Good morning folks. How was your week? Thanks for your sweet feedback on Part 1 of our holiday in Sydney. So pleased a few of you had a good chuckle at our misadventures!

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Hello Lovelies. How was your weekend? Thanks for your patience with this blog post. I’d hoped to get it done earlier, but needed to zip into the hospital with one of my dear daughters. Hubby is also sick in bed with the flu and I am ignoring my mountainous pile of washing to get this done. All is well with my daughter now and the children are all fed and settled… well, for the next five minutes anyway. So let’s see how far I get telling you about our city escape.

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Good morning Lovelies. Boy! What a week. It certainly has been huge and to be honest, I am doing well to get this post done. You may have seen on my Instagram stories that I helped a friend with her daughter’s wedding last weekend. It was the cutest ‘Brambly Hedge’ country wedding and I was honoured to be a part of the styling, set up and desserts. Keep an eye out for photos.

I arrived home with tired feet, a creatively satisfied heart and a van chocked full of props and cake stands on Sunday night. By Monday night, which happened to be hubby and Miss Charlotte’s birthdays, our oldest daughter had invited around 15 delightful friends over for dinner. This began a week of flurry with twenty something year olds buzzing around our home, bunking on lounges, playing games with the girls, sitting around the fire,  surfing, eating and being totally grateful for our open home.  By the end of it I lost track of all of the new faces and just kept offering a pillow and blanket to whoever turned up.

As you can imagine, there wasn’t  a whole lot of spare time to gather my thoughts and create blog posts. But you know what? How precious is it when your kids want to bring their friends home to hang out, eat and crash at your place, even when they are twenty one and live ten hours away. My mother heart certainly treasured this little gift. And yes, it does help that we live in paradise! It’s a pretty special part of our country we are blessed to call home. 

As much as I love my coastal dwelling, it’s the wide brown land that has my heart and one of my favourite places is a tiny village near the town I grew up. It can actually snow here and would be my top choice for a winter get away.  On our recent mini road trip I took my extended family here for the day and had the most delightful time wandering the streets with my camera in hand. 

I don’t know much of the history of Nundle, but there is an old wool mill there where you can still see production of the most gorgeous wool in the historic factory.

Whenever I walk through city streets or the quaintest country town, I am always noticing the shapes, lines and textures of buildings around me. I cannot help but crouch to ground level or point my camera up to get an interesting photo. Street photography fascinates me, as you can see here on a trip to Melbourne I took with two of my taekwondo kids a couple of years ago. Even though this sweet little town only has one main street, it hides a wealth of interesting old buildings and eclectic shops.

Something else that fascinates me is old dilapidated buildings. Every time I see one along the road I immediately want to stop and trudge through barbed wire fences and photograph them.This is something I rarely get to do with a very practical hubby and a van full of children, but on our glorious drive to Nundle this day I was incredibly grateful to my car full of relies who recognised my creative spirit and encouraged me to pull over and enjoy these amazing old pieces of history. I particularly enjoyed a row of slap shod mail boxes lining a dusty street in the middle of nowhere. Oh, if they don’t scream out ‘Australia’, then I don’t know what does! The small delights. 

I was away for a week, and with only three of the girls with me, I had a little breathing space to do something different and wander my part of the world with my camera in hand. It was so good to slow down, take time, stop along the roadside and take a good look at what makes our beautiful country so unique. I hope you didn’t mind my detour and I am looking forward to sharing  more cake with you all next week. 

Lots of love xx

As dawn breaks I hasten down the stairs, out into the crisp new morning. I am eager to relive my college days when I would go jogging through the chilly streets of Armidale in the early hours, relishing time alone and the break from busy dorm life. Well, thirty years and nine children later I’m not exactly running out the door, (although perhaps I should be), but with no less enthusiasm I grab my camera and two willing daughters, determined to show them the wonders of winter as I remember it.

Of course this isn’t winter with snow covered mountains, ski jackets and beanies. It would take us days to get to that kind of cold. I’ve only really been to the snow twice, and of course loved it, although I am more of a snow walker than skier. Never been the sporty type. I’d personally rather get lost in some Narnian daydream wandering through snow covered woods than try to ski down a mountain.

I digress.

To my kids, this is about as cold as winter gets. We don’t even need coats. Tragic I know. However, if I can show them a frost and they can see the chill in the air they breathe, then they have experienced a winter morning!

 Fortunately,  we were not disappointed. It was such a joy to see the girls delight in the simple pleasures our morning walk afforded, most notably, Miss Charlotte’s reaction to spotting an (albeit scrawny) neighbourhood horse.

Growing up in the country, these are the ordinary scenes that flood my memory. Old rickety fences, brown, bare thirsty earth, quiet dusty lanes.  Australia is such a unique country, and I am determined to show my girls it’s beauty in the ordinary. I want them to find treasure in a morning walk and appreciate a country town that is so different to their home in the lush greenery of the coast. 

As we wandered back to our hundred year old hotel for breakfast, I couldn’t help noticing the buildings. Neglected cottages and cosy homes lining the streets. I wonder who lived in them, what tales their walls would tell if they could talk, and how the women were dressed as they hustled in their tiny kitchens gossiping with their neighbours.

It wasn’t long before we were all packed up and ready to head west, further over the mountain into the wide open spaces of my childhood home. There is nothing quite like going back to your roots, back to family and all that is familiar and easy.  We don’t get there nearly enough, but each time we do I am reminded of how much I love the the place where I was born and my loved ones who still live there. Join me next weekend for the final chapter in our little road trip and then I promise you we will get back to cake! 

Lots of love xx

I grab my camera and race out the door, trying not to let impatience surface as I usher the children into the chilly street. The glow of perfect afternoon light is fading fast along with any hope of taking photos in this beautiful country town before the sun sets. 

Walking the streets on dusk, the girls sidle into a brick lined alley and start playing on the metal hand rail.

Gazing around I am suddenly aware of the light. Somehow, almost miraculously, it seems to have harnessed itself into my little alley way. I could not have designed it better. Immediately springing into action, I desperately adjust my camera in a race to best capture the disappearing light.

The backdrop is perfect. Sunlight gently reflecting on the age old bricks bounces across the girls faces, highlighting their individual beauty. 

The weathered brick work is full of history in this federation town. It tells the story of times gone by and we linger long enough in the failing light to hear the walls whisper it’s secrets.

My enthusiasm rubs onto the girls and they start posing, shifting their hips, and upon instruction, giving me those sulky teenage glares. Show me some sass girls! I egg them on, all the while snapping away on my camera like a mad woman in a flurry.

All too soon, and just like that, it’s over. The sun is down, no more light, camera away and off we go to find dinner.

I literally float out of that precious alleyway. High on a potent injection of creative fulfilment, I feel alive and deeply grateful for the window of time I had to do what I love with the people I love. 

The kid’s clothes weren’t fancy and it kinda bugged me that they weren’t better dressed. (The stylist in me was cringing at the casual hoodies) Their hair was messy from driving all day. We had no grand plans to do a cool alley shoot. We were simply a family going for a walk into town for dinner in a new town on the first night of our escape over the mountain to chase my favourite season, Winter.

Shuffling home in the dark to our cosy hotel room later that night, I felt the crisp air sting my face, breathing it deep into my veins, through to my fingers and toes. It brought renewed life, energy, joy and excitement into every fibre of my being. That’s what Winter does for me. It breathes life into my soul. And for one night, it opened up the doorway to create some pretty special memories with my children.

Carpe Diem, right?