All eyes are on Master Oliver Jack Cameron, our third grandchild, who arrived in the world on March 23rd and is the cutest little bundle of sweetness. Just 3kg and with a head of dark curly hair and a calm personality (so far anyway!) Big brother Cooper was very intrigued with the new arrival wanting to “hug Oviler” and “pat it”! He has been very gentle and loving and seeing him “help’ Sam bring him home from the hospital made my heart melt. Seems like just yesterday that Sam was helping his own Dad bring his baby sister home…..how the circle turns!

It has been a very busy few weeks as we hopped up to Sydney to see the newest addition and I stayed to help with Cooper and be there while Sam and Liv spent some time in hospital with Oliver and shared some time with family and friends basking in the euphoria that envelops you for those first few days. There was a post partum hiccup involving a hospital stay for Liv but now she is home and well and they are starting their next phase of life as a family of four. As those of us who have multiple children know it is a whole new ball game with the 2nd child. You can’t spend hours just gazing at them, cuddling them and sleeping when they do…there is a toddler in the house! Sam takes Cooper as much as he can when he’s not working and Liv’s Mum lives nearby which is a godsend! I’m looking forward to some newborn cuddles when I make a quick visit this week. He has already changed with his little folds of skin plumping out nicely and those cheeks are just gorgeous!!

Easter, which previously was going to be spent home alone, turned into a great weekend with our long term friends and Toms godparents coming down for the weekend and Tom was also able to get away for a few days. The weather was fantastic and we literally ate breakfast and lunch outdoors which was a plus this far into the year! A golf red letter day where Little Bear finally beat Big Bear, some nice meals and some good wines (the cellar is finally being raided for these events) beach walks, a quiz night and a bonfire and we were all happy bunnies! With no small people here this year there were no decorations or egg hunts but that will make it even more special for when they do come! The Tassie Crew made it by the skin of their teeth to Queensland, flying the day after the lockdown ended and are enjoying some lovely beach weather and catching up with their family for the 1st time in 18 months! Special times all round.

The Hen House is confused. Just before Easter we decided our Rooster Boris had to go. He hadn’t been at all aggressive to us but he had a huge fetish for our two oldest chooks and gave them the rounds of the kitchen morning, noon and night. The poor girls would run as fast as their little legs could carry them to get away from him – literally getting air and launching themselves at the fences in a feeble attempt to escape him. They had lost 3/4 of their feathers due to stress and were looking severely bedraggled. They are our two oldest Australorps, not even laying anymore and I had no idea why he picked on them so. They are my fond favourites as they always come up to me wherever I am gardening and “talk” to me through the fence! They have always been very social and gentle and we couldn’t let Boris beat them up like that so he has been let go. It breaks my heart every time I have to let a chook go and we just don’t need the guilt so that’s it – NO MORE ROOSTERS!! Having said that our smallest hen Peaches has been sitting on 6 eggs now for about 3 weeks. She started just before he left so we presumed that some of them would be fertilised and she has been so patient sitting on her clutch of eggs through heatwaves and now a cold snap. She only gets up for a few minutes morning and evening to eat and drink and have a quick preen and then she’s back to her box. Sadly we can see no activity at all and by now you would expect to see a pipped egg where the chick has had a tentative peck for freedom. In another 24 hours if she hasn’t given up we will have to remove the eggs as it means they are not viable. It’s a tough life one way and another in the hen house.

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We had a lovely catch-up last Saturday with my sister-in-law who has been really enjoying being out and about in Sydney after doing her 2 weeks in quarantine. She lives in Switzerland but her two sons live here so she has been missing them plus her 94 year old Dad and her siblings and the 2 weeks were worth it to now be able to see everyone. Luckily the weather has been beautiful since she escaped and after a LONG winter in the northern hemisphere and a bout of Covid she has immersed herself in coastal walks and beach swims and is thoroughly loving the blue skies and sunshine. Rightly or wrongly somehow all is well with the world when the sun shines! We had a great day, and a rather adventurous kick of the rugby ball gave Jason an opportunity to see the world from our roof – it all looks so different from another angle! Hopefully she will come back down for a day or two soon before heading back to her other life.

This is really one of the most beautiful times of the year with cool nights conducive to snuggling under the doona but with days that are still too hot to sit on the veranda for your mid morning cuppa! The leaves are starting to turn colour and the fruit trees are already bare, new views have opened up where once there were thick leaves and it won’t be long until we will see in the big trees all the birds nests built in summer that were so well hidden, like a little town we never knew existed. Once again it is a pleasure to walk the dog, with no flies and bugs to spoil the party and cooler temperatures mean we don’t have to be up and at it by 6.30am to walk before it gets too hot. Autumn is a gentle time of the year before the hibernation of winter, a last hurrah of golden sunlight and outdoor dining before we turn our thoughts towards firewood, electric blankets and more robust food. As I prepare the veggie patch for it’s first season off in 6 years I feel as if I am tucking it into bed for a few months, allowing it to rest and regenerate and giving us time to nurture it’s soil until next Spring when hopefully it will have appreciated our care and will give us bounteous crops of tomatoes and summer veg in return.

We were thrilled when our neighbours recently scored a trip in a friend’s helicopter and took this aerial shot of our house. It has a totally different perspective from above and makes me very glad we kept all the various outhouses cohesive with the commonality of the white weatherboard making it pleasing to the eye. I also hadn’t realised we had quite so many trees but am very grateful that we are a bit protected from those horrible westerly winds that love to whip across the paddocks in winter!

It is quite female dominated here in The Meadow. Myself, the Choccy Drop and ten hens definitely outweigh the MOTH and our new gender bender rooster Boris. Chanel, my sweet elegant little chick who turned into Charlie and is now officially Boris as he morphed into a giant rooster over the past few weeks! So the chook house is once again a place of hormones and rape and crowing at dawn. God help me!! If he gets aggro like Atticus did he will not be welcome to stay but for the moment he is quite shy and is no immediate threat to my safety! Last night however both the ‘men’ in my life proved to be painful. The MOTH was snoring at a decibel rendering sleep impossible (to be fair this is a rare occurrence nowadays) so I transferred into the guest room at 1.30am and was in a deep sleep when the reedy warbling of a juvenile rooster sounded from across the garden waking me pre dawn. The boys basically ganged up on me and ruined my attempt at a good nights sleep. Luckily our bedroom is on the other side of the house so I cannot usually hear the young buck greeting the day.

It has been a busy couple of weeks as we attempted to get the garden under control. After a summer of La Nina and her huge rainfalls and mild temperatures everything has gone completely crazy and even if we spent three hours pulling weeds and grass runners out we would literally only have covered a few square feet. It was like painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge…nothing ever got even remotely finished and the whole task became overwhelming so we called in the cavalry in the form of professional help! Within minutes of the trucks arriving there were guys getting stuck into the flower beds, working methodically as a team they soon had things looking spic and span and after 2 days with 5 workers we are officially weeded, mulched and some areas have even been poisoned in an attempt to dissuade the deepset weeds from reappearing. In between we continue to plant ground covers to take up the space the weeds would otherwise occupy and it looks just lovely. However a week later I can already see evidence of life poking above the mulch and as we are almost underwater with the incessant rain it is impossible to get out there and do anything right now. I shall have to make it a priority when I get back from Sydney that’s for sure. For now the biggest challenge is keeping our chooks from scratching up all the precious mulch as they think it has been provided for their pleasure and cannot understand why we chase them away. It means we have to have a sentry when they are let out in the late afternoon as even ten minutes unsupervised they cause absolute havoc!

This is Cooper’s ‘smile for the camera’! He is starting to be aware of it now and if he is in the right mood will bestow you with one of his special grins. It is going to be so interesting to see what he thinks about his new baby brother next week but we will be there to pay him some extra attention while Mum is in hospital and spoil him a bit so hopefully he won’t feel left out when everyone is talking about and cuddling the new bub. He is a caring little boy and I think he will make a super big brother. I’m so excited to see what our next little grandson will look like and what sort of character he will be, special times indeed!

It has been quite a week one way and another. Good news from the UK where my family is being vaccinated as we speak. With everything as dire as it is in the northern hemisphere the vaccine is giving them hope of some loosening of the restrictions that have been in place since October. Six months of isolation for my lovely Mum which she has borne with patience and grace despite the fact she literally only leaves her flat once every 10 days to do her grocery shopping. Thank goodness for the phone, decent TV and her love of reading to keep her from going mad. Six months with no hugs or company to share a laugh with is a LONG time and with her 2nd vaccine being administered next week I really hope she will soon be able to have a bit more of a life outside her four walls. My Sister and Niece have both had their first jab and as the numbers are finally heading in the right direction in the UK lets hope the scientists have it right and we can knock this bloody virus out of the ball park. In the meantime Wayne’s sister has flown in from her home in Switzerland and after 18 months is very keen to see her sons, siblings and especially her 94 year old Dad. She is in quarantine for 2 weeks but as she has already had Corona she should have some protection against any errant germs that sometimes float around these hotels. We are very much looking forward to seeing her once she is out and hope to host her down here in The Meadow at some stage. So with the advent of Spring in the northern hemisphere in conjunction with the vaccine inspiring hope we can slowly dream about reuniting and after the last 12 months everyone will have so much more appreciation for EVERYTHING and hopefully will never take the simple things for granted again!

We finally boarded a plane to visit Lauren in Tasmania, masks were the only requirement to go interstate and a small price to pay to be travelling again! They are living in Lauderdale, a part of Hobart I had never been to before but it is in a lovely area and their house has the most amazing 260 degree views of the ocean and there are two beaches within walking distance so a fabulous location for our newly repatriated Aussies and no better spot is there than their deck for a quick sausage sizzle in the sunshine! We arrived the day before my birthday so we gave ourselves permission to have a weekend of fun and food, lunching at various wineries and enjoying a night out on the town courtesy of the kids to celebrate. There is no shortage of food and wine in Hobart and there is also a plethora of people with a home brewery or distillery making bijou gins, beers and ciders so we were spoiled for choice! The boys were pleasantly surprised when they really enjoyed their couple of cocktails prior to dinner and can now understand why girls love them so much! A good time was had by all and a big thanks to Loz and Tom for my special treat xx

This time last year we had just heard the first whisperings of a virus coming out of China, another Sars or bird flu we presumed and carried on with our lives never realising for a moment that everything we took for granted was about to come to an end. 12 months later we know alot more and are no longer under the illusion that it will all be over in a few months, speaking more in terms of years now until we can travel and holiday, even live and work the same way as before. Knowledge is power as they say and as we now know how very clever our adversary is we just have to keep doing the obvious things to keep one step ahead of it and hope for the best. And boy oh boy won’t we appreciate it when things return and so much the more for having been deprived of it!

We have been enjoying this cooler and wetter summer as it makes working in the garden so much more pleasant (and also means less watering by hand) but it has also meant that everything has gone bananas and is growing like we live in the tropics rather than the south coast! The MOTH could honestly mow twice a week if he had the time or the inclination and the plants have gone berserk too. I think it is a season of abundance and we feel like we are in an animal sanctuary lately with babies of all decriptions everywhere we look. Baby lorikeets, baby peewees, baby rabbits, beautiful green frogs have taken up residence in my mailbox, the acoustics amplifying their throaty calls to Opera type volumes at night and we feel very lucky to have so much life happening all around us and reminding us life is good no matter what!

My nephew and his wife popped down for a lovely 24 hour visit on one of our more summery days and we enjoyed catching up with them and eating al fresco, enjoying a bonfire and a beer and a swim in the pool – all of which have been rare this summer in between all the showers! It’s so lovely to have my now adult Nieces and Nephews nearby and be able to offer them a change from their city life when they fancy it. The amount of visitors to The Meadow has shrunk lately as our friends also become Grandparents and the weekends are more taken up with family events and responsibilities. I’m guessing the next wave of visitors will occur as everyone starts to retire and their weeks are freed up a little more although maybe then golf and holidays away will take over instead! We had a very special little visitor a couple of weeks ago when Cooper came to stay for a few days. His Mum and Dad had managed to squeeze in a couple of days away for a Babymoon ahead of baby #2 arriving and we seized the opportunity to have him to ourselves! He is a good little boy with an inquisitive nature so it is quite easy to keep him entertained however he has the attention span of a gnat so it often took me longer to set up an activity than the time he spent doing it!!!! However Papa’s tractor and a pair of gardening gloves can keep him enthralled for hours so it’s just a case of finding the right things to do! I was suitably exhausted after a few days but so happy we could help out for a change. (FYI…Bailey was also exhausted after many many many Cooper cuddles) Our Coops turns two this coming week and is turning into a real little character who I think will be a lovely big brother….watch this space!

The frivolities and celebration of Xmas and Summer holidays eventually came to an end at the beginning of February and many people have turned to living with a tad less excess and more healthy eating and improved fitness. It isn’t too hard when we are surrounded by such tasty produce and I have found that the more appealing and colourful a dish is the more I am inclined to eat it! I challenge anyone to think this is boring…..!! The cooler weather has made a daily walk with Bailey a pleasure and we alternate between the beach, the river and the countryside for our various outings. As my recently tweaked meds seem to be working and are finally allowing me to breathe deeper I am attempting to increase the hills I walk up and although I am still out of breath when I do it I don’t feel I am in imminent danger of collapsing anymore so here is to a year of improving fitness and a few new challenges as well as eating a rainbow and trying new things. We may be down but we are definitely not out!!

With only one true lockdown under our belt and that spent with 5 adults and a baby we never actually got to the stage everyone was talking about – THE BIG CLEAN UP. Finally in the past few weeks we have actually attacked the garage, throwing out all those little cans of paint kept “just in case” and old crockery/pots/lampshades/sheets that you think the kids may want (incorrect assumption as they like to buy everything new!) and the odd box of paperwork from a business we sold 8 years ago! It felt good so we kept going and my office now looks quite zen and my bookshelves have been pared right back and are looking a little bit less ‘mad professor’ than before. I even cleaned out my emails – taking me well and truly down the rabbit hole of things that happened up to 15 years ago and reminding me of things both good and bad. I have the bit between my teeth now and have my wardrobe firmly in my sights. No need to keep all those tailored outfits and high heels from the old days at The Races or those black tie Balls that used to be all the rage. Not only do we not go to those kind of functions anymore they probably dont even fit me! So it’s time to be a bit ruthless and have a big chuck out and it does make you feel lighter and brighter when you pare things back. I could never be a minimalist and I am a very emotional and nostalgic person (ask the kids) therefore it goes without saying that there are still some folders and boxes with “special” things kept for prosterity and they bring back memories of things I would never otherwise remember so it is definitely worth it. It did however take me an entire day to go through the memory cupboard so I can totally relate to this…..

Well 2021 is beginning a lot like 2020 ended…full of scary news, uncertainty and an acute inability to plan anything more than 24 hours in advance. We in Australia are very lucky to be both in mid summer and relatively covid free. Our lives are almost normal with the exception of not being able to travel anywhere and being reduced to takeaway or reduced seating at many restaurants due to insufficient space to be covid safe. I am one of many here who have family back in the UK, Europe or USA who seem to have a case of Covid Guilt, hardly daring to say what we have been up to as it sounds like we are gloating and uncaring as life elsewhere is a very grim affair. After the Northern Beaches flurry which of course managed to coincide with Christmas we have luckily managed to squash the virus for now but it is only a matter of time before it pokes up it’s ugly head again so we are far more prepared now for any last minute changes, shut downs and cancellations and almost incredulous if our meagre travel plans actually come to fruition. Our own backyard is ALL that is open to us right now and we are pretty darned lucky that we have an AMAZING one! Local tourism is through the roof albeit open to last minute changes as State borders close willy nilly and airlines change their policies overnight. Plan, and indeed book travel, but do not be surprised if it all ends up on the back burner AGAIN….and 2022 is now the year touted as being the year we can travel overseas again. I’m not sure what we will see when we get back there to be honest? Will we still be able to sit in an ancient piazza sipping prosecco and watching the world go by without a care in the world? Will there still be companies to take us adventuring down rivers and up mountains? Will it be a different world that we see when we get back there again? Time will tell I guess….

Meanwhile back in The Meadow we were lucky to be untouched by the latest virus outbreak which is a total miracle as our little town has been inundated with Sydneysiders ever since the schools broke up for the summer holidays. The queue for the “famous Berry Donut Van” stretches endlessly down the main street and there are lines to get into the shops. All this is great for the small businesses that depend on this to get them through the year and in the wake of last year’s bush fires to potentially keep them afloat so I am happy for them but it also keeps me away from the hub, most probably venturing back after the school holidays end when I can shop in peace! Instead we head out to the river or the beach where we can all spread out and enjoy the beautiful scenery that we call home. We managed a couple of hours in between the showers when Sam and Liv finally made it down after the lockdown eased and we had one very happy toddler and Choccy Drop! Nothing better than splashing around in a river!

I’d like to pay homage to a special little tree that we love in our garden called a Crepe Myrtle. It is a relatively small tree perfect for suburban gardens . Believed to have originated in China, it is a tree for all seasons. In summer it produces vibrant flowers of pink,purple,white and almost red, which last for up to three months, and in autumn it provides great leaf colour in shades of yellow, orange and scarlet. It also has incredible bark which gets better with age, as the trunk develops a wonderful gnarled appearance, and the bark peels off in summer to give a gorgeous mottled look with patches of pink, grey and brown. All of this makes it a winner in the garden, also it seems to be used more and more in streetscapes as they rarely grow bigger than 6m and don’t take over the pavements in which they are planted. Their branching habit makes them perfect for shading plants that hate the sun and I have them guarding my hydrangeas! If you had to choose just one tree to have in a garden I would thoroughly recommend this one. This one was on the property when we arrived and it is a joy to behold every summer!

As some of you know we had the Newcastle franchise for Harry’s Cafe de Wheels for around 7 years and we were totally delighted when we recently saw one opening near us – a mere 2 kilometres away in fact! It was one of the things we missed when we moved away from Sydney, not because we ate there all the time but because it really did hit the spot when you needed it most and there has always been so much care and attention paid to the Harry’s pie it tastes homemade! Their ethos hasn’t changed over the years and they are still totally delicious! The menu has now expanded to include burgers but we can never get past the pie or the chilli dog! So if you are travelling up or down the coast and you are a bit peckish give it a whirl folks! Our other favourite pie shop – Haydens in Ulladulla – is just a bit too far away from us (75 mins) to make it a viable option but if you are holidaying in Mollymook do not leave without going there!

There was a charming little story floating around a few weeks ago about a little pigeon called Joe and it gave everyone a reason to smile and stop talking about you-know-what for a while. The story goes like this…..

Mr Celli-Bird (yup that’s his real name) a nice unassuming man living in the outer suburbs of Melbourne noticed a rather scrappy looking little pigeon had taken up temporary residence in his garden so he fed him some bird seed and expected him to fly away but he hung around. Mr CB noticed a leg ring and decided to google the number which told him it was from a bird in America who went missing from a race in Oregon back in October!! He called him Joe after the incoming US president Joe Biden and the story was broadcast on the local radio. It didn’t take long for the story to spread and it was a feat that won hearts around the world, that a common pigeon named Joe had flown 13,000 kilometres from the United States and had landed, weak but alive, in an Australian backyard. A story of hope winning against adversity and just what people needed to hear.

Mr. Celli-Bird thought it was all a bit of good fun, but the Australian authorities had a different view. The Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment said Joe “posed a direct biosecurity risk to Australian bird life and our poultry industry.” and it intended to euthanize him. Fortunately, there was a twist in the tale. The Oregon race organisers told Mr Celli-Bird that the Oregon bird did not have Joe’s bell-bottom style feathers around his feet. It seems that Joe will be spared because his leg tag was found to be fake (goodness knows what sort of person fakes a pigeon leg ring?). Pigeon Rescue Melbourne volunteer Kirsten Macleod says Joe is not a racing pigeon. He is a ‘Turkish tumbler’, bred to do tricks and not fly long distance so Joe is probably Australian after all and will get to live. Mr CB is relieved. And Joe is definitely on a good wicket. Mr Celli-Bird says Joe is not a pet but he did buy him bird seed, and the pigeon is welcome to bathe in his water feature and potter in the garden as long as he likes. He won’t be buying a cage. “As long as he’s happy to stay there I’ll let him stay and if he chooses to fly off, he can do that too.” Lucky Joe I reckon and a happy ending!

So as we approach the end of January there are changes afoot.The vaccine is starting to be rolled out in the Northern hemisphere, the only thing they are clinging to as the numbers soar and gloominess rules. No real end in sight and as they haven’t been quaranting or stopping people flying in and out I really can’t see how things will change in a hurry but there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon and they are counting down to Spring and hopefully a new start. We have a new guy in the White House with a more measured approach to the science of it all and hopefully his calmness will give the American people the balm they need after all the division of the past four years and he will steady the boat. He has a huge job ahead of him. Fingers crossed he can make a difference. C’ya Trumpy, can’t say I’m sorry to see you go but good luck with the new venture……

Well it’s been a year that no one will forget in a hurry that’s for sure and one we will remember for many reasons both good and bad. The big question is will 2021 be any different? Things in the Northern Hemisphere are shaping up to be as bad or even worse than 2020 and they are pinning all their hopes on the vaccine. We in Australia are just lucky to have contained things a little better and be in a position to wait and see what happens up north before we also vaccinate the masses. I know a lot of hope is being pinned on the efficacy of the vaccine and it seems that international travel will not happen without proof of having had it so I guess that will sort the men from the boys! As someone who loves plans and lists and looking forward to things the whole virus situation has forced me to instead enjoy what is in front of me instead of the anticipation of what lies ahead and that is not a bad thing. We have all slowed down, appreciated our local environment and reconnected with our friends and families that are far away, bound by a mutual experience and a sense of gratefulness for having people to care for and to be cared by them in return. We are all in this together after all. Life has a habit of continuing on though, babies are still arriving, houses being bought and new jobs started. Our homes have become our castle once more as we spend more time working from home so DIY and home renovations have gone through the roof. Exercise has taken off – any excuse to get out of the house has meant cycling, surfing, running etc have become flavour of the month (and is the much needed antidote to all the eating and drinking we have all been doing in lockdown!) and camping has once again been the family vacation of choice – the great outdoors to the rescue!

Christmas came to our little town despite everything. Half the population determined to party bigger and better than ever before as if to say “up yours” to Covid and the other half couldn’t quite get into it in the face of all that was happening. This was our year where the kids go to their partners families so we always knew it was going to be a small one just with Tom but there were plans for the Sydney crew to arrive on the 27th for a week and we would have a couple of nights of overlap. Covid however had a different idea and with Sam and Liv living on the Northern Beaches they sadly fell into the only area of Sydney to be locked down over this period. They were very lucky to be allowed to enjoy Xmas Day with Livs family as they were in the orange zone and not the red but I had a few friends that weren’t so lucky and had to rely on technology to see each other. Much better than 37 years ago when I landed in Sydney and had to queue up at Martin Place post office to place a call to the UK and even then it was just a 3 minute call!! Now we can see each other opening gifts, share a virtual meal or have a group video call all at the press of a button.

The three of us had a lovely Christmas day, enjoying some yummy food and rather too much wine, ending the day with a huge bonfire, music and dancing and a rather sloshed call to my Mum in the UK who at 84 was having her very 1st Christmas alone and was understandably a bit sad. She got through it of course and made the best of it as many others did but I know how much stead she places on family and it would have been a tough day for her.

Before the big day we got to spend a week with Loz and Myla before they flew off to Tassie to start their new life and we were lucky with the weather meaning we could play in the garden in the little paddling pool or the sandpit, enjoy the sand dunes at the beach or picnic on the river according to how we felt! I must admit to a twinge of regret as we packed them up from Canberra to once again live over the water and a plane trip away although it is of course Australia and only a fraction of the time that it used to take us to get to Asia to see them. As a family spread far and wide we always try to think of the positives and to be honest a week in Tassie every few months is definitely a pleasurable thought and I know it will give them the outdoor life that they love and want for their family to grow up in.

At the end of November my beautiful bookclub girls all got together at the gorgeous home of one of the gals and we celebrated our friendship, Christmas and the good riddance of 2020 over a delicious meal. It was doubly sweet for us all to be together after a year of being all over the place with our usual monthly meetings and we were very thankful for the whole tribe to be together for a few hours. Long term friendships are a gift, there is no pressure to be someone you are not and they are the people that have been there for the good times and the bad to support you and make you laugh when everything is going to the dog house. We are indeed lucky.

These past few months has seen our garden mature and start to fill in and become what we had originally envisaged. As the never ending weeds were still winning we decided to just plant loads more flowers and groundcover so there is no space for the pesky interlopers. It is working for the most part but the grass runners are omnipotent and I am definitely losing the battle with them, the only good thing is they are harder to see amongst the plants now! As all our planned visitors have been locked down I am going to use the next week or two to exert my authority over the garden and get it back into some semblance of order. In the meantime the waft of perfume from the gardenias cut for the house is heaven…..

I’m writing this on my 36th wedding anniversary. You get less for murder some people say. It really seems weird when I look back at the photos of that day – I’m still that girl in there somewhere but with so many rich experiences added in. Life in a new country, 3 kids that I adore and now grandchildren to be silly with and love to bits. I’ve had some great jobs with super people and have a large and wonderful friendship group so I forgive the wrinkles and the grey hairs and think how lucky I am and that 36 years is a pretty good achievement! Of course in true 2020 style it’s a public holiday, the restaurants are shut and a huge storm has dampened any ideas of sharing a bottle of wine somewhere picturesque with the MOTH but we are happy to snuggle up at home with a nice dinner and an episode of The Crown. Real life and not half bad….

Lizzie sums it up beautifully here (please excuse her language but 2020 has her reeling….)

So here is to the whole world being a better place next year, to optimism balanced with practicality in how we deal with this virus, a new appreciation for what we had and didn’t even realise and to our bodies, temples occasionally but often used and abused and still expected to do the right thing. Health is the new wealth folks! Thanks for following our story from The Meadow, we definitely don’t feel like the new kids on the block anymore but are still feeling grateful that we found this gorgeous little corner of the world to call our own. Happy New Year to you all.

In a year that started with catastrophic bushfires followed by damaging floods and the arrival of the big Rona we should be very grateful it’s all coming to an end. A year of challenges and acceptance, of realisation of what is important to us and gratefulness both for what we have and that we got through it unscathed. Australia has been lucky, isolated by geography and with good leadership who weren’t frightened to impose strict shutdown rules early we have avoided the horrible numbers of cases experienced by other parts of the world.

For our family it has been a mostly happy year. A wedding bought our family home at just the right time to avoid being stuck abroad at the outbreak of the virus. The wedding was cancelled due to restrictions but we were all home together to face whatever was to come our way. Two of our kids had to pack up their life in London and Vietnam via Facetime with friends packaging up their belongings into boxes for them and leases had to be sub-letted and jobs resigned from. Both of them have embraced a difficult time to come out the other side with good jobs and a future to look forward to – not an easy task in Covid – and I am very proud of them both.

Our Bride and Groom may have missed out on their wedding but instead they have bought a beautiful new house and are happily making it a home for their expanding family. They could have been sad or angry especially as the wedding was cancelled a mere 48 hours before it was due to take place – everything was organised and paid for, hair was cut, nails were manicured, boots were polished and the flowers were all ready for the bouquets but they took it in their stride and made the best of things and we were all just grateful that we were together and safe. I am so proud of the way they have handled everything and their focus is now firmly on the future and the arrival of baby number 2 in 4 months. We had a lovely weekend with them recently at their new house and it is so fabulous to be able to stay with them now they have a spare room for guests and to enjoy some quality time with little Cooper who I think thought we existed only in photos or here in The Meadow!!

I have also made the most of having Lauren and Myla a mere 3 hour drive away with a couple of trips to Canberra to help out with babysitting while they worked and to spend time with our little Hurrricane a.k.a Myla!! She is a ball of energy and at this stage has absolutely no quiet side. She is either awake and full of beans or asleep – no grey area for our Myla Moo! I took her to Canberra Zoo for an outing which we both loved although poor old Rara was feeling rather knackered by the end of it – why are zoos always carved into a hillside??? I completely mistimed how long it would take me to get down and back to the car and our little intrepid explorer fell asleep in the stroller and stayed asleep throughout the whole car trip home, through the labyrith of the apartment block gardens, the trip in the elevator and into the house only to wake up full of beans as soon as I tried to lie her down in the cot!! I look forward to having them stay with us for a week before they fly off to Tassie in mid December to start their new life in Hobart. Still a plane trip away but a lot closer than Asia!

The veggie patch is in full throttle with tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis, spinach and lettuce all available for eating and green beans, capsicum and eggplant just around the corner. This is the time of year that we plan meals around the patch rather than what we may fancy and I think we end up eating more plant foods this way by far. Our rustic entrance with it’s rusty gate and shabby pergola is one of my fave bits of the property and I am resisting the various “suggestions” to paint it and smarten it up.

The erratic weather courtesy of La Nina has been both a blessing and a curse to our garden. The ferocity of some of the storms has been amazing, in the pictures here we had four inches of rain in an hour and lost one of our lovely spready trees as well. The upside was all that rain soaked in pretty quickly and gave our trees and flowers a deep water at just the right time for flowering and we now have a garden that is green and full of flowers and fragrance.The gardenias are a picture and together with the jasmine is sending a lovely waft of fragrance over the garden, The roses are as gorgeous as ever and the newly planted salvias are coming along a treat. I have changed tact in my constant battle with the weeds and have decided to plant more groundcover plants to fill in the gaps that weeds would otherwise pop up in and hopefully in another year our work load will be reduced considerably. The apricot and plum trees are in full fruit so if the birds can stay away I should have a bumper crop this year. Hello jam and fruit tarts and chutneys!

Our dear friends Baz and Kathy drove down from Forster to stay with us for a week. It was so lovely to see them again but unfortunately I was riddled with daycare germs and quite sick which curtailed our normal high jinx to a degree although we still managed to celebrate Baz’s birthday and get a whole load of little jobs done. These two are pathologically incapable of sitting and doing nothing and miraculously pictures were hung, the ironing basket was emptied, garden beds weeded and planted, chook fences mended, cupboards fixed and the garage tool section completely revamped! Thanks lovely friends for all your help!! One day you will come and stay and just relax I promise!!

So as the year comes to an end I have never been more grateful to be living here in The Meadow. We have been shielded from the worst of lockdown and have the beautiful countryside all around us to remind us that life is good. Home has become more than the sum of its parts and family and friends more important than ever. The rest of the world sometimes seems a long way away but the fact we have close family still struggling in the northern hemisphere keeps it close to home. Let’s hope that next year brings some worldwide relief and a return to a more sensible guy in the big white house on the hill….

Well what a few weeks we’ve had. In fact nearly everyone we know seems to have had a bad few weeks. As if Covid wasn’t enough. Sadly we have close friends and family who are very sick and every week we hear more stories of others in the same situation. Is it because we are getting older? Or because we know a lot of people? Or is the universe just throwing everyone as many curve balls as possible and seeing how we all cope. In the current world situation I think we are all on heightened alert without even realising it and one piece of bad news has the capability of sending us plummeting into a sad place. For those who are now either in an extended or 2nd or 3rd lockdown it must be especially hard to stay upbeat and look positively towards the future. No matter how hard you’ve worked your whole life your business may have crashed and burnt before your very eyes or the savings you had so diligently acquired over months and years of sacrifice for a house or a new business venture has now had to be used to merely exist through sudden unemployment and things beyond your control. It’s as scary as the thought of the disease, maybe even more so as the months go by. I do not envy those in charge as there doesn’t seem to be any one way through this crisis and I think that all we can do is to take some self responsibility for our own lives, lower our previous expectations and be grateful for what we have. I am concerned for my family in the UK and Europe and the US as the figures over there for new cases are frightening and coming into winter isn’t helping but all I can do is stay in communication and plan a get together for when this all goes away. There is talk that we will not have international travel to the northern hemisphere until 2022 from Australia but as a dual passport holder I can always go if I really need to for any reason and just do the quarantine on my return. At this stage it is harder for people to get into Queensland than it would be for me to go to England!!! Crazy…..

In happier news we have had a couple of get togethers with our daughter and family. We are trying to squish in as many visits as we can before they relocate to Tasmania in December so we enjoyed the long weekend here in The Meadow along with Tom and some good friends of Lauren’s and their 2 year old Mia which made for lots of cute moments!

Papa finally finished the sandpit and the boys filled it up to much appreciation from our smallest family member who LOVED it! We were lucky enough to have some beautiful weather allowing beach time and one of our favourite pizza nights! We babysat one afternoon and had a grand old time with Myla helping me pick mulberries from the tree (one for the bowl and one for her!!) then watering the pots of flowers with her very own mini watering can (some for the plants then some for her feet!) and then a swim in the pool with Papa (more splashing on the steps than swimming to be honest) and a good time was had by all.

The other person who loves picking mulberries is Bailey. Our little choccy drop is very smart and when she sees me out there with a bowl she comes and loiters under the tree hoovering up all the ones that fall off as I harvest. I have even seen her out there alone nibbling them off the bottom branches with great dexterity and finesse which means she gets the bottom of the tree, I get the middle and the birds get the top!! Still plenty to go around and I am constantly delivering bowls to friends and neighbours. Last week I gave a bowl to my neighbour at 9am and a jar of jam made from the fruit was gifted to me at 3pm!! Now that’s fresh!!

I have mixed feelings about reporting that Atticus has left the building. After his close encounter with the fox he became extra aggressive to the point where none of us could go near him without a stick or a rake as he would run at us feathers flared and a glint in his eye and once or twice he caught the MOTH by surprise leaving him with big scratches on his arms or legs. I couldn’t blame him for his heightened angst but it made life less than pleasant always having to keep an eye out for him and I could never let them out with the grandkids there just in case. So one Sunday morning Cam made the hard decision to let him go. He was sad as he had hand raised him and even a few weeks previously had been able to pick him up with no fear but he now had PTSD and we couldn’t really do much to change that. Atticus had the 2nd last laugh though as Cam chased him around the coop injuring his achilles in the process. The chicken house is now a calmer place and I am gradually getting used to not being charged at every time I let them out! The girls are all getting on ok with our previously head hen Trunchbull back in charge! The babies are now gawky teens and being tolerated by the older chooks, even permitting them to roost with them at night as of yesterday! This was after a night where we lost the little white one, there was literally no sight of her at dusk when they all went to bed and despite looking everywhere we had to go to sleep not knowing where she was or if she had been taken by a fox. The next morning she had found her way into my asparagus patch and was cheeping loudly trying to find her way home! Our little adventurous explorer Chanel!

To thank us for housing them during the Covid lockdown Loz and Berry had organised for us to have a weekend away further down the south coast at Potato Point, a gorgeous little spot right on the beach in a national park. The family cabin was perfect for us and had the most magnificent view over the beach. Although the weather wasn’t perfect it still allowed us to walk and play on the beach, eat outside on our deck each night with a wonderful chiminea to keep the chill off and enjoy a trip into nearby Bodalla, a quaint little town famous for it’s dairy products. Myla was enthralled by the MANY wallabies and kangaroos that populate the area, most of them had baby joeys and we loved being so up close and personal with them.

Nature abounded and no one was more surprised than us when a little possum crashed our dinner table barely 30 seconds after Loz had finished her dessert. Mr possum thoroughly licked the plate clean before vanishing back to whence he’d come!

Sadly on the last night Cammo’s sore foot escalated into a full blown disaster, becoming extremely painful, swollen, hot and red. Something similar happened last year to his other foot and the hospital had surmised it was a flareup of some kind of arthritis. That time it settled within a few days but this time around it was worse and is still swollen a week later. A week of blood tests and we are only marginally closer to a diagnosis but an appontment with a rheumatologist in a fortnight will hopefully shed some light on the situation. It makes you realise how much you CANNOT do when your feet play up, we very much take them for granted until they don’t work properly!

I am going to leave you with a cute animal pic because who doesn’t love a baby rabbit? Did you know that a group of wild rabbits is called a fluffle? I have no idea who gets to name these things but I have never loved the English language more!!

Our cocky rather scary rooster nearly met his match last Sunday when Mr Fox came a visiting and as a result he no longer sports his manly bits. No not THOSE bits but his magnificent rooster tail feathers which are now scattered to the four corners of our property. Mr Fox got a full mouthful of feathers but nothing else luckily, Atticus now looks decidedly out of proportion with his huge rounded body and no tail plumage to balance it and he has a slight limp but all in all he was a very lucky boy. This all happened at 3.30 in the afternoon when they were out free ranging in the sunshine. So much for foxes being nocturnal eh? Bold as brass he was and even stood his ground for about 30 seconds after I came after him brandishing a big stick and screaming like a banshee. Bailey got the message that something was wrong and chased after him barking crazily for at least 10 minutes letting him know she was NOT a happy camper and to not return on her watch thank you very much.

So now when I look out of the kitchen window in the late afternoons and see them picking about in the garden it is not with my usual feeling of serenity and tranquility but with a slightly anxious feeling in my tummy that they could be taken by surprise at any moment and become badly injured or killed right in front of my eyes. Cunning as they are I am sure Foxy will wait a few days until we are lulled into some sort of false security and then come back to try his luck again……aaaaargh!! There are animals everywhere at the moment and a wedge tailed eagle swooped down and took a young hare a couple of weeks ago (the worst sound ever incidentally) and we have also had an injured Corella wandering around our garden for weeks now – it’s wing flopped to one side and unable to fly. I wondered if that was the work of the eagle too? I wanted to take it to the vet but the MOTH made some very unkind remarks as to “there being millions of them and one wouldn’t be much loss to mankind” and said “to let nature take it’s course” which translates to let it die in my book. As if to prove him wrong Albi is still here and seemingly getting around ok and I always love it when I turn a corner and there he is waddling around and just getting on with life. Seems a bit lonely though as they usually belong to a flock but if you can’t fly I guess you can’t be in the gang.

This however has been the only negative thing in the garden the past few weeks as Spring has invaded The Meadow and we have trees full of blossom, a wisteria that is now in full leaf, jasmine about to burst into flower and the jacarandas are budding up ready for their huge show of purple in a few weeks from now. The summer veg have been planted and withstood a huge westerly wind, luckily I had staked and tied the tomatoes or we would be back to square one now. Our baby chooks are now scraggly teens with most of their fluffy down replaced with their new feathers. As feared at least one of them is a rooster but the smallest sweetest and prettiest is definitely a hen, named Chanel for her understated elegance! They are starting to mix with the older chooks for a few hours at a time and it wont be long before they fully transition to the big kids coop. None of the other chickens look like they are being mean to them thus far at least so fingers crossed it doesn’t all end in tears.

I had a lovely few days playing Grandma in Canberra recently. I went down to babysit Myla so the kids could work some extra days on the days she isn’t at daycare and I had been looking forward to us doing our thing together but I arrived to a rapidly unfolding situation.Viral gastroenteritis tore through Kindy classes Rainforest 1 and 2 with 30 of the bubs getting sick and a couple having to go to ER with severe dehydration. Myla succumbed first followed by each of us adults, luckily in a staggered start so at least one of us was always ok to look after the others so although it didn’t work out that I could help out while they worked it was a good job I was there to be on Myla duty at least! We spent an afternoon at IKEA where she loved playing in the kids section and we came away with a circus tent which she loves, taking her books and her “babies” inside and I’m sure if she could write ‘No Adults Allowed’ on the outside she would!!

Luckily we were all fine again for my last day and we enjoyed a day out in Canberra on the lake, hanging out in several of the Capital’s beautiful Parks and enjoying the 2020 version of Floriade which this year due to Covid has been reimagined and is scattered all over Canberra with wheelbarrows and window boxes of brightly coloured tulips and pansies for everyone to enjoy no matter where they are.

I got back home just in time for the boys to come and lay the driveway, the whole place was buzzing with trucks and men in high vis vests doing their thing and just like that we had a flash new drive! There is still some finishing off to do and it will take a while for the grass to grow back up to the new edges but the hard lifting has all been done! All ready for some little people to ride their bikes on when they are big enough…

In some very exciting news we have another little Grandson on the way! Due April 1st 2021 and growing very nicely he will make a beautiful little addition to our growing family. Cooper will be a super big brother I’m sure and if his Dad and Uncle are anything to go by he and his little brother will be as thick as thieves and mates for life. Watch out world, there is another generation of Cameron Brothers on the way!!

I made a passionfruit sponge to celebrate with the last of our fruit from the garden. I love that this recipe belongs to Bill Bevan who died in 2017 at the ripe old age of 94. Bill discovered his talent for baking late in life. The former trawler skipper and truck driver from Corrimal in NSW stepped up to the stove in his 60s and has since perfected the art of baking, winning a sponge competition at his granddaughter’s primary school, and making the family Christmas cakes and puddings. When his wife became ill during her early 50s Bill took over the cooking and began to bake the cakes his wife fancied. This was her favourite of them all and we love it too, all the more because of the story behind it. Cooking is a bit like a painting – far more than the sum of it’s parts and hence the nostalgia that comes with favourite family recipes, conjuring up the gatherings where these prized recipes would be served up with panache and a whole lot of love. (Bill’s recipe is in now in my kitchen section if you fancy trying it)

So as we lead up to the Long Weekend I will be planning a few nice meals for the family as we get together in The Meadow. The weather is predicted to be beautiful and for the intrepid amongst us the pool may be calling, I can envisage sipping an aperol spritz with my legs dangling in the water at least and it’s hard to feel anything but happy when the sun is shining and the sky is blue. The clocks will change too thank goodness meaning we may get to sleep in past 5.30 in the morning and have the longer evenings to enjoy eating alfresco. Bring it on!!

A gentle warbling wakes me at first light, it’s slightly apologetic as if the magpie knows it’s silly to be talking this early but “hello the day has begun and surely you want to know?” As the light gets stronger around the edges of my curtains other birds join in the morning chorus, some melodious and others not so much (yes Mr Kookaburra I’m talking about you) Our rooster Atticus can be heard joining in and sometimes in the distance a huge flock of local Corellas can be heard with their loud screeching as they fly en masse to a nearby paddock, resting on the fences and overhead wires as they search out some tasty morsels in the surrounding countryside. While we potter in the kitchen making that first and most wonderful coffee of the day we can hear a clear call – like a bell, which is then repeated from another tree and we know our feathered friends the King Parrots have dropped in to say g’day. They are the most magnificent colour and with the cutest little faces which tilt to the side as they check us out through the window. They are so friendly and unbothered by our presence we think that someone must have been feeding them but we have offered them chopped fruit and also sunflower seeds and despite flying down to check it out they haven’t ever taken anything. One morning we literally had four types of parrots walking around on the grass – King Parrots, Crimson Rosellas, Galahs and Rainbow Lorikeets so they obviously like SOMETHING in our garden!

I was very proud last week to share my part of the world with my Book Club girls. Our intrepid travel gal pal Carolyn found a fabulous house on the top of a hill at Foxground overlooking Gerringong. It had an amazing 180 degree view and was luxuriously appointed yet comfortable with lots of different areas to sit either outside in the sun or shade or inside around a huge table or curled up on the deep squishy lounge. A glorious pool made for sipping aperol spritz around was just a tad too chilly this early in Spring but was perfect for an afternoon chat in the sunshine. As we are all avid cooks we decided we would self cater and we all contributed various dishes and ended up eating like Kings! Beautiful French champagne and cheeses at 4.30pm started the ball rolling and flowed effortlessly into a delicious Ottolenghi baked chicken with amazing salads and sweet treats on day 1 and a meltingly slow cooked mediterranean lamb with braised greek beans and fetta, roasted kipflers, med style salads and a peach and frangipane tart dolloped with thick cream on day 2. Who needs to go out? The Sydney girls walked early every morning discovering the beauty of the south coast before a banquet brekky where I learned a healthier variation of the Cornish breakfast my Mum adores (a nice tangy marmalade topped with thick clotted cornish cream on toast) which was Leigh’s homemade cumquat marmalade topped with thick greek yoghurt on toast – equally delish but considerably less calories! Do yourselves a favour and try it folks….

The value of a friendship of over 25 years was evident in these couple of days where we all just slotted together working seamlessly in the kitchen and chatting – sometimes all 8 of us simultaneously!! True skill! It was soooo good just to take a break from routine, no chores to do, slob around or walk, dress up or stay in your pjs, read your book in the daytime, have an afternoon nap….you get the gist. The simple things but good for the soul.

So from the ‘do whatever you like whenever you like’ set up at Foxground I raced home to prepare for the imminent arrival of the kids and grandies for Fathers Day Weekend. We are equidistant from both Sydney and Canberra so about 2.5 hours driving for both families which is about the maximum an 18 month old can tolerate! After being cooped up in the car they were happy to run around exploring all the wide open spaces and hugging Bailey and generally reacquainting themselves with The Meadow. We had booked breakfast at a nearby winery to celebrate Fathers Day and also Lozzys birthday which fell on the same day this year. Indoors is a no no with the bubs so this was a perfect location where they could run amok outdoors and we only popped them in the highchairs when our meal came which meant we were all happy! We attempted a family photo but it is nearly impossible to get us all facing the same way….this was as close as we got !!

We packed so much into the next 24 hours, the boys played golf, the babies had a play on a make shift water slide, we had a lovely visit from my god daughter and her 2 year old Indi, we enjoyed a bonfire at dusk before the cousins shared a bubblebath and snuggled into bed exhausted, followed by the people’s favourite – pizza night! Sam prepped everything beautifully, slicing things into separate bowls – salami, olives, pear, artichokes, sun dried tomatoes, chicken, mushies, roasted capsicum, fetta, buffalo mozzarella and gorgonzola – a mix made in heaven! Full but happy we tumbled into bed – another day done well in The Meadow!

Spring is definitely here, the wisteria is in full throttle, the fruit trees are blossoming and the birds are nesting. You can’t drive down the road without seeing baby calves or goats and we have a few new babies too. The MOTH has always wanted some Plymouth Rock chickens and when he was buying some firewood recently old Reg mentioned he had 30 eggs in the incubator, lots of which were Plymouths so he bought two and we collected them last weekend. Sadly only 3 hatched successfully so we couldn’t leave the other one behind and therefore are now the proud owners of 3 new chicks (PLEASE don’t be roosters) who are happily ensconsed in their separate accommodation in the chook shed away from Atticus and even the hens just in case they get attacked. They will stay here until they are at least a few weeks older and ready to take their chances with the others.

So as we come into the season that most represents hope let’s pray that we can start to get back to some sort of new normal and enjoy the world around us again. We were supposed to be in Italy this week for the start of our holiday to celebrate my 60th but instead we shall maybe have a week in rural NSW, still beautiful just different, and there is certainly a lot to appreciate in our own backyard here in Australia, especially once the borders open up again. The dollars usually spent overseas are being ploughed into the local economy and that my friends is most definitely good!