A Bucketful of Blueberries

Tasmania is fruit heaven in these hot summer months. We’re surrounded by apple orchards and berry farms, some with cafes and scrumptious wares, and some where you can pick your own luscious fruit. The outing we look forward to every year is picking our own organic blueberries at the farm on the far side of Tamar, at Lilydale.



In past years we’ve gone in a convoy with a few local families. Some of us have pushed off-road prams up and down the rows of bushes, and made multiple trips back to the farmhouse to take toddlers to the toilet. Grown-ups pick from the tops of the bushes and kids harvest the berries from below; we all enjoy a beautiful morning in the sunshine and the kids get to sample the luscious fruits straight from the tree, where it’s cooking slowly in the ripening sun.

This year we took My Other Half too, which changed things a little.


‘I’m leaving at half eight on the dot!’ I announced in my most authoritative voice. It pays to get to the slopes early so you’re not picking in the heat of the day. At half eight, the kids were in the car, snacks and water bottles were packed, the eskie and ice blocks awaited the fruits of our labours. Even the dog was crouched in the back of the car. But the only individual capable of getting himself ready without assistance was still in the bathroom, rinsing his sinuses with salt water. (Man flu.)


After the drive cross country through stunning Tamar scenery, we reached the farm, nestling on steep slopes in the lee of Mount Arthur, bathed in sunshine. We parked under a tree, picked up buckets from the farm shop and made our way over to the slopes lined with bushes.


In the past we’ve picked until the kids got bored and then called it a day. With my Other Half present, things were a little more organised.


‘How many kilos do these buckets hold?’ he demanded of the man in the farm shop, a question it had never occurred to me to ask.


‘About three and a half kilos, mate.’ All of a sudden we were planning on two full buckets and one to spare and the option of coming back for more. We headed off to the slopes with an actual strategy.


The kids and I wandered up row seventeen and slowly began to pop little blue pellets into our bucket with a gentle ‘puck’ ‘puck’. MOH peeled off, selected a row with superior yield, and began picking with solitary determination.


‘Remember to pick the berries that are really dark blue,’ I told the kids.
‘Diss one, Mummy?’ asked Smudge.
‘A little bit darker sweetheart, that one’s a bit red isn’t it?’
‘Like diss one?’
‘Perfect!’
‘Like diss one, Mummy?’
‘Yes, that’s a good one too.’
‘Diss one Mummy?’
‘Err, that’s another red one. Try and get the really dark blue ones.’
‘Like diss one, Mummy?’


Evidently Smudge was going for quality. Pretty soon, though, he got into the swing of things. Then he realised how big they could grow.
‘Wow! Look at diss one Mummy!’
‘Wow, that’s huge!’
‘Look at diss one!’
‘Yep, that’s huge too!’
‘Look at diss one!’
‘I tell you what – show Daddy!’


Eventually, MOH was persuaded to join us; that there was no prize for the mightiest weight picked, and that it was more about having a lovely time as a family – together! And he came in very useful when Smudge had to be escorted to the porta-loo.

We picked thirteen kilos in under an hour. At $6 per kilo, that was $80 for a year’s supply of blueberries. We took them home and put them in the freezer on trays. When they’d frozen into rock hard pellets, we bagged them into 250gram quantities – one for each week of the year, at $1.60 a pop.


And so begins the inevitable parade of blueberries with yoghurt, blueberry muffins, fresh blueberries in lunchboxes, blueberry icy pops…. blueberry with everything. Until next year.

Supermarkets: fresh food people - just don't use the toilets!

I’m always mulling over the relationship I have with my supermarket. Despite all the data they’ve collected about me through their frequent shopper scheme, I just don’t think they understand me.



I don’t want them to market to my children with branded merchandise all over the store, and I'm not really that bothered about specials. But if the public toilets had soap and toilet paper and were checked and cleaned reguarly - I'd love that!

We’ve had rather too many adventures with the toilets of our supermarket. ‘I want a poo Mummy!’ Smudge demanded in aisle seven. So we left our trolley at the ‘customer service’ desk and headed for the loos, only to find there was no toilet paper. Back to the customer service desk we went, and a member of staff went to get some. But it was too late. Smudge did what he had to do right there and then in his pants. He walked with his legs wide apart back to the toilets and we dealt with what he’d done. Luckily I keep a change of clothes in the car. As ever, there was no soap provided in the toilets, so I had to clean up using my own resources. I keep some anti-bacterial hand wash in the car too – because I know how poorly the supermarket provides for me.


Then there was the time when the ladies’ toilets were closed ‘due to vandalism’. We hovered outside for a moment, Smudge with a certain sense of urgency. The disabled toilet was occupied and there’s no way I was going in the gents. What could have been done to the toilets to render them completely unsuitable for use? Could it really have affected all three cubicles? We took a punt, pushed open the door and went in. The toilets sat silent and untouched. And the vandalism? Some graffiti on the wall.


That said to me loud and clear that this store management doesn’t understand its customers: the notion that a woman with a child needing the toilet would rather the toilets were closed until the graffiti was sorted out, well that’s just laughable.

What’s lowest of all, though is that these facilities don’t offer the means for customers to wash their hands properly, as there’s never any soap. Many of us are heading into the supermarket to handle food and produce. It kind of takes the shine off the company’s claim to be the ‘fresh food people’. I’ve seen a staff member using those toilets and going back to work in the store, washing their hands under running water only. I’ve used the toilets myself and then returned to the store, only to be offered samples from a fruit and cheese platter; there were no toothpicks, I was invited to pick an item off the plate with my fingers.


I like to be polite to the staff of shops, but I gave a frank account of my views on this occasion. To be fair, the woman holding the plate said she’d raise the matter at their next Occupational Health & Safety meeting. They did raise it – I called the store a couple of weeks later, but nothing ever changed, despite the usual assurances.


There’s a sign on the back of the door saying ‘These toilets are provided and maintained by Woolworths. If you have any concerns, please address them to staff at the customer service desk, so that they can completely ignore them. (Okay, I made that last bit up.)


I’ve been using this supermarket for five years now, and I’ve addressed my concerns to them in many ways. I’ve talked to the staff at the desk, I’ve talked to the manager on the phone, I’ve complained to the woman handing out free food from a plate, I’ve written to the General Manager of Customer Engagement at head office and been rung by someone on his team. I’ve had all sorts of assurances, and a few excuses. We’ve lost the key for the toilet paper dispensers. The soap dispensers are the wrong size for the soap we’ve got. Bars of soap get stolen. Meantime, customers put up with grubby toilets, frequently not cleaned very well, no soap, toilet paper rolls sitting on the floor. Cleaning and checking roster? You must be joking.


Despite all their marketing departments and customer engagement teams and management training, they haven’t got the simple integrity to make sure their facilities are clean and useable.


What amazes me is their apparent lack of interest in getting it right, when this is an issue upon which customer loyalty and engagement could turn. If they’re so determined to engage with their customers, why aren’t they doing something about this issue when a real live customer has got in touch with them?

I nearly laughed my socks off when I heard they had a Customer Engagement team. They couldn’t be poorer at engaging me. I reduced my engagement with them all the time. I buy my meat from a butcher because I know it’s local and has no growth hormones in it, as Tasmania bans them. I buy my fruit and veg from a local roadside barn. I buy my local farm milk from the greengrocer whose shop is in the shadow of the supermarket.


If I can find a reason not to go to my supermarket, I use it. Pretty soon I’m going to put in place a regular online monthly order so I visit even more seldom in person. That means they’ll miss out on the incidentals I buy if I’m actually there looking at the shelves.

If I felt they had integrity as an organisation, I’d still be going. But it rings false to have lilting tunes piped at me about how they’re the ‘fresh food people’ when I’ve just been to their scummy facilities. There's a gap between the reality of going there and the spin they put on it. When the gap becomes too large, it's hard not to become disenchanted.


Please tweet this - they deserve it!

What Pigs Do All Day

If ever I’m in need of solace, I take the path across our bush paddock and visit our pigs. If I’ve overcommitted myself and life has become too complicated. I know that keeping things simple is the key, and there are no better role models than Bella and Rosie, our breeding sows.

When I arrive, they’re usually snoozing away the afternoon. Pigs spoon together in their sleep, and they prefer company over solitude. The week after Pilot our boar arrived, we put him in with Bella so they could get acquainted. There was a bit of argy bargy and chasing each other round the paddock, but a few hours later they were spotted slumbering under the old tin lean-to. Her trotters curled around his rump and his splendid testicles resting softly against her shanks. It was a picture of nuptial harmony.

If it’s mid-afternoon when I visit, they know it’s not feeding time so they take their time in getting up. Bella and Rosie prefer forty winks in the cool, shady comfort of their shed where they huff and puff into the dusty dirt floor. Once they realise there’s an audience outside, they come out to be sociable. Obviously they don’t talk, so they just stare at you for a while and then find something to do.

In the current warm weather, that’s taking a bath.




Bella arranges mud for coolness, comfort and perfect fit.



Bella goes first and arranges the mud for coolness, comfort and the perfect fit. 

Then she heads in for a wallow, to relax and unwind. Bella is a magnificent pig now,

and heavily pregnant. It must feel lovely to lower her immense bulk into the cooling mud.



Then it's in for a wallow, to relax and unwind



Out for a good scratch...



...And a bit of a lie down in the sun

 Then it's Rosie's turn.

But Bella hasn't had enough,and she comes too for a double dip.

Although it looks as if Rosie is turning to Bella in a lovingly affectionate gesture,

she's actually giving Bella a good biffing for invading her personal space.

Pigs get hot in warm weather and wallowing in mud and water comes naturally to them as a means of cooling down. Ours are housed in the bush block too which gives them natural dappled shade, and their huts face away from the prevailing breezes and are cool, shady retreats.


Although I wouldn't go so far as getting into a bath with them, I do love visiting Rosie and Bella. They're so immensely warm and solid, there's a reliability about them. Patting them, stroking and scratching them, rubbing behind their ears and giving them a rub along the belly brings enjoyment to both me and them. They're not like dogs, they don't look at you affectionately as you fondle them; they generally just carry on with whatever they're doing - digging up a tasty root or trying the toe of your wellington boot for flavour. But as you rub their bristly flanks, they occasionally lean into you or flap their ears contentedly. There's solace to be found in simple pleasures, both in giving and receiving them.

Rejection! Get Used to It!



Something cheerful on my desk to cheer me up

Two writers I knew in London, who shared a flat, used to paper their kitchen wall with rejection letters from publishers and journals. But first they put them through a process with a bottle of liquid paper and a typewriter that at least raised their entertainment value:

Dear Mr Royle,


BOLLOCKS TO your submission for our Emerging Writers’ Short Story Competition. This year’s entries were UNIVERSALLY PITIFUL AND YET unfortunately on this occasion we are LOATH to progress any further with your submission.

Nigel and Nick came to mind as I perused my hefty letter of rejection for a Tas Arts grant yesterday.

I allowed myself a few hours of walking round the house feeling a bit glum because maybe I’m not so bloody marvellous as I like to think. Then I put my head down on the table for a bit and stared at what looked like a speck of dandruff on my trouser leg. It seemed like an apt position in which to try and be philosophical about everything.

It’s not the rejection itself that I was struggling with. Reading through the informative feedback, I saw how my application wasn’t strong enough. That’s okay, I’ll be better prepared to apply again next year.

It’s not bringing any income into the household, even though I contribute in many other ways. And it’s because what you do is central to your sense of identity, and I’ve had enough jobs where I’ve sold my soul in order to earn a crust, and I have a sense of dread about ever having to go back there. I want to do something I’m genuinely interested in, that I can invest myself in.

So it’s back to the fall-back plan. I’m off tomorrow for a couple of meetings in town, to see if I can’t do something related to what I really want to do, that earns me a little bit of money.. and self-respect. Ideas range from the quite sensible to the really fairly out-there. I'm staying open-minded.

Twenty Ways to Please Your Husband, Whether He Wants It Or Not

Supermarket queues are longer on a Saturday than when I usually go on a Thursday. ‘Well, I’m not going to buy a magazine’ I thought to myself, eyeing off the racks. ‘But I’m gonna read one while I’m standing here.’



The choice was Better Homes & Gardens (yawn), New Idea (trash) or Cosmopolitan. Cosmo had a red cover with a chick in a crop top standing there with hands on hips like she knew who she was and meant business. Just beside her left hip was a trailer for a story: ‘Twenty Ways to Please Your Man’. Well, it was a no-brainer.


So that was an educational ten minutes. I chuckled away in the queue and learnt a few things I hadn’t heard of before and some I had – hey, I’m not such an old fuddy duddy. All the tips were credited to real men, or perhaps they were made up by a sub-editor, who knows. As the ‘men’ got older, the tips got rather more outlandish, or sophisticated, whichever way you want to look at it. Kevin (37) had what I thought was the most interesting preference. I won’t tell you what it was here, there are mummies reading. You’ll have to buy a copy for yourself. Or read it in the checkout queue.


When I got home I thought I’d run Kevin’s idea past my Other Half. He was quite innocently standing there with a packet of frozen peas in his hand when I put Kevin’s suggestion to him. ‘If I did this (insert technique here), when that was about to happen (insert relevant moment), would it (CENSORED)?


He was evidently taken aback. After all, he thought he was just helping me unpack the shopping. ‘No,’ he replied quite firmly. ‘I’m quite happy with things the way they are. You’ll find I’m quite conservative like that.’


That surprised me. I’ve known my Other Half for sixteen years, and I wouldn’t have said he’s conservative.


Later that evening, we enjoyed what I’ll just describe as a very pleasant intimate experience. No special techniques were employed but we were both very happy with the outcome. Which just goes to prove, you don’t have to do anything particularly outlandish or sophisticated to please your man. You just have to love him, and let him know you’re happy to be there.


But I’m not saying we won’t revisit Kevin’s suggestion at some future date. I’ll keep that one in reserve.


Wife's Tale

I’ve written fifty thousand words of the ‘book of the blog’ and I’m calling it Apple Island Wife just like the blog. Not because it’s all about me, but because I want it to be a tale from the wife’s point of view. Sort of Gourmet Farmer with a pinny on.

It’s made me think, again, about defining myself as a wife. Me, who was once a radical fem, who changed her name during her student years because she didn’t want to have only her father’s surname, because that’s how they name race horses – by the name of the stud that sired them. ‘My mother bore me for nine months, I want her name in my name!’ I wailed. I was probably quite well-oiled at the time, on the whisky and blackcurrant juice I bought with the allowance that my dad gave me to supplement my student grant.


Fast forward twenty five years from those heady days of student lounge-room activism and here I am, a wife and mother.


In the intervening years I’ve been many things, Assistant This, Assistant That, Administrator, Organiser. Not always, but often I’ve been sidekick to a man, beavering away in the background. As a wife, I’m still beavering away in the background, and I use many of the same skills. The difference is, I don’t find it soul destroying, as I often found the world of work: that feeling of being owned, but never fully valued.


I know and understand that many women have careers they love, that fulfil them. Me, I never found my niche. But I’ve found one now as a wife and mother and chief executive of my household.


Anita Roddick used to look for women who were returning to work after having a family, to run Body Shop outlets. She said a woman who’d run a household had all the skills for running a business – they could budget, manage people, had liaison skills. Conflict management? We wives invented it.


Being a wife and mother, managing this household and everyone in it including my Other Half, is my most demanding, most rewarding job. At times it’s like an endurance event, but there is also great joy here.


I’m not earning, but I am being remunerated. It all depends on what you recognise as currency. I’m paid in love, cared for and valued, and I do all those things in return. The world still thinks that money makes it go round. But the world of money is crumbling.


A wise man in the field of sustainability, Ted Trainer, pointed out that if we employed the same principles in the family home as we do in the markets, you’d make all members of the family bid for their food. Whoever could pay the highest price would get toast in the morning, and everybody else would starve. Run along those lines, the human race would die out. He believes the kitchen table should become the centre of the community, and the universe. Where the young, sick and old are cared for and nurtured; the providers are provided for and everyone provides differently.


Our generation and our children’s will see some rapid and dramatic changes as our economy crumbles and the environment starts to dictate its terms for what we’ve done. Will we manage our future intelligently, or just be dumb witnesses? Either way, we have quite something to prepare our children for. It’s we who will instil the values they will need to survive, or lead in some small way. We are creating the leaders of the future, the leaders, the managers and the parents and lovers.


Women are expected to have everything now – career, home, love, children. It’s exhausting. I haven’t been able to do it all well. I’ve had to cut back and concentrate on one thing at a time. People may say, well you’re just at home, you’re not doing much are you? But I’m working hard, in the house, in the garden, at the school, in my Other Half’s business, as a counsellor, cook, caterer, event manager, nurturer, buyer, barterer, interior decorator, laundress and all-round capable and relied-upon person. Sometimes I have to lie down and have a cup of tea to stop my head spinning.


That’s me. I’m a wife. It’s a role I’m proud of. Since my rad fem student days my understanding of what it means to be a wife has gone a radical transition. On most days it feels like the most important job in the world. And so, Apple Island Wife.

Inflatable Whales and Musical Buses - it's the Junction Arts Festival!

What a splendid day we’ve had! With Hobart becoming a very buzzy centre of all things arts in Tasmania, it’s great to see Launceston getting its own festival together.


Not only are we up for it, I gave the kids the day off school and we went into town to hunt it down!

Smudge’s top picks from a grubby fingered leaf through the handy handbag-sized brochure were the Performance Bus and the Inflatable Whale. Sounds good so far, doesn’t it?!

We caught the free Tiger Bus at the Museum and were joined by strolling minstrel for the day, Marita Mangano, who serenaded us with toe tapping gusto for the round trip. Marita’s a Tasmanian songwriter and musician and all the songs came from her new CD Binalong Blue – they were a perfect pick for a sunny drive through the elegant avenues of Launceston.

At lunchtime we headed to Prince’s Square and picnicked in the shadow of the great inflatable blue whale which looked fantastic marooned on a pathway under the bare branches of the park’s trees. Junction Festival elves handed out helpful fact sheets on Blue Whales for the kids.

We’re towards the end of a long term here in Tasmania – a ridiculous twelve weeks – and Curly’s pooped. I like giving her the odd day off to mix things up a bit and keep her outlook fresh. Factsheets on whales are all grist to the mill; she got to read up on something, interact with lots of people, have an exciting and different day out with me and Smudge, and see a lady singing on the bus. Go Lonnie!

Even the dog had a good time. We try to take Midget with us most places. A trip to the city isn’t ideal, but she had two runs in the grounds of the museum and did lots of sniffing and exploring in Prince’s Square. For a dog that spent the first half of her life on a sheep station, we figure this switches on her mind to new and exciting smells and places.

Last stop was the fantastic Nanna’s Coffee and Vintage tucked away in Coulter Square behind Petrarch’s bookshop. We were looking for the Chocolate Crocheting event, expecting to find ladies in interesting handmade clothing weaving away with their needles. It’s not actually a live event, as it turns out, but there were some interesting crocheted truffles in the window.

We practiced our manners over the lovely tablecloths, trying not to suck sugar directly from the 50s sugar decanters, and adding a layer of babycino froth to the moustaches we had left over from lunch.

Nanna’s is a hidden treasure, the sort of place I’ll revisit time and again now I know it’s there. Next time I’ll go without Smudge and Curly and have a proper poke around the vintage handbags.

The Junction Arts Festival is on in and around central Launceston for the rest of this week, 24-28 August 2011.

Top Tip - Timed Sharing

ps

It’s good to have some tools in your back pocket when you’re a parent. I have a small collection, some rusty, some highly polished, varying from brilliant tips I've cherry picked from the best of the books, like Steve Biddulph's Raising Boys, to any old cobblers that I can think of on the spur of the moment.

There's one good trick I use to encourage sharing - the timed sharing technique.
Smudge had a his little friend Captain A over yesterday. Accompanying the Captain was what I took to be a helicopter minus rotor blades, but which I was informed was a ship.

Whatever it was there was trouble over it. Captain A kept it beside him at all times and guarded it jealously. Smudge appealed to his better nature but there was no sharing this baby. Finally Smudge went into a bit of a tear-stained funk and I had to step in.

Out of the back pocket came the sharing tool. All you need is an oven timer.

‘How about this, boys,’ I said in my most understanding, reasonable voice, which is a bit of a put-on really, but I do try. ‘I’m going to set the dinger for five minutes. So for five minutes it’s Captain A’s turn to play with the helicopter.’

‘It’s not a helicopter, it’s a ship!’

‘Okay. For five minutes, it’s Captain A’s turn to play with the ship. Then after five minutes the dinger will go, and then it’s Smudge’s turn to play with the ship! How’s that sound?’

There was a brief silence while they processed the idea. Then...

‘Okay! Pretend you’re a fire ranger and the pantry’s on fire and the ship’s coming to put it out!’

Suddenly Mr A’s enthusiasm for the helicopter was re-ignited, and instead of playing with one of Smudge’s toys and leaving the helicopter listing to one side on the floor next to him, he played with it, and with Smudge.

Five minutes on, the dinger went.

Cometh the Man

News on the pig front. Because we don’t think the girls have enough to do with their time, we’re getting them a husband.

If there’s anything you want to know about old breed pig genetics, just ask me. I’m not an expert, but after spending an hour working out whether Pilot of Ballarat was related to Bella and Rose of the Tamar, I’ve got more of an idea than I did before.

The closest our girls come to Pilot is sharing a great grand-daddy. Rosie and Bella’s piglets, however were sired by the same boar that sired their sire. Following? That means, for reasons that I understood on Wednesday but which stump me today, that we can’t really put our new Pilot boar over Rosie’s piglet Ruby, whom we intend to keep as a breeding sow.

The piglets we’d get would come from too close a union, and we couldn’t in all faith register them to the breed. We could, however, use them as bacon. That might be a possibility.

It also turns out that Bella should actually be called Beatrice, and Rosie is in fact Sunset, although we think we’re allowed to have pet names for them if we want to. All sows and all boars are called the same thing – denoting the line they’ve come from. Bella has come from a long line of Beatrice sows, so she’s a Beatrice also. It’s not as if it makes any real difference. She still only really answers to the call of the feed bucket.

Back to the boar. Pilot is being shipped from Victoria next week and we await him with much anticipation. His new lady friends are feigning indifference but we believe they’ll change their minds. Spring is in the air, and soon the aroma of boar pheromones will be also.

When Milk is Milk

We love milk at this time of year. I poured some onto Smudge’s porridge this morning and a clot of cream the size of a ha’penny piece fell out of the bottle with a luxurious plop. The cows at Ashgrove are calving, and they’re producing milk that’s thicker and creamier than usual.

It takes me back to the milk we had delivered to our doorstep in Lancashire when I was a child, in bottles with foil tops. The bluetits would peck through the foil but only drink as far as their little beaks could reach. When you pressed your thumb into the cap with its tell-tale hole, it lifted off to reveal a thick plug of cream.

On the other side of the British Isles in Suffolk, meanwhile, my Other Half was growing up on a farm where the whole family had dollops of cream straight from the cow on their breakfast cereal.

We’re both delighted, and occasionally a little plumper, to be living in a place where we can buy ‘real’ milk, straight from the farm via a small independent greengrocer, all these years later.

In Tasmania there are a few sources of ‘real milk’ straight from the cow. We buy Ashgrove milk produced at the Bennett family's farm at Elizabeth Town, and Real Milk, from the Pyengana Cheese Company in the beautiful Pyengana Valley. Their milk is a very different product from the 'ordinary' milk the supermarket sells, because it comes from a farm rather than a factory.

We get full fat milk for the kids, with the cream content left in, anywhere between 3.3% to 4.5% depending on the time of year and what's happening with calves. It's pasteurised but not homogenised, although Ashgrove produce a homogenised version (where the fat molecules are distribute evenly through the milk). The taste is sensational. I watch my kids drinking it and think of all the fat soluble molecules of calcium and minerals that they’re digesting and what strong teeth and bones they’re building.

For the more mature members of the family for whom middle aged spread is an issue, we get the ‘farm light’, with 1% fat: still flavoursome but it doesn’t go straight to your hips and stick there.

Ashgrove has been farmed by the Bennett family for five generations, as a mixed farm, a dairy farm and now they’re renowned producers of handmade Cheddar. I met Managing Director Jane Bennett for a magazine article and she told me things about milk processing that made my hair curl.

There isn’t much that Jane doesn’t know about milk. She trained in dairy technology and worked at a major milk processor, before learning artisan cheese production in Lancashire and returning to the family farm.

You’d think that milk was milk, wouldn’t you? Sure, some has added calcium, reduced fat. But you wouldn’t think they trifle with it too much beyond that. But it’s not the case. The milk sold on the supermarket shelf is very much a processed product.

Real Life Lunchboxes

As a bit of a foodie, one of the ways I like to show my love for my children is by packing them a scrumptious lunch. And one of the ways they show their appreciation is by bringing me back the ruins of it every afternoon. Usually eaten, sometimes not – but that’s okay.

Lunchboxes are a bit like sex. Sometimes everything comes together and magic happens. Other times you end up exasperated with a less than satisfactory result but resolve to do better next time.

I was pretty pleased with this one that I made for Curly and Smudge last week.


It looked delicious, was full of things I knew they would consent to eat and had no allergens which might cause any little friends a problem.

Those are some scones that I baked the week before and had in the freezer, with this year’s home-made quince jam. And some chocolate covered strawberries left over from my birthday ladies’ lunch. I wouldn’t normally send chocolate in their lunchbox, but I do usually include some little ‘treat’, like a biscuit. And half an avocado is Smudge’s snack of choice. Too easy.

Birthday Ladies' Lunch with Salmon Coulibiac

What’s a girl to do as she gets older and birthdays come round with dreary reliability?

Arrange a Ladies’ Lunch for a dozen or so gals and give herself something to look forward to, that’s what!


Strawberries in Lindt chocolate and Ashgrove cream... hello love handles

On Wednesday, my Other Half took off to the aquatic centre to cut a dash in his Speedos in front of the posh ladies of Launceston and to occupy Smudge.

And at midday the ladies started turning up. The dress code was sparkles and diamante, tassels and pearls. It was lovely to see them turning up in their finery. Instead of the usual gumboots and jeans, there was a sequined bolero, a vintage bunny fur jacket from someone’s nana, quite a lot of bling and several tiaras borrowed from daughters, and one wedding tiara too. Not a common sight here in rural parts.

Kate Holden, The Romantic and columnist at The Age

Photo: Darren James

I love some of the columnists in The Age. Tonight I read Kate Holden’s column on the back page of Life & Style about the evil cat which has been marauding around her home in a most threatening manner.

Then I looked her up and found she's the author of a couple of memoirs, The Romantic and In My Skin, about her time as a heroin addicted sex worker.

I do like a writer with an interesting oeuvre.

Back to the cat. Being a Country Wife in rural Tasmanian now, I had a strategy or two to offer her in fending the little blighter off.

Least drastic, a swift and hard squirt of water from a washing up bottles: fast, effective and satisfying especially if you’ve lain in wait for it to come through your cat flap.

Slightly more elaborate: electric fencing. Amazing what resources living in the country gives you access to.

Parenting Advice from the Shoe Shop

We went to town to purchase some trainers for four year old Smudge. And we came away with unexpected parenting advice from the man in the shoe shop! Who knew such a service was available to needful or just plain old incompetent parents ? How marvellous!

We had tried on most of the trainers in Launceston. Because Smudge wears elastic sided boots come rain or shine, summer and winter, he’s not used to the feel of a shoe shaped to fit snugly around the back of his ankle. He just couldn’t get on with it.

We’ve got the shoe thing down pat with both my children. They try a pair on, then they go for a long walk around the shop.

‘Are they squeezing?’ I ask. ‘Are they slipping?’ I get them to focus their thoughts, as much as they can focus their thoughts off the topic of pretzels, Zchu Zchu Pets or Pingu. If they’re not sure, they do another circuit. Usually they come back first time with a nay or yay. Meanwhile, I’ve got down on the floor and am watching their departing heels as they corner the gumboots display, assessing for slippage.

And you know what? If my kids say shoes are slipping or are not comfy, revolutionary though it may seem, I believe them. And that way, we’ve chosen shoes that everybody likes and which they can wear. It’s a system which works well.

Pre-Birthday Tension Syndrom - not ALL My Husband's Fault.

As a woman of a certain age, not only do I have ‘that time of the month’, I now have ‘that time of the year’. As a parent, I also have ‘that time of the day’. My poor old Other Half doesn’t stand a chance.

‘That time of the year’ happens around my birthday. This year, so as to have something to look forward, I’ve arranged to have a ladies’ lunch with salmon and champagne, chocolate and strawberries. It seemed like a great idea, until everybody responded to the invite and I suddenly realised I was cooking for twelve. So I increased the champagne order.

Birth Companion... to a Pig

It was curiously moving, keeping Bella company while she was in labour. She lay at full stretch on her side along the length of the sty, her head poking out of the door. Bella’s a big pig.

If I lifted up her ear, I could see the expression on her face - one of pained concentration, brow furrowed, lip slightly curled. As a woman who’s been in labour twice, it inspired in me a tremendous sense of fellow feeling, more than I might have expected, especially with a pig. 

There she lay, her breath coming in and out in great gusts. At intervals, her breathing deepened and she whined on every exhalation. Then she strained and lifted her tail slowly, and out slithered another piglet.

Piglets Are Go!

I can’t imagine what it’s like to be Rosie. She’s eight months old and all she’s ever known is the joy of snuffling round our bush block. Nobody’s ever explained the facts of life to her. Then suddenly she’s off to a strange farmyard, where she’s rudely mounted by a boar, without so much as a by-your-leave!

Three months, three weeks and three days later she finds herself overcome with an urge to build a nest. Not content with the fresh straw provided in her new eco-hut, she goes out at bedtime to forage around in the bush and bring great mouthfuls of bracken in, creating an immense pile. At this point, she must suspect it’s got something to do with the feeling she’s had of something wriggling around inside her.

And then suddenly she’s in labour!

Lying on her side, panting and heaving, with an eager audience looking on.

Bella was taking a sisterly interest in things too. Little wonder, as it’s her turn next.

Paddock to Plate - Rabbit Risotto

When I come downstairs from tucking the children into bed, there’s usually a rifle on the dining room table - ready for the hunt under cover of darkness. My Other Half lurks at the back door twitching the curtains and surveying the paddocks.

He gets me to flick on the floodlights and takes his shot. Finally he made the announcement he’d been itching to make: that I’d better find some rabbit recipes for the following night’s dinner.

I was one step ahead of him as usual.

All my favourites have ample ways of dealing with rabbit – Jamie and Hugh. But it was Mark Gilchrist, head chef of ‘Game for Anything’ who provided the know-how for our first rabbit repast, courtesy of You Tube.

First off the mark was rabbit risotto.

The rabbit had hung overnight from the pergola – not an ideal start. You really should gut a rabbit as soon as possible after you’ve caught it, as the innards can taint the meat, apparently.

After suffering a frosty dawn, it was stiff as a board when we brought it into the kitchen. My Other Half used to shoot rabbits in the wild as a boy so he was able to skin it efficiently. He makes a fairly good great white hunter.

Then we jointed it. I use the term ‘we’ loosely. The nearest I’ve come to butchering anything is spatchcocking a chicken. Once you’ve cut the breastbone out of a bird and leaned on it to flatten it out, you probably forfeit the right to get squeamish in the kitchen. But I wasn’t ready to do the first rabbit.

Explaining the Facts of Life on the School Run

Some apparently innocent conversations can just spiral out of control, can’t they? We’d only got half a click from the house, and it was pretty early in the morning, when the following took place.

Curly: ‘Mummy, how big will Jessie’s tummy get?’

(Jessie is a cousin in England, soon to have a baby.)

Me: ‘Ooh, quite big.’

Curly: ‘As big as Rosie and Bella’s tummies?’

(Rosie and Bella are our Wessex Saddleback sows, soon to have piglets.)

Me: ‘Um…’

Smudge: ‘Mummy, are de piglets born now?’

Me: ‘No, the piglets aren’t born yet, in a few weeks.’

Smudge: ‘Mummy, how de piglets get out dere mummy’s tummy?’

Me: ‘Um, well they pop out of their mummy’s fanny.’

(We believe a pragmatic approach is best when discussing body parts and reproduction. Sometimes, this comes back to bite us.)

Smudge: ‘Like I popped out your fanny, Mummy?’

Me: ‘Yes, just like that.’

Piglets - Unborn, but Alive and Kicking

There’s a palpable sense of excitement and anticipation here at Apple Island Lodge.

Rosie’s tummy has dropped and she’s very clearly a sow-in-pig who we can expect to farrow very soon.

But today’s main story is that it’s very clear Bella is pregnant too. Although her nipples (sorry, here we go) are less uniformly enlarged than Rosie’s, her tummy has dropped and she is waddling around like a clucky duck.

This has put a spring in my Other Half’s step. Last week, morose at the prospect of his sow not being in pig, he visited a neighbouring pig farm. He was hoping to pick up some tips, the more skilfully to interpret his sows bottoms. He came back a reassured man.

Climate Change and the Humble Housewife

Two years ago, all you could hear on the radio was Malcolm Turnbull warbling about an Emissions Trading Scheme. ‘P**s off, Malcolm’ I’d say. ‘That’s far too complicated for me to think about now. I’ve got this lunchbox to pack and then I have to deal with that egg-bound hen.’ And I’d tune him out.

One Sunday morning, we were engaged in a bout of housework at Apple Island Lodge. Radio National was burbling in the background. A man was talking about the earth being full. I drew to a halt beside the radio with my ear cocked, dustpan and brush in hand. ‘Who is this bloke?’ I wondered. ‘He’s talking about the bigger picture, and it’s quite easy to follow. Also, he’s very clever, because he’s got me to listen.’

Not many things stop me in my tracks when I’m doing the housework. I’d rather get it done and be off outside to tidy up my log stacks.

I made sure I listened to the end of the program, Background Briefing to find out who he was. Paul Gilding, they said, former head of Greenpeace, consultant to some of the world's largest corporations, regular on the international speaking circuit. He was speaking at Sydney University's Ideas Forum. You can download the program from Radio National.

At the time I was a member of Mensa. Now before you call me a tall poppy and cut me down, it doesn’t mean anything grand; it just means I enjoy Sudoku puzzles. I did a little writing for their magazine. So I emailed the editor and suggested he commission an article from Gilding. After all, surely climate change was a topic Mensans should be giving their immense brains to?

He wrote back: ‘Why don’t you interview him by email and write it up yourself?’