New Year

Last year was full of the usual highs and lows that most of us experience during certain times of our lives. When I started to scroll through my photos, I was reminded it was mostly positive, and we got through the more difficult parts.

We are approaching our eighth year of the permanent tree change this month and often wonder if our life in the city was real or just our imagination! I miss good Greek food but not the traffic.

We saw in 2024 at friends’ pool side New Year Eve’s party at their home and the following day I was kept busy covering the local races for the newspaper.

The Mansfield district is well known for being a hub of all types of events. The annual Tolmie Sports in February continues a much-loved tradition and the wood chop, and the dog jump always draws a crowd.

During the same month we end up at a fundraiser for a local palliative care facility with the theme “sock hop”. The church hall was converted into a 1950s diner, and everyone was encouraged to dress up.

There is always an art show, live music, openings, markets, lantern festivals, author talks, classic cars show and shine, plays, and much more to enjoy.

My love of campdrafting continues with three different events held in the district throughout the year. It is a great family equestrian sport and a legacy from our early stockmen.

At home there is always plenty to do and enjoy in our rare downtime. We have planted an abundance of native trees to screen out the neighbours as well as provide shade and habitat for our visiting birds. While the pair of us are not great gardeners we have had some success growing fresh vegetables.

We hosted dinner parties to celebrate our birthdays and to catch up with friends. While not so many as the previous years we had the odd house guest.

Fine wine and food are a wonderful way to connect with others.

Sunsets never fail to please with the colours so delightful to enjoy at the end of the day.

Our neighbours run their black angus cattle in one of our paddocks when feed is plentiful.

We celebrated our 25th silver wedding anniversary in style earlier in the year at the beautiful historic house and winery cellar door with a catered lunch. The caramel mud cake was made by a local lady and was just as good to eat as to look at.

Easter was interrupted with an emergency dash to hospital for my husband who was suffering extreme stomach pains. From our local hospital I ended up driving him to a larger regional hospital over an hour away. Emergency at both sites was overflowing due to the holiday period and the start of the footy season.

He was finally transferred to a major hospital in Melbourne to have a blockage operated on. But scans had discovered a black mass on his kidney which meant that he had to return to the same hospital in June for an operation to remove his kidney. Six weeks recovery from operation and several months later we continue to see the specialists for checkups, but it appears they got all the cancer thank goodness. But it never pays to take things for granted. He is doing well although without the same stamina.

We have sadly farewelled some really special people in 2024, and the world is a better place from them being here but also the poorer for their loss.

I managed to catch COVID for the first time ever and it knocked me for six – forcing me to be away from work for more than two weeks.

Talking about hospitals, there was a community outcry when the news broke about plans by the state government to amalgamate our hospital with another two hours’ drive away. Thanks to a concerted effort by doctors and medical staff with the community right behind them we won the battle for now.

We still have my beautiful old cat Rambo who hangs in there, no doubt helped by the three pills he has each day. This makes it difficult for us to get away. Giving cats pills is not the forte of many house sitters! He is now 18 but still enjoys life although at a slower pace.

In March we acquired Clover a beautiful 12.2 hands pony with loads of attitude and a sense of fun. My husband who is not the horsey one in the family has bonded with him and the two together are such a wonderful combination.

In April I reverted back to casual hours at the local newspaper. I have enjoyed the privilege of sharing people’s stories and making sure they are heard.

The local show in November once again consumed all my spare time and energy. But the locals love their ag show.

Christmas lunch was at our place with other friends who were on their own. Everyone brought something making it a lovely day together.

Between Christmas and New Year, we got to celebrate a 50th wedding anniversary with some very special people who hosted a wonderful dinner party at their beautiful farm home.

New Year’s Eve, we had friends over but opted for an earlier night. However, at 10.15pm the state emergency ap was busily beeping on our phones about a fire near Lake Eildon. Being our summer holidays there are a lot of campers in the bush surrounding our lake and rivers. A hot northerly wind is always a worry. Thankfully it was a still night but forced the evacuation of some campers and although several days later it was under control it is not yet out.

The first day of 2025 I was back at the Merton Picnic Races with camera and pen at the ready.

This morning after a very hot weekend, most welcome refreshing rain is falling.

Maybe that is my wish for the year ahead, that I am washed anew and ready for whatever 2025 wants to throw at me. May your year be full of more highs than lows too!

Spring rains have produced long green grasses now dried golden by the hot baking sun.

Several of my good intentions never materialised including a blog post to herald the start of summer on December 1. This was due to the busyness of my life before Christmas. I can’t blame it on Yuletide preparations. I come from a small family with members scattered across Australia, and Christmas tends to be low-key. My husband has a married brother with two adult children living near London, in England. We spent Christmas with them in 2015, followed by New Year’s Eve in Vienna, in Austria. It was such a special time because we don’t get to see each other very often being so far away. But thankfully the internet and cheap overseas call rates helps us stay in touch.

Some members back home avoid Christmas all together which is fine by us. Bolly (my husband) and I were once again invited to join friends in town for Christmas lunch with their extended family. This year there was 12 of us compared to 16 last year. I got out of cooking again! The only problem with this is I don’t have any left overs for our traditional Boxing Day picnic outing. Never mind, we made do with pizza and beer at Wrong Side Brewing at Jamieson on a hot summer’s day.

The end of the year was extremely busy with our local agricultural show on the 17th November involving lots of work beforehand and after. Took me the secretary, two weeks to recover! The hard work of all the committee obviously paid off, not only were we blessed with a beautiful late spring day, but our gate takings were the best ever in several years and everyone commented on a great atmosphere enjoyed by young and old alike. Of course, behind the scenes we can see areas that need to be streamlined before next year which will be our 130th show. Our next event is the annual campdraft in March. This has evolved from mustering cattle into one of the fastest growing equestrian sports in Australia.

Dog Jump winner – a crowd pleaser
Good coffee equals happy visitor!

I was also trying to keep on top of my studies. In lieu of doing a community development placement I was allowed to do a project on my involvement with the Friends of Venilale group and my return trip to East Timor in September. This country has a special place in my heart and I now have several Timorese friends on Facebook. The local Friends’ group continues to meet monthly. Fundraising efforts in 2018 included a stall four times per year at the annual bush market, the ridgeline walk across several local farms, special guest talks, a trivia night, a book launch and a film afternoon. Despite being time poor, I managed to produce a 1500 word essay and an audio-visual presentation. In early December I started a new study period doing an elective unit “Drugs in Society” which is proving most interesting. End of February, I will commence my final core unit for my sustainability major. This will leave me with two more electives to complete and hopefully my double degree before the end of the year!

November was also a time to commemorate the contribution of our service men and women 100 years later at our local Remembrance Day Service on the 11th day of the 11th month at the 11th hour. This was preceded by a procession of those who were returned servicemen and women, and those who proudly marched wearing medals passed down through their families. My husband wore his grandfather’s World War One service medals for the first time. It is a real community event with young people involved in the service.

As 2018 drew to a close, temperatures began to climb into the high 30s and even 40 degrees Celsius on a couple of days. The nearby hills have lost their green tinge by becoming brown in the hot sun. Our paddocks look wave-like as the long, dried golden grass moves in the breeze. Our fire warning ratings have hovered between high (blue) and very high (orange) this week. The weather has been unsettled over the Christmas and New Year period with some heavy rainfalls followed by high humidity. During the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, we were surrounded by constant storms with lightening and thunder. Rambo my cat tough by name not nature, hid under the bed all afternoon. We received a phone call from a neighbour to alert us to a nearby grass fire at the end of our road. I checked out the emergency services’ website, to find there was another incident of a small fire two roads away. But both were under control. Early evening we learn that another neighbour has a tree on fire on his property which was also dealt with quickly. All three were caused by lightening strikes! We need to revisit our fire plan and be sure that we are prepared in an emergency.

We enjoyed a quiet New Year’s Eve at home with just the two of us. I made a special dinner including wine trifle for dessert. We had an early night so we could get up early to drive to Melbourne and celebrate New Year’s Day with my Sri Lankan friend and her family. It is a annual lunch with loads of traditional Sri Lankan food, drinks and even dancing to work it off! We love catching up with my friend who was a former employee of mine. Bolly and I limit our alcohol consumption so we can make the three-hour trip back home. As much as we love visiting our friends and family in the city, we are always keen to get back to our country haven.

As normality returns to our lives, it is time to prepare for the coming year and setting goals so our time doesn’t get squandered. Just before Christmas we invested in solar panels for our north facing roof of our house. It will take about four years to start to recoup our money but at least we are doing our bit for the environment. I follow the tracker for our energy provider and notice less usage when the solar panels are operating during the day. Other jobs include finishing painting the outside doors and windows. We have two new homes being built nearby so we are going to do a huge tree planting along our fence line. Today sees a change of neighbours directly behind us, who no doubt will want to make their mark on a new property acquisition. Life is full of changes and sometimes we just have to embrace them! While Christmas is behind us, or until the Christmas tree and decorations come down, I thought I would include the video below as a reminder of striving for peace and harmony throughout the world in 2019. May we all find joy and personal satisfaction in the coming months.