Mathilde's Marvellous Meanderings: Soothing the savage beast

Golly gosh, a few days of complete relaxation is very, very tiring. Must. Get. Up. And. Do. Something.

Last week saw us both getting just a touch scratchy. Just a touch. It's getting harder and harder to stay focussed on just one thing. Bing, bing, bing, bing. Ooooh look - pretty! Gosh, look over there! Whoops there goes a.... Ooh pretty! I have hit Curves most days, and it does make me sweat and gets the heart rate up,but feel like I really need to rev things up. Some boxing would be good, really good. This week I must pop down to the local gym and see if they have boxing set up.

After grumping and whinging all week, - thank the Lord for husbands who know when enough is enough. David declared we were going to hire a car and go to Daylesford for a few days. So hire a car and drive (with the odd "interesting" turn) is what we did. To spa country. To the spa in spa country. Mmmmmmmm.

We visited with Colin and Audrey at their country estate just outside Daylesford. It sits in bushland next to the State forest. You can just seen the glint of water in the upper dam. The lower dam has an island in the middle and lovely times have been spent paddling around it. David has been known to catch the occasional fish in there as well. I love this part of the Australian bush. I so, so much a Victorian girl. There is something about the bush around Victoria which relaxes me and leaches away niggling cares - especially when it's raining. Daylesford put on its best weather for us. Raining, windy and cool. Glorious!

Heath Cottage

This has been their "retirement" project, made with rock hewn from the ground it stands on. Some of the rocks are huge, some are small - all of them were dragged from the earth by Colin and Audry. Then, in order to hone their stone-laying skills they built Heath Cottage rock by rock. Now it's a lovely little one room cottage with a mezzanine bedroom (more bed than room I have to say) that is accessed by ladder. I actually managed the ladder very well. I won't say that I dashed up and down willy nilly, but I didn't have any scary thoughts - that's progress brought on by fitness and more awareness of what my body is doing.
Ladder cleverness aside, it is not hard to imagine bringing the milking cow and chickens in on cold nights. It is, of course, much more civilized than that. These days it has running water and electricity.

When Heath Cottage was finished and there was somewhere to sleep that wasn't a tin shed or a caravan, Gran and Pa moved on to the main house. It took a few years, quite a few years actually, as they continued levering rocks and building walls while having almost sole care of my two nieces Emma and Abby. Now, theoretically, they can rest on their laurels and enjoy the beauty they have created with their own sweat and toil.

The main house

It's a magnificent house. The gardens around it sit lightly in the bushland and my imagination has a tendency to float back into days gone by. The natural shapes of the rocks have holes and gaps and, rather than plaster them all up, they have been encouraged. These are my favourite parts of the house. As you walk around the house, inside and out, strange little creatures peer out at you from little caves, nooks and crannies and some very odd additions catch your attention.