Happy as a pig in mud at #HVMWF 2019

As a bloke in the queue at the bar said to me when I went to fetch a hot spiced cider, "Gumboot people are happy people!" As nice as it would have been to don tatters, face paint and fancy headpieces (we saw lots of beautiful examples), I was extremely happy with my choice of clothing for the Huon Valley Mid Winter Festival on Friday night. I counted the layers I was was wearing - six in total on my upper half! Plus thermals under my jeans and long socks in my gum boots. And I was warm as toast. There was a serious amount of mud, a little rain and a whole lot of happy punters. As I have said before, these people know how to run an event. There is plenty of seating, lots of toilets, undercover areas, fire pits to warm up by and friendly volunteers with a sense of humour. And that's before the great selection of food and beverages, sculptures and awesome music acts. Despite the testing weather conditions, there were plenty of interstate and international visitors. I had squid from the fire bugs at Tasman Quartermasters, some tasty fries, croquettes from Eten and one of Yeastie Beastie's fabulous doughnuts. With hot spiced Willie Smith's Cider in hand, we ran into a few groups of friends and made it out of the paddock car park without needing to be towed out of the mud. Happy days!

A cottage garden

The garden here at the Old Bank is a new experience for me. It's filled with cottage-y plants and flowers, like tiny daisies, hellebores, lavender, geraniums, hydrangea. I confess to knowing little about flowers, so my friend Karla kindly visited last week to show me how to prune the roses and help me identify the various plants. The garden space is small and wraps around the buildings. There's no grass, but gravel, garden beds and a cute little garden path of stones. In Sydney we primarily grew Australian natives. Up in the hills of Franklin, we were surrounded by native temperate rainforest trees and plants like native pepperberry and man ferns. I grew vegetables and planted some fruit trees as well as a few imports like maple, spruce, crab apple and ornamental pear. Here in our little winter garden, there are already so many flowers. There are bulbs starting to appear and I'm looking forward to seeing what they all are. The camellia bush is about to explode with fluffy pink blooms. Aren't they gorgeous?