One Fine Day

Toe and Jonathan have a converted shed.
It has a sky blue painted floor, an A-frame ceiling and a big old bed weighted down in heavy quilts and woven blankets.
It is Toe's studio, sporting a potters kick-wheel, a little kiln, a big ceramic old work sink, and spots of terracotta along workbenches and the floor.
Still-lives busy the shelves and window sills, jars with seasonal blossoms, wobbly coil pots like curvy women, ceramic people of all colours, cans with pencils, shells and collected bits, water jugs and lute-playing bears carved of wood.

Windows spread all around with lace and cloth, and its a sweet light-filled space, floating on a sea of green. It is outside that comes inside that creates all the charm, the waving of the young gums in the soft breeze, the wobbling of the rose vines, the fields and pastures beyond with, on one corner, a lone white pony, trotting endlessly down the fence that meets with the neighbors horses. Another corner, waving pines and hilltops beyond, threads of woven trees bordering plots and fields, autumn-orange poplars, happy like landmarks. Huge, generous blue skies with wisps of playful cloud, and darting sparrows, chatting currawongs, and general country-calm sits amongst us like a full silence.

Mum, glasses on and propped up in the colourful bed, circles potential investment properties in a pamphlet. Sprawling bushy acreage on the Shoalhaven, stately stone homes from the 1800's, all cracked and creviced. Vacant plots and timber sheds, modern homes and eco lodges. Jack-Jack the rabbit-eared terrier lays languidly in the sun outside the open door, snapping every so often at unsuspecting insects. We weave dreams together from the river-side photos of ancient landscapes and vistas in the pamphlet, and am charmed by this bountiful part of the world.
It is a glorious autumn day, icey morning but warm, full day.

We have just seen and loved, a little 1950s home which we have accepted to rent.
It feels right.
Big sun room, with sunny yellowy floor boards and lemon walls, lavender and rosemary out the back door, roses and plums out the front. Every space, other than a pokey and peacefully blue-coloured laundry, is sun-filled and happy. A woodfire in a generous living area, and a kitchen with garden windows, gas stove, and room for a little round table to sit for breakfast and the papers. My imagination is ignited by the prospects of a life in this home. Two big rooms in the front which can be for guest, and for studio, as well as an old and slightly damp though sufficently charming little blue shed out the back as a workshop.


The town too, feels right.
We went in for a coffee, and the barista, in his pub-turned-cafe learned our names swiftly and made a smooth soy latte.
The local organic baker, too eagerly informed us of all the breads on offer and how and when they were made. Then, out of the back, brought out a lump of grassy-smelling dough for us to smell and knead. We went out of there with hot sourdough buns and fragrant chilli-artichoke antipastos.
The real estate agents, the first being a burly and barrel-chested chunk of a country man, smelling of lanolin and polished leather with woodfire undertones. Gentle and informative. The second, we had to find in the local old supermarket which is up for auction, we found him and a few other locals retreating out of a manhole in the ceiling, cobweb covered and exhilerated with potential living space above the shop space. He was all too eager to share with us local information and make the deal on the little rental place there and then, in the dusty and dark time warped abandoned supermarket.

This is day one, and this afternoon we are meant to be resting, recovering from a night on the wines last night, but we are excited by the potential of this little life!

I am off into town to buy butter to make an apple pie out of the apples which are falling off the tree.