and night of weather and was a big success. The whole town was full of people and we had queues at all the cafes and pubs so I guess it was good for all the local businesses too.

We thought it was about time we allowed our chooks to come and go as well. They have a huge enclosed run including some shade under our huge pear tree and some sunny open areas where they like to make their dust nests but chickens love to scratch around and peck at a large range of things (how they would love to get into my veggie patch – Nirvana indeed) so our lovely Smutzer came down to make a new door in the fence with a little drawbridge for them to get out into the garden. It was a work of art and well deserved the ribbon ceremony for its official opening as The Chook Mahal!!!

    

FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our last guests were my nephew and his girlfriend who have been living in Europe for the last 7 years or so and are now back in Oz to live under sunnier skies. They had never really been south of Sydney and I think the green rolling hills and the local countryside reminded Jill of England as it does with me.  

It was lovely to catch up with them after all this time and we waved them off to Sydney from a nice vineyard we hadn’t been to before – The Crooked River Winery in Gerringong. It has a rightly deserved reputation for good food and with it’s beautiful views out over the vines we will definitely go back (just remember to book a table by the windows for that gorgeous view!)

Weddings are popular here and the knot is usually tied under this magnificent old tree!

 

The last little comings and goings are our baby Willy Wagtails. Cam noticed their nest last week and we had admired their workmanship – a perfect nest with high sides to protect their babies. He noticed they were out of the nest but not yet flying and I managed to capture them patiently waiting for Mum and Dad to come back with dinner. They are just gorgeous and looked so cute all in a row. The next morning they were gone so this was a perfectly timed photo!!

 

There is a lovely tea shop in Berry called strangely enough The Berry Tea Shop and last Friday I met up with my friend Leanne for a girly morning tea complete with beautiful home made scones, jam and proper thick cream. Choosing a tea to have wasn’t easy as there are LOADS of choices. I finally went with the wonderfully named Iron Goddess of Mercy tea and it was really enjoyable. I have been meaning to branch out from the standard English Breakfast and Earl Grey for ages and now I really have no excuse with so much choice right down the road!!

My sister had already discovered this place online from the UK and arranged with them to deliver me a gorgeous teapot and 2 huge cups and saucers as a house warming present so I have everything I need to start experimenting. This shop also sells the most fabulous quirky teapot cosies the like of which I haven’t seen since my days in the UK!! Together with their yummy cake selection I think it’s my new favourite place to meet!!

Now I’m not sure how many of you know, but our house is called Germania. It initially irritated the hell out of me – it just seems such a harsh name for such a lovely old house. Before we moved here we thought we would rename the house. Cam really wanted to call it Lochiel after the Scottish area his ancestors hailed from. I came up with all sorts of flowery names like Meadow View, Jasmine Cottage or even The White House as everyone refers to it as that white house at the end of the lane – but what happens if we want to paint it a different colour one day??? As we have tried to embrace the house as it is instead of inflicting too many of our designs on to it, we haven’t rushed into any name changes and as it turns out it is actually a valid part of the history of the house apparently. The house was built by Charles Lamond whose grandfather John Lamond sailed from the Scottish Highlands (see there is a Scottish link after all) on the ship John Barry in 1837 arriving in The Shoalhaven area and working on The Coolangatta estate before being granted his own selection at Worrigee where he worked as a bacon curer in his father’s factory. After the death of his wife he married his German housekeeper, built Germania and ran Ayrshire cattle for milking at Meroo Meadow which was then a large farm. Many of his descendants still reside in The Shoalhaven region and several remain involved in the dairy industry to this day.

     So folks – do we keep the name or not?

The library saga is (almost) over. After 5 months we finally have it installed and functioning!! It isn’t an all together happy ending however. Michael the cabinet maker is a consummate perfectionist. The reason it has taken so long is his attention to detail and also the fact that they have never made a bed in a cupboard before! On their first effort in installing the bed mechanism one of the hydraulic springs sheared off and we had to get a replacement from Sydney. That delivery ended up in Orange instead of Berry (got the wrong fruit) and it took a week to arrive down here. When they came to install it the second time they discovered they had been sent the spring for the wrong side. Swear words were exchanged with the Sydney store and one of their staff ended up driving down at the weekend to hand deliver the correct part!!!!Needless to say I was very happy to come back from work yesterday to see their truck in the driveway in the knowledge that I was finally going to get my completed library/spare bed. Apparently they had been there for 4 hours as when the final spring was installed the cupboard would not now shut properly…..aaaaagggghhhh- what else can go wrong on this job?? They did everything they possibly could but I had to tell them to pack up and go home as looking at it for the 10000th time wasn’t going to change anything. They are going to call the technical people and see if they have any ideas but at this stage I am just happy to have it in and working despite it bulging a bit on one side! Here is a pic of it before the final fitting problem….

The boys came up for a flying visit on Saturday. They both had a desire to get out of town and breathe in some country air and to relax. Combined with a bit of Mum’s cooking and some of Dad’s wine they were happy bunnies and Bailey was ecstatic to have another couple of eager throwers of the ball for her! I am so happy that we are within an easy drive from Sydney so that the kids can pop down on a whim – it is a lovely drive once you clear Heathcote and it was a huge part of the reason we searched for a new home within a couple of hours of Sydney.

Happy Hour with my lovely boys.

Garden wise the onions and the garlic are harvested! We are very happy with our first crop although I can see why the ‘gardeners’ were advising me to thin out the onion crop as some of them were planted too close together which didn’t give them enough room for the bulb to spread out and grow properly. This means lots of them look more like giant shallots than onions. Others are beautiful and  ginormous  and I think they will last us for ages. Unlike other veggies, you have to pick them when it’s been dry for a while with no rain and then you clean them all up and hang them for a few weeks to cure them. It’s quite a faff but worth it in the end I think. Luckily we have some rafters in our potting shed perfect for hanging bunches of onions and garlic despite banging our heads on them when we go in to collect the eggs. Goodness knows where I shall store them once they’re ready, I shall have to investigate an onion storage set up!!

 

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And sadly a good man was lost this week – RIP my lovely Ken, I will think of you every time we have a camp fire.

After a slow start Summer arrived with a vengeance last week. We seemingly only just got over 3 days of rain where we were forced to stay inside, when all of a sudden we had day after day of sunshine and temps in the 30’s and now we’re back into the summer routine of walking the dog either early or late and trying to hit the garden before the sun (and the flies) become too much. The fans are whirring and the icemaker is in full swing. Interesting salads and barbecues are back on the menu and the malbec and shiraz has been replaced with a beautiful French rose from the Loire valley (at only $11 a bottle!!!!) and icy cold gin and tonics and white wine spritzers. I found a lovely ‘syrup’ at The Treat Factory – peach and green tea – and it makes a lovely drink in a long glass with plenty of soda and ice for when I’m “being good.”

The garden has hit it’s straps with loads of things ripening,  buckets of little yellow teardrop tomatoes, dwarf green beans and loads of zucchinis with their beautiful yellow flowers all ready to be stuffed with deliciousness and fried – Happy Hour will be extra happy this weekend with these little darlings on the menu.

The only trouble is once you get 5 zucchinis you get 50 so we will have a serious glut of these before too much longer. This has precipitated the need for a new fridge with a larger freezer to be able to cope with our produce (not so sure that growing your own veg is cheaper after all – haha!!). Much to the delight of the menfolk in the family this means our old fridge has become the new beer fridge and it can store a LOT of beer!!! Xmas is now sorted! I have also bottled my homemade limoncello and have visions of us sipping tiny ice cold glasses of it in the garden under our huge pear tree over the holiday period.

Some cornflowers from my garden – I love picking little bunches of flowers to place around the house. Half the reason I want to plant a hydrangea hedge is that I will be able to cut loads of them for the house without distracting from their hedginess in the garden. After speaking with the beautiful Carolyn, who has opened a lovely new garden shop in Berry called the Radish and The Rose, she has convinced me to go a little bit more country and plant a mixed coloured hedge of hydrangeas instead of the pure white ones I had initially envisaged. They look so gorgeous bunched together in a jug – pink, blue, white and even a beautiful dark burgundy. We are going to plant four magnolia trees between the existing hedge and the new hydrangeas to give them a bit of shade from the relentless westerly sun and also to enjoy their abundant flowers in winter when nothing much else is out in the garden. Carolyn invited me to her house to see some of her established plants and I have to share it with you as it’s so pretty. She has a holiday cottage on the property which I can highly recommend if you want somewhere lovely to stay in the area. http://www.jasminecottageberry.com.au

She may also be able to source a jacaranda for me as I have had no luck with any of the local nurseries and would love one at the front gate – they are such a fabulous colour and fill you with joy.

It makes my heart sing when I see a magnificent jacaranda overhanging a beautiful old cottage – a match made in heaven!

Another lovely place to stay in the vicinity is Bannisters at Mollymook which has had a recent refurb from none other than Collette Dinnigan. She is spreading her design talents to interiors and she has done a lovely job of the penthouse suites. How inviting and refreshing does this look???

Like a little bit of the Caribbean on The South Coast?

Yes please…

Back to reality and it is THAT time of the year again where I suddenly realise that I haven’t bought, let alone sent, my Xmas gifts to the family in the UK and last Friday’s weather forecast of 42C was enough to send me off to the airconditioned comfort of the nearest shopping mall which happens to be a 45 minute drive away. In contrast to shopping in Sydney where I could go to one of 5 different centres all within 15 minutes of me and therefore look, think and compare before buying I was forced into being decisive (yikes!!) and in the space of 5 hours I had done 80% of my shopping. The rest has been done online which really is a huge bonus when you don’t live near a major centre.

Now just to wrap them and send them……………

We do have a couple of lovely old fashioned shops in Berry where you can get unusual items and one of the best shops is The Toy Shop. Despite the fact that I have no grandbabies yet and hardly any tiny tots in the extended family I still love going in there and looking at everything. It’s a riot of colour and has something for everyone.

The only other fun thing that happened this week is that our library got a step closer to completion. In fact the boys got it into the house and were just finalising the mechanism for the pull down bed when the metal hydraulic spring sheared off and ricocheted across the room. Luckily no-one was in the way or they would have received some serious damage. However a new spring has had to be sent from Sydney and in the meantime we have a bed in the middle of our lounge room. After 4 months in the making there is just this one last thing holding things up but hopefully by the weekend it will finally be FINISHED!!!!

Sneak peek……

And that my friends is a wrap from another week in The Meadow!!

 

In a week when the world went mad yet again I am grateful for the serenity of the countryside around me. It’s hard to fathom how people have such warped beliefs that they can indiscriminately kill innocent people, and then themselves, in the name of God. No God would condone such an act and they only continue to drive a divide between Christian and Muslim people by their actions. It encourages the “them and us” mentality despite the fact that most Muslims are peaceful loving people. Terrorism is not a religion folks and the #notinmyname campaign is trying to get us to understand that. This fear is all part of their ideology – these extremists – to ensure a backlash by the west against Islam and thereby giving them a “reason” to continue their carnage.  The media also perpetrates who we should feel sorry for and who we don’t. There was hardly a word in the media about the bombings in Lebanon or in Baghdad but Paris (which is a city dear to my heart and to millions of others all over the world) receives a tidal wave of support, again skewing our perceptions. These bombings could make you fearful about travelling, but that is what these people want and then they would win, so I intend going ahead with my planned trip to Paris in August and say “up yours” to ISIL. The fear of terrorism is sometimes more insidious, creeping into our everyday lives via the media – bringing this fear straight into our lounge rooms through the TV. The media has a lot to answer for with their constant 24 hour reporting – you almost feel like you are there with all the stress and angst that comes with that – no wonder everyone is scared to death.

Rant over.

In stark contrast the only problems encountered this week in the Meadow were of an animal nature – with An Escape and A Stampede. Early one morning, having my first cuppa of the day and still in my pj’s I felt a rumbling through the ground – reminiscent of a scene from the film Jumanji or the start of the earthquake I experienced in Greece a long time ago – and I looked out of the window to see cows literally galloping by our house 3 or 4 abreast all jostling for position. They were on the road instead of their usual track and then I heard Matt The Farmer zooming up the road on his quad bike calling them every swear word under the sun as he tried to contain them. About 6 peeled off into our neighbours front garden and then a few ran straight through the dividing hedge into ours!

This picture belies the speed at which they were travelling and there are loads of hoof imprints in our lawn as a memory of the event. As it turns out there were a few cows on heat and they broke through a gate/fence in order to pursue the call of nature! I guess cows have problems with their hormones too….. Poor Matt, he was rather sheepish when he came to apologise for his wayward cows (and his colourful language!!) but it was just a reminder that we are in the middle of a 300 acre dairy farm.

The escape artist was of course Bailey.

We have been so lucky that up until now she has been happy to stay in our garage (with the door open) on her mat with some water, a toy and a treat of some sort when we go out. Although she has always had access to The Lane she has never shown any interest in leaving the property and is usually still on her mat when we return to the house. However, this week I have been working some extra days and she has been home alone rather more than usual. The previous day she had discovered the plants I had bought at the nursery and by the time I came home they were strewn all over the lawn and the plastic pots chewed to smithereens. On this day despite the fact that I took her for a walk before I left she went walkabout a mere half hour after I had gone, trotting up the lane and visiting the neighbours, bold as brass. Luckily they are all lovely and adore the chocolate button but we were all worried that she may venture further up The Lane to The Highway which would be disastrous. As a result she got to be babysat by the gorgeous Catherine and stay and play with Wally the black lab up the road until I got back from work. She had to be hosed down before she came home as she had been rolling in the mud and was totally filthy. I’ve rarely seen her happier. She slept for the rest of the day in pure exhaustion.

In order to be able to leave the house in the knowledge that she is safe and also to allow for her to access shade and sun and grass we have installed an inground stake system with a metal cord that attaches to her collar. She doesn’t seem to mind it and despite a few attempts, it doesn’t seem to be chewable. Its about 5m long and fingers crossed it stops her trotting off to adventure down the lane.

In more enjoyable news our long waited for library began to be installed. The base is in and the remaining units should be joining it next week. There is mess from one end of the room to the other with books, magazines and paraphernalia awaiting it’s new home! I can’t wait to have it completed and then the fun of filling it up begins. The last few boxes from the garage will finally get unpacked and we will have the added benefit of having a pull down bed/4th bedroom!!

The garden is constantly unfolding with new plants and is a joy to work in despite also demanding constant attention. I have a kind of roster now whereby I work my way around the acerage so that no one area gets completely out of control and I must say my agapanthas are starting to look beautiful and well worth all the trouble!

 

In what was a mixed week of weather, my two days in Sydney were glorious and my favourite jacaranda trees were doing there thing all over town. Purple puddles against that perfect cerulean blue sky. Just gorgeous. It’s spurred me on to finding a nursery down here where I can buy a tree as I have the perfect spot for it at my entrance gate. Watch this space.

The beautiful jacarandas in Sydney

After my action packed 30 hours in Sydney I headed back South to pick up The Chocolate Drop from her kennels (more like Club Med for pooches) and go home to Cam and Smutz who were doing blokey things like fixing fences, creating hanging spaces in our outdoor shed and mending a leaky pipe. We had a lovely weekend together despite the weather turning foul and very dramatic. In between the downpours and storms we got everything done – thanks to our very own almost-live-in tradie.

Handyman HQ.

The weather was very dramatic with Sydney copping this amazing storm which looks like a tidal wave about to engulf Bondi Beach and closer to home with some very impressive lightening.

The wild and stormy weather.

I must say that whatever the weather it is always nice to be at home – working outside in the sunshine or curled up in front of the fire with a good book I am happy. When I drive down from Sydney and get to those magnificent Kiama bends my heart sings to see the beautiful countryside hugging the coast, the red tin roofs of the white weatherboard farmhouses and the undulating valleys with grazing cattle and horses. How lucky am I to be able to have the best of both worlds!!

We had a lovely little local story this week that made it all the way to the National News when Brooklyn, a big boofy bulldog belonging to a homeless guy who lives in a tent on a local field, chased a wombat all the way down a wombat hole and disappeared underground. People could hear him barking from deep inside the earth and local rescue teams arrived on the scene with their sonic equipment to locate exactly where the adventurous hound was stuck.

He was a long, long way in and the rescue started on Wednesday after shoring up the earth (after lots of recent rain it was pretty dangerous) and digging down towards the chamber. Brooklyn let everyone know he was alive and kicking by barking every now and again and hope was held to get him out within 24 hours. Unfortunately by Friday afternoon they still hadn’t got him and the sad decision was made by the authorities that it wasn’t a viable rescue any longer with the chances of Brooklyn surviving being slim to none……

People power then kicked in with all the Nowra locals taking over with shovels and their bare hands and at 10.45pm in the pitch black Brooklyn was pulled up into the loving arms of his very grateful owner Charlie. He looked a little bewildered and obviously exhausted and hungry but he was finally free!!

 Brooklyn survives to play another day…..

One very lucky and well loved dog – Brooklyn back at his campsite with Charlie.

(There is a rather unexpected postscript to this story……due to this story hitting the national news it appears that Charlie was recognised in Victoria where he is wanted for several crimes so although he has his beloved boy back he may have simultaneously sacrificed his own freedom.)

This week I was ridiculously excited to discover some fruit on trees that I had previously thought were purely ornamental. We are now the proud owners of three plum trees and an apricot tree! All are full of fruit so now I just have to hope that we get enough sunshine to ripen them and that we manage to harvest them before the birds get to them. Apricots have to ripen on the tree so it will be a race to see who gets there first. I guess we can try netting the trees if things become too much of a contest!

Here are the baby apricots with their furry speckled skins ^ and below the hard baby plums with their shiny skins – a lovely addition to our little orchard of fruit trees. We also have oranges, lemons, limes, mandarins, grapefruit, apple and pear trees, with blueberries and raspberries planted too. Almost a fruit salad…….

There are so many things flowering at the moment I almost discover something new every day. Luckily some of the plants that had died back during winter have sprung forth and are now filling in the flower beds and blocking out the weeds and roses are tumbling over the walls and spilling out over their pots.

The next plan for the garden is a large hydrangea hedge – this has mostly come about as we couldn’t secure the services of a bobcat driver. We have phoned a dozen people over a couple of months to no avail. They are all super busy as most of them have been contracted to help with the building of the new road. The whole area has benefited from the works with lots of local houses being rented to RMS contractors and the local pubs reaping the rewards of hundreds of men not wanting to cook their own dinners Monday to Friday. The food shops are sold out of pies and sandwiches by 1.30 in the afternoon and business is booming in Berry! It is the upside of what appears to be a huge scar on the beautiful countryside. It will look better once it’s finished and landscaped and there is no doubting the fact that it will improve the drive to and from Sydney.

So now, instead of trying to flatten some of the side garden, we are going to plant it with what will (hopefully) eventually become a thick wide hedge of white mophead hydrangeas. As none of the local nurseries have enough I am going to give a mail order nursery a go. It feels like a weird concept – sending mature plants in the mail – but apparently they have a great track record getting them to their customers in one piece so fingers crossed people!!

Its been a big week of sport with the biggest thing being the Rugby World Cup Final featuring the All Blacks v Wallabies. It was the culmination of a great competition and we all got up at 2.30am excited that we may witness the fall of the mighty AB’s with our amazingly energetic boys seemingly on a high. It is now history of course that despite a valiant comeback in the 2nd half we failed to bring Bill home but the boys can hold their heads high and we have a great few years coming up if their performance is anything to go by.

Yesterday was the race that stops the nation and despite the mist and drizzle we got frocked up and drove out to the Nowra Turf Club for an afternoon of race watching, betting and a few glasses of bubbly. All three local Raine & Horne offices come together for the afternoon and it’s nice to gradually get to know the staff at the other offices too. The day ended rather sadly with a horse being spooked after finishing a race and running into a fence throwing the jockey and breaking it’s leg. Paramedics were still treating the jockey who had not moved as we were leaving and goodness knows what will happen to the horse too. It is definitely the “other” side of racing that we tend to forget when we are all enjoying ourselves, caught up in the colour and fun of the day.

We had a lovely weekend with our friends Paul and Emma coming to visit The Meadow. We took them to all the local haunts and the sun shone despite dire weather warnings. It’s hard to tell if it’s going to be 28 degrees or 18 lately but we’ve had a nice little bit of rain so I’m not having to water the garden at least.

So it’s basically happy days in The Meadow except for the differing philosophy between Cam and I about pests and death. I am basically a live and let live person. My belief is that every life has a value however small the creature. Cam on the other hand has strong ideas about what should be allowed to live in the vicinity of our home. High on the list of things he hates are Myna birds and rats and mice. We have native Australian Noisy Miners which are deemed OK but the Indian Mynas are a definite no no. His love of birds ends with these introduced birds that take over an area and drive the little native birds away. Somehow, in talking to some locals he found a guy that makes Myna traps and after completing the transaction the old fashioned way with a slab of beer we are now the proud owner of said contraption. Luring the little devils in with dog biscuits is apparently the way and on inspection the next day we could see that something was in there.

Before – The Temptation….!!

Not a Myna as it turns out but a little rat. It was actually quite a cute one if there is such a thing and as it stuck as much of its body through the bars as it could attempting to escape, my thoughts turned to the film ‘Ratatouille’ and I was a gonner. Cammo stuck to his guns and little Ratty was no more by the time I got home from work. I didn’t ask for details. For me, as long as they stay outside I am happy to let them do their thing – it is their territory after all, but for Cam any rat is a rat too many when it’s on his property 😦

It was a busy week at The Meadow with the arrival of several groups of the family popping in for an overnight stay in The Lane. The Queensland mob found the weather a little unpalatable and their ‘de rigeur’ outfits of shorts and tees a little understated for the chilly turn in the weather! The cooler temperature did however suit us having a couple of meals and several bottles of red in the dining room with lots of chats about the old days growing up and plans for the Patriach of the family’s 90th birthday celebrations next year. It was great to see everyone and yet again I am grateful that we are not TOO far away from Sydney and we are still fairly accessible to all.

 The family in the sunshine (it came out as they left of course!)

Tom was also in Berry as one of his Sydney mates parents had just sold their Berry country house and the lads were having a farewell party there! He managed to meet up with the senior Cameron brothers for a drink at the pub before heading up the mountain to the action. (The photographer made Tom sit down to get in the frame with the rather more vertically challenged ones!!!)

Of course once everyone left the sun came out and we had a perfect weekend for The Shoalhaven River Festival and for a bit of work in the garden. The Festival was a huge success with riverside markets, bands, fireworks and SUP races, a colour fun run and jet boat races- something for everyone!

Our little chocolate dog has been up to no good this week. She suddenly decided after sleeping in her doggy bed for the past 7 months that it may make a tasty snack and proceeded to chew it to bits, pulling out the foam interior! Despite her obvious embarrassment when challenged about it she did it 3 nights in a row and I was forced into taking preventative measures. It is now sewn and pinned back together and quite heavily dredged in cayenne pepper to discourage further midnight feasts and it seems to be working so far. To be honest there isn’t much else she can turn her teeth to in the laundry but no doubt she will come up trumps and surprise me yet again at some stage!

After our visitors left we had a solid day working in the garden and I must say all our flowers are starting to make it look very pretty. I love being able to walk around snipping off little bunches of flowers for guest bedrooms and the lounge room.

My sweet peas are also in full swing and have completely taken over our fence in the veggie patch! Hopefully they will attract bees etc to help pollinate our fruit and veggies. I was sure it said they were dwarf plants on the seed packet but obviously not!!!

We also discovered a nice walk alongside the river which Bailey loved. She gets a bit fed up with us hanging around the house working and LOVES it when we venture out and about. Some of the local scenery is gorgeous and we really do have to make an effort to see some of the surrounding area. Hyams beach and Vincentia is beautiful and not too far away. We might even treat ourselves to a night away and rent one of the lovely old whaling cottages for an overnight stay!

A little rest after a local walk with the hound.

One of the beautiful whalers cottages

Hyams beach is reported to have the whitest sand in the world but whether or not that is true it is a great place for a weekend escape even if it just down the road! The South Coast is full of such gems to discover.It’s like being on holidays 7 days a week except for the fact that we still have to work……

Unfortunately this is all too true………..

I feel like a kindergarten kid who is obsessed with the nature table at the back of the classroom. My beautiful hall table is morphing into one as I find little baby nests and then hatched eggs, pine cones and seed pods and needless to say I have little jars of flowers from the garden everywhere too!

                

It has been a week involving various animals with spring and the warmer weather spurring them on to mate, nest and generally bask in the sun. Our local rabbit and hare population is getting brazen once again and they run straight across our property to get to the open fields. The chocolate drop can see them a mile off and chases them as fast as she can but to no avail (thankfully). Despite their ridiculous zigzag running style they always outrun her and she is yet to realise that she can actually get out of our garden and into the open countryside (double thankfully) and she returns to the veranda a little miffed and crestfallen that the bunnies got away again…..

On my way to work this week I came across my first ever echidna in the wild. It nearly became an ex-echidna as it was leisurely walking across the main Princes Highway with cars whizzing by at 100km per hour. Luckily we all managed to avoid it and I snapped this pic as it made it across to the safe zone and hopefully an assignation with a lady echidna to make all the effort worthwhile……

Bailey had a lovely afternoon when we invited our neighbours up for afternoon drinks. They are the proud owners of Wally (Walter when he is in trouble) a black Lab about 6 months older than Bailey and after spending her first few months being petrified of him they are now firm friends and they had a great old time dashing round and round the house and wrestling together on the lawn.

Bailey and her beau….

Yesterday I heard a dreadful ruckus going on in the garden and came outside to see a horrible huge scary bird frightening all the little birds up in our big cedar tree. They were flying around it and doing their best to screech at it before it eventually took off. We think it is an asian cuckoo and I can see why the little birds hate it – I was scared enough. A very Hitchcock type scary bird performance it was indeed……..

Later in the afternoon Cam and I noticed a little bird at the base of the tree and we went over to check it out. It was a baby galah that I think must have either been frightened and tried to flee the nest or been tipped out of it’s nest by the cuckoo but although it wasn’t a teeny tiny baby it was still too small to fly. Cam managed to catch it (a sturdy pair of gloves were needed as those little guys can really take a big nip out of your hand) and put it up in the lower branches of the tree where hopefully no foxes can get it. The parents were flying around but I haven’t actually seen them feed it so I really hope it will be ok and quickly learn to fly. It is a real cutie….

In a rather more  cliched ‘Australian’ type animal encounter I had to grapple today with a rather large red bellied black snake which was basking in the front yard of a house I had open for inspection. When I say grapple, it was more a question of poking it with a big broom and shooing it into the bushes between the adjoining properties!! Then I came inside to see a huge pregnant huntsman spider on the door – what next!!!! This Real Estate malarkey is starting to become a bit dangerous!!! However it presented beautifully to some unsuspecting city types….

Earlier in the week I had a lovely day out in Bowral, combining some shoe, furniture and plant shopping! I had a great time pottering around a few local stores and also drove to have a look at The Cherry Tree Walk which runs alongside the river for several kilometres and encompasses a war memorial dedicated to The Vietnam Veterans. It is very pretty being lined with hundreds of cherry trees and is a beautiful tranquil place.

               

My very favourite place to furniture dream is Susie Andersons at Dirty Janes in Bowral and she is a super friendly, lovely lady to boot! She is keeping an eye out for an armoire for me for the guest bedroom. Outside her shop this gorgeous little canary was singing it’s heart out in the sunshine at The Potting Shed and really showing off to everyone passing by. I love how he is colour co-ordinated with all the terracotta pots!

To round the week off our friend Dave came to visit. He is familiar with this area as his parents used to have a house in a nearby lane and he still knows quite a few locals. He and Cam met about 12 years ago when we had Harry’s Cafe De Wheels in Newcastle and Cam used to stay in a hotel that Dave ran – and they’ve been good mates ever since.

As luck would have it The Mollymook Cup was being held at Nowra racecourse the next day and the lovely Rileys invited us to come along. We got frocked up and set off to see what a bit of country racing was like. We had a great day although absolutely no luck on the gee gees and met a load of localish people from Milton and Mollymook who had very sensibly organised a coach to get them home. I always forget how fantastic the horses are until you’re right up close and personal – they really are magnificent and with all the brightly patterned silks, bottomless champers and fashions on the field it was a colourful day indeed.

  The Fab Four

Fashions in The Field

And in racing micro fashion…..

and always remember folks…………..

(ps…In case any of you were wondering the little galah flew off happily into the wings of it’s mother about 36 hours later  xx)