Farm Labouring

How does this happen? Not by magic I can tell you! However now we are in Hanoi, there's no more gardening for a while and I realise that I love, it, I miss it and I don't miss it, all at the same time!
It's such a glorious feeling to lie back in bed, do a few rows of knitting and not feel guilty about the emerging market of weeds that is our front, side and back gardens.
So, for now, I'll look at this pleasant product of our labours a few times zones away and give thanks that I'm in Hanoi. Get my drift?

Fishing is highly over-rated

Yesterday we went fishing on the Bay just behind Mud Island. Our skipper, whom I've nicknamed Capt Grimes (check the plaque at the entrance to the Portsea Pier), lined up the Caribbean cruiser somewhere between Arthur's Seat and the You Yangs ( am I giving away a family secret here?) and before you know it the cries of 'I've got one!' echoed around the 26 ft cruiser. Can't say I chimed in, not even once. Of course several charitable fisher folk jerked an unsuspecting Flathead onto their line and then handed me their instrument of death to wind in the hapless fish ( I have the images to prove it), but no matter how many times I felt a nibble and jerked the line to one side, my line was lonely And the 70-80 Flathead hauled on by the 8 on board were soon reduced to minuscule fillets. With figs, however, the haul takes less time, the haul is always successful and what you get is what you keep. Give me fruitpicking over fishing any time!
However the day was a real pearler to quote our hosts. We were on the bay for over four hours and saw so many vessels. Being on a boat is a wonderful opportunity to chat, to share jokes and to enjoy the ever-changing scenery. The World yacht steamed down the channel to Melbourne; a couple of fully loaded container carriers left the bay for the open sea, and a Couta boat race sailed around us. It was magic!

Portsea January 2-4, 2010

It's wonderful to be beside the sea and on a boat on the bay! It's even better when it's a beautiful day and there's a lot to see. Today we left the pier at Portsea, travelled along the shore past the old Quarantine Station and across the entrance to Port Phillip to Queenscliffe. n the way we passed one of the two car ferries travelling between Q'cliffe and Sorrento. We also visited a nesting ground for albatross called the Pope's Eye and another seal colony where several boatloads of people were trying to swim with these massive and stinky creatures. After quick ride down the bay to look at several sailing clubs ( Sorrento and Blairgowrie) we returned to Portsea for a cuppa and a harvest of the massive fig tree in our friends' back garden. tonight after a feed of steak and wonderful salads we have started the process of making fig paste, with Graeme improvising with a set of scales made from a shelf and a knife steel! What fun to get together in the kitchen on vacation!
We'll make the jam tomorrow before going fishing. I just love summer by the beach!

Between Taggerty and Portsea

We travelled to Portsea yesteray and today have woken to the hugest fig tree I have ever seen! Roast figs with bacon was on the dinner menu and several of us liked them. I'm trying to find as many ways as possible to use the figs which go unused it seems each year. Maybe if I can provide some recipes they'll get used!

Between Melbourne and Taggerty Jan 1 2010

January 1 2010
Outside it’s raining cats and dogs. After dinner we watched a sound and light show that would be as grand as anything you would pay to see. And on our back deck the view of sheet lightning in two directions, was just magnificent. Now in its aftermath the rain is pelting down. A great gift at midsummer on this first day of the New Year and the new decade.
I’ve just finished reading Dave Pelzer’s memoir about teenage years called The privilege of youth. It’s a good read that makes the ordinary extraordinary and that’s what I’d like to try and do with my writing this year. I want to try and write every day and find in the ordinariness of life, that life itself is a gift if extraordinary dimensions.
Today coming home from Melbourne after returning James there yesterday and going to see the Melbourne fireworks in the middle of another deluge at the house of the son of friends, in South Melbourne, with a wonderful view of the city skyline, I took a series of random shots of the Yarra Valley and the Black’s Spur and then into the Acheron Valley. It’s now almost eleven months since the bushfires of Black Saturday and the bush is regenerating, even if somewhat slowly.
It was a beautiful ordinary day. The hay still lies in some paddocks. The road was full of cars returning at the end of the Christmas- New Year break. The sky was cloudy and overcast. It was a good time to be snap-happy.
Tonight at dinner (lamb BBQ with roast veggies some from the summer garden, followed by fresh berries in brandy baskets), we talked of being much blessed. How can we better share what we have and not feel too guilty about the beneficence of life?