It struck me last night, as I was driving to and from the local shop in the evening as the sun was going down, what a storybook place I live in. A country village with a population of around 700, settled on the banks of a river and nestled in a valley of rolling green hills where ‘agricultural industry’ means dairy cattle, beef cattle, and horses. Koalas in our back yards (truly, I kid you not), always surrounded by the beautiful birdsong of carolling magpies, butcherbirds and currawongs, and, at this time of year, the special sound of rainbirds. Kids still ride the streets on their pushbikes. We have a local hall, a teensy museum, a butcher, a take-away shop, and the General Store. You’re old-fashioned country general store, which is also the local post office, dvd rental, ‘newsagents’ (of a sort–well, they do sell newspapers and magazines) and all important grog-shop. (And one sole petrol pump.) Where everyone knows your name, where you go to get all the goss, and where, when we are all flooded in, we go to find out about what roads are opened or closed. Yet we are only 10 mins drive from a major regional centre in one direction and 10 mins drive from a charming country town in the other. And only 20 minutes to the local beaches.
And it is spring, and around my little dollshouse of a cottage the flowers are blooming:
We are firmly going in to drought and the grass is quite crispy already, but this second spring the roses are finally blooming. It will be a real sight in a few years when the arbour is covered in roses and jasmine. Tomorrow I go shopping for new hanging plants for the verandah and new plants for the window boxes. And ties and a ladder to get up there and tie down the roses!
I love my white picket fence, and my blue shutters, and my blue window boxes. I am blessed, and life is inordinately good right now.