A very fresh morning this morning!
I'm learning about cold, that it can come through the windows, frozen glass creating a freezer-like atmosphere of your bedroom. I've learned I need a hot water bottle or two, and those stuffed snakes for the front door. I need to keep the fire on all night. I need gloves, whiskey and heavier curtains.
I spent the night in thermals with 2 doonas and 3 blankets.

Its been busy down here.
Yesterday I went for a coffee at the local, where we sat in the sun for a few hours as new people came through the door and introduced themselves, chin wagging about Braidwood and its characteristics. We then went off to the billy cart derby, parents sipping Lions club tea road-side, as kids wobbled slowly down the hill in carts very well made by devoted fathers, to be ridden once, down a hill hardly steep enough for any real thrill.
Then back home to dig up the garden and sort out the compost, do another coat on the door and the kitchen nobs. Then people popped over for a beer in the last sun, the pink playing on the Manchurian pear tree that throws wonderful leaves around the garden and makes the sky a confetti of colour.
The afternoon Gullahs come and hang out in it and the colours are so lovely in their autumn grace. It will be sad to see all the leaves fly away and leave a deciduous tree bare in the winter. I will look forward to the day the new buds of spring will grace the garden. It will sustain my interest and admiration, these real and intense seasonal changes.
We wandered over the back lane to Andy and Suzie's who have the most fabulous, rambling, playful home, all junkyard and studio, flourishing garden and greenhouse, badminton court and full open plan kitchen, overgrown fences and sculptures everywhere, great playful constructs of timber and steel. We found them in the studio with full fire-proof outfits on, welding a large and shapely camel that towers in the studio, holding court with its full presence. We wandered out to the back paddock, past the scrap heaps of sculptural potential, and the limbs of previous steel horses, to find a view of the Budawang ranges, lashed in a stripe of electric pink, the town sleepy with all chimneys streaming a thread of smoke.
Walking the paddock, a sad-eyed, old white pony came to our side, and followed us around as we saw the town from different angles, and marvelled at the buttery glow of a very full moon.
After a few amber ales and stories in the studio, picking on a juicy ripe pomegranate, and after they so warmly invited me to make use of them and their home whenever I'm in need of company/cup of sugar/utensils/inspiration, we went back to Jimmy's to cook up a storm of spiced zucchini pakoras and quinoa salad, smothered in Jimmy's onions and fragrant garlic from the garden.
It was a nice collaborative feast and were informed of Tess' latest Bighart project and all the wonderful things they are doing with indigenous communities in the Pilbara.

Another big day planned today, so I will have to get up from the breakfast table, which is beautifully drenched in morning sun, to take off all these layers of thermals and wool, wash up and get to the tip and start the errands of the day. Just loving the physicality of country living! And the cold too... :-)