Farewell Sefton.

We moved out yesterday, and went back to clean today. It was so strange seeing the house empty (except for the day bed and a couple of old chairs). It was such fun place to live, such a lovely setting, and I will dearly miss the grass, the cows, the garden, the space, the darkness at night and the quietness. Oh and the storage space.

Farewell Lower Sefton Road. And farewell The Good Life. Time for some re-branding methinks.

The end of the garden....

Last week I harvested the end of the garden vegetables. There wasn't a great yield - a handful of broad beans and a row of little baby beetroot. The rest of the garden has gone to seed.

It was kind of sad, as I would usually be ripping things out now and planting new seedlings, but there was no point right now, so I just let it all go.


Anyway, I made a beetroot and bean salad with yoghurt and mint. It was pretty delicious, and a lovely finale to the last 3 years of home grown veges.


The new house has a barren vege plot, situated in a terrible site, which I don't think I will plant at this stage. There are some pretty good herbs growing (oregano, rosemary), a random lone rhubarb, and some scrawny raspberry plants, but not much else. The good news is that there are lots of fruit trees - several varieties of plums, and a tall pear tree which sits right outside the living room door and reaches to our bedroom window.


I've never had pears available on a tree, and am looking forward to some good preserves when the time is right.

We are going crazy this week with painting and cleaning, and the big move is on Saturday. I think the blog will have to have a bit of a re-jig, but I'm still working on that one.

This morning I opened all the windows of our house here in Sefton and was immediately assaulted by the combined stench of porcine and bovine effluent, and I have to say it made me a little sad to think that earthy smell won't be part of my daily life anymore. But, then I realised that neither will the flies that go with it, and I wasn't so sad.

Pot says her farewells

Although she probably isn't aware of it, last night Pot spent her final evening out at Sefton. She's currently waiting at Matt's office for me to take her to the cattery this afternoon where she will have some R & R while we paint (and move into) our new house.

I hope she appreciated what she's had this past three years - she's been a bit scared to really get into the outdoor life, but she's spent hours and hours staring out the window at the birds. And when she does venture out, she must be totally overwhelmed with all the nature and space - two things she never experienced in Melbourne.

Fortunately our new house has an immense overgrown garden for her, but she will be sharing it with Boo, so it will be interesting to see how much time she actually gets to spend out there. It will also be her first experience in a two-storied home, and she has views over the city, so that's an added bonus for her. I think she's gonna like it.


ps. no movement from the wall creature last night - I think we may have finally eradicated it (I am too scared to check the trap though, as I am worried it was a ferret, which really does my head in).

As if we needed another reason to go..

In the past couple of days some sort of creature has taken up residence in our walls. It is a solitary animal, and I am guessing it is either a large rat or some sort of ferret/stoat/weasel thing. It moves slowly and loudly and spends a lot of time scratching - sounding as if it is trying to dig it's way through the wall into our house. It moves around from room to room, and ignores us when we bang loudly on the wall, pausing for just a second before continuing to scratch.

Not cool.

Not conducive to getting a good night's sleep.

Even Pot is more worried than excited by it - she keeps her distance, just watching the wall.

We officially buy our house on Friday, but won't move for 10 days or so as we need to paint first. Not sure about the future of the blog, given that arguably we won't be living "the good life" anymore.. I'll have to have a think about that one.

Tarte Tartin

Mmmmm...tarte tartin. Thank goodness there's frozen pastry sheets available so I could whip this up in half an hour tonight.


With a dollop of thickened cream with vanilla pod innards (what are those little black bits called anyway?)..the perfect summer dessert.

Where did the days go?

I am off to work tomorrow - and I'm working all of January which is going to be a huge shock to my delicate system. The holidays were hot and muggy, and there was far too much food. I didn't take photos of many of the memorable parts, but here's a few:

Broad beans for Christmas lunch (from my garden of course):


Ginger ice-cream which I got up and made first thing Christmas morning (with thanks to Hungry and Frozen):


The 'Man Quilt' that I made Matt for Christmas - mainly out of his old business shirts:


A whole Muscovy duck for lunch at Pegasus Bay winery:


New Year's Eve sparklers:


And a dip in the river for Boo, on one of the days it reached 30 degrees here:


All in all it was fairly busy, and far too warm for me, but nice to have Matt away from work, and I'm looking forward to this week's role reversal where I will be bringing home the bacon while Matt can cook me dinner. Yippee!