There's gold in them there hills ... or in them there plains.

On Friday night, the Great Dane and I went to a wine tasting night at Wedderburn.

'Where on earth is Wedderburn?' I hear you ask.

Good question.

It's north-west of Bendigo. 
About a thousand miles through desert and prickly pears and ghost towns and tumbleweed.

Just kidding. 

But it's a bit of a hike from where we live, so not the sort of place you just scoot over to, like you might just scoot down to the neighbour's dam to catch a yabby or two for dinner. 
From Bendigo, you have to drive for an hour.
And you do travel through some very dry, flat terrain and pass a paddock full of prickly pears - so I'm not getting totally carried away,  just because I know that I'm protected by the Poetic Licence Act of 2018.***

But it's worth the drive.
Wedderburn, although a tiny town with just 660 residents, has spades of charm.
Gold rush charm. 
Shops with verandas.
Wobbly old timber houses.
Red brick cottages.
A Methodist church that is only marginally bigger than an outhouse  but built so sturdily that it could withstand fire, flood, tornado and earthquake - all at once.

Main street, Wedderburn.
Picture-postcard pretty.

Furthermore, there are places to dine, places to sleep, a beautiful swimming pool, a shady green park and shops. Between the supermarket and the hardware store alone you can  purchase everything you need to wet your whistle, fill your belly, trim your toenails, mark your lambs and build and decorate a house. (Our good friends Jenni and Leigh own the supermarket and hardware store, so I have to give it a plug! And my claim to fame is that I painted the orange poles in Wedderburn Hardware - so make sure you take time to appreciate the fine brushwork if you do go in to buy your lamb-marking rings.)

ALL your  needs met in two great stores!

In short, Wedderburn is the duck's guts.
And, for me, it felt a little bit like home, being so very much like the little country town in NSW in which I grew up.

The wine tasting, however, hit a whole new high.
The Wedderburn Wine Tasting was the duck's guts with bells on.
Set in the Senior Citizen's Hall, there were four local wine producers, one beer brewing couple, one dog and approximately fifty tasters.
I met locals and ring-ins. 
And everyone was delightfully friendly. 
Especially the dog. He almost wore a hole in the floor with his tail-wagging.
It was incredible to step into a new venue and instantly feel such warmth.

But what I loved most of all was that everyone seemed to have a  story to tell. A great story. Not a yawner in earshot!
And, of course, being a writer, I'm a sucker for a yarn.

For the wine growers, it wasn't just about the wine but the story of the wine and the vines and the family and, in one case, the dog.

The story behind Burnt Acres you can probably guess - the first harvest ... a primitive barbeque lit between the vines, ready for cooking the lunchtime sausage sangas ... a bit of a breeze ... AAAAH! 
There were tales of naive young couples in love with each other and the idea of producing their own wine, grape growing deals struck over casual dinners, and trips to the Trappist breweries of Belgium and the wineries of Provence.

I chatted with a lovely local who had just been to Finland. She'd met, for the very first time, a woman who had been her penfriend for more than thirty years. And it had felt like meeting a long lost sister. How wonderful!

But my favourite story was the one behind the group of eight middle-aged men. 

These guys were all dressed alike - in high-vis-yellow bucket hats  and T-shirts with a skull on the front. 
They called themselves The Darkside. 
And, yet, they looked like the sweetest group of men you'd ever see. 

Drawn to their warmth and jollity, and the idea that they might have been family rather than a club group, I went over to say hello. 
I mean, who wouldn't want to know the story behind a family who called themselves The Darkside? 
There'd be a novel in there, surely!

Turns out, The Darkside are a group of metal detector enthusiasts. (I didn't see that one coming!) They found each other through an online forum for people who  share a passion for running around the countryside with their metal detectors, looking for gold. Or, sometimes - as in the case of Wedderburn Detectors' Jamboree - they run around paddocks searching for  metal discs that have been buried by competition organisers. The one who finds the most discs is the winner. 

Brilliant!

I love meeting enthusiasts and hearing them speak about their passion, whatever it may be - train modelling, chocolate making, rock climbing, poetry writing, poodle grooming ...
Passion is inspiring.

But these guys were extra special, because their passion had led them to become such a close and caring group of friends. So much so that, when one of their number became desperately ill, they all travelled to his bedside - from Geelong, Melbourne, regional Victoria and South Australia, to cheer him up. The patient made the grim joke that they'd come from the dark side and so the name was born - a scary tag for a warm and wonderful group of friends.

So there you have it!
Wedderburn Wine Tasting turned out to be a place as rich in tipples, friendship and great stories as the town used to be in gold.
If you find yourself looking for something to do next year on the Friday night of the Labour Day Weekend , head out to Wedderburn Senior Citizen's Hall.
There's gold in them there hills ... or, at least, in them there plains ... and in that there Senior Citizen's Hall!

The Great Dane and me with our friends Jenni
and Leigh - at the 2018 Wedderburn Wine Tasting.

*** Okay, so there is no Poetic Licence Act of 2018. I'm just saying that because I know I'm protected by the Bare-faced Lying in the Name  of a Good Story Act of 1987.

The coolest pool party ever

I was at a pool party recently - a pool party for grown up ladies.
We bobbed around in our bathers, sipping pale green drinks through long straws, nibbling cheese and bickies (the good kind, not Saos and Kraft Singles) from the edge of the pool.

We giggled and chattered and had contests to see who could glide the furthest on the inflatable flamingo.

We even talked about Barbie dolls!

It was wonderful.

I found myself thinking that this was every bit as good as the last pool party I went to, which was when I was about ten.
In fact, it was even better. 
Here I was, the ring-in - the one who didn't know everyone else - and I felt welcomed and relaxed. 
There was none of that awkward loneliness I remember from  childhood occasions. You know the moments I mean - when you suddenly realise you're the one wearing the plain Jane swimming club togs while everyone else has pretty pink and lemon bathers with rainbows or flowers floating across them... or when you realise that the present you gave the birthday girl isn't nearly cool enough or expensive enough. 
And don't get me started on those strange and awkward gatherings when I was the new kid in town.

Yes sirree. This pool party for ladies was great.
I hadn't felt  the urge to hide behind a tree or pretend to be sick so my mum would have to come and pick me up. I didn't even linger  in the kitchen, away from the crowd, breaking the Guinness World Record for the longest time taken to fill a glass with water.
This was lovely.
I embraced the occasion and the company.
Being a mature, confident adult attending a pool party  was really cool.

As the evening wore on, the stars appeared in the sky and the light banter turned into more sophisticated conversation.
We discussed education and travel and life choices and architecture.
Conversation, of course, always reaches the calibre of the cheese and bickies.
It was all very stimulating and informative.

But then it happened.
That moment where I felt like a ten-year-old dufus once more.

'You know Le Corbusier?' said my lovely friend.
Uh oh! She was looking straight at me.
And my mind drew a blank.
Was Le Corbusier a brand of shoe?
A holiday location on the French Riviera?
A pelvic floor exercise?
A child-rearing philosophy?

I DIDN'T HAVE A CLUE!!!

And yet, my lovely friend, the one I liked so much and wanted to like me, seemed to think I would know. 
I didn't want her to think I was dumb.
Perhaps she wouldn't like me so much if she thought I was ignorant.
Could I bluff it?

My mouth turned as  dry as an un-buttered Sao.
My left eyelid twitched.
My mouth hung open like  Venus flytrap waiting for a large, juicy dragonfly.

I considered retreating to the kitchen for a glass of water. 
Slow-poured water. 
Guinness World Record slow-poured water.

And then I remembered!
I was not an insecure ten-year-old. 
I was a mature woman. 
I'd driven my own car to the party, for goodness sake!
I didn't even have a curfew.

And I was not surrounded by insecure ten-year-olds. 
My fellow party goers were delightful, kind, intelligent women.
My hostess, the one in the know about Le Corbusier (whatever it may be), was the kindest of them all.

I smiled, looked my friend in the eye and told the naked truth. 'No. I don't have a clue about Le Corbusier.'

Turns out he was a Swiss architect who had a bit of a thing for concrete. 
Who knew?
Not me.
Not the other ladies, either, by the way.
But here's the thing.
Nobody cared. Not even my friend who was in the know. We all learned something new about architecture and modern design and the conversation flowed naturally on.
(I must point out here that I was kind of hoping that Le Corbusier was a brand of shoe. Something really glitzy and outrageously expensive that I could Google, eyes agog, when I got home.)

Being an adult is grand, isn't it?
The mature, affirming friendships. 
The realisation that there's a whole heap of stuff that used to seem really big that just doesn't matter.
The freedom to wear your daggy old cossies without fear of poorly concealed sniggers.
The delight of being able to say, 'I don't know!' or, 'I don't get it!' or, 'I've never done that!' without feeling like a social outcast.
And of course, the fact that your pool party can involve cocktails and the really good cheese.

So, because I'm now so mature and secure, I'm willing to share a list of some other stuff I don't know or haven't done or simply don't care about: 

• I don't know know how to change a car tyre.
• I can't roast a chicken. 
• I've never read a James Joyce novel. I tried once, for two or three pages, and didn't understand it.
• I know very little about music . I don't even listen to it very often nowadays. I love silence. 
• I don't get poetry.
• Documentaries bore me to tears. I want to be informed, I really do, but I just can't make the distance. 
• I don't want to go to Bali.
• I've never been to a rock concert. Truly. Never ever!
• I don't care about fancy bathers. I love boring, staid, one-piece cossies in navy or black. The bigger the better.

Please feel free to educate me or to inspire me to behave otherwise.

And, in the meantime, thank you for accepting me just the way I am.

Crafter Laughter is the Best Medicine

Sometimes life gets murky.
Yucky.
Overwhelming.

We all have our own special ways of coping - an online shopping spree, a good cry, a movie marathon accompanied by vast quantities of popcorn and chocolate, a hike across Siberia.

I have this craft group.

I know! It sounds dull and slightly embarrassing  - 1970’s Woman’s Day meets Bridget Jones' mother. It also sounds totally inadequate. 

But it’s not. It’s fabulous. 

This craft group is full of women. These women are smart, creative, funny, honest, energetic, kind and caring. They know the value of a strong cup of tea and a chilled glass of champagne. They can sniff out a packet of Tim Tams at twenty paces. And they keep me sane. 

We started meeting seventeen years ago. We were all busy having babies, raising families, earning a living, managing households and businesses, volunteering on committees, running youth groups and manning sausage sizzles all over the countryside. Goodness! I even learned how to score a game of cricket and, let me tell you, that is one heck of a commitment! These were all great things to be doing but a group of us decided that it would be nice/soothing/sanity-saving  to have one thing a fortnight that was just for us. No husbands. No kids. No fundraising.

That thing was Craft.

We rocked up on the first week, our straw baskets overflowing with fabric, scissors, knitting needles, balls of yarn and visions of homes decorated with handmade delights. We gathered at the local primary school, sipped tea, ate chocolate biscuits and, yes, we actually did some craft.  

Except for my friend Natasha-Rose* who does not do craft under any circumstances. Year 7 Textiles and Design classes had left both her and her teacher scarred for life. However, a night out without kids was too much to resist, so she rocked up with a smile and a pile of garden magazines.

Week by week, we continued to meet. We stitched and crocheted. We sipped tea and champagne. We nibbled chocolate and cheese. And we talked.

About everything.

The good, the bad and the things that left us utterly gobsmacked.

And believe me, between us, we’ve had  the lot - breast cancer, cosmetic surgery, childbirth, fertility struggles, battles with depression, exciting new jobs, retirement, divorce,  new homes, cruises, nasty diseases, spider bites and the joyful arrival of grandchildren, to name just a few. We’ve raised children with a range of unique needs - including albinism, autism, depression and life-threatening physical illnesses - and rejoiced at their resilience and successes.  We’ve cried when one of our own lost her battle with cancer and left a loving, grieving family behind.  We’ve celebrated when another married the man of her dreams who also turned out to be the father of her children’s dreams. There’s a world of stuff that has happened to our little group.

Seventeen years have whisked by, and we’re still doing Craft. We now meet in my living room. We have stopped hiding the bickies and champagne beneath balls of fluffy wool. We waltz through the door waving them merrily in the air. Workbaskets often sit, untouched, at their owners’ feet (or don’t even make it to out of the car).  Because Craft has evolved to mean so much more than threading DMC into one’s needle and poking it through a piece of aida cloth. Craft is a place where we can let our hair down amidst a group of women who will not judge. No matter what we say or do.

It’s a safe place.

A little refuge in our weeks.

A sanity session.

It’s not complicated. Most of the time we just talk and laugh. In fact, we laugh so loudly that, if we run late, my husband goes to bed with silicon plugs stuffed down his ear holes.  We laugh at our mishaps and faux pas (even our tragedies). We say whatever we like and we poke merciless fun at one another and nobody ever takes offence. Never ever. Because we know that we are there to boost one another up come rain, poo-storm or shine.

Sometimes, we don’t even call it Craft. We meet at another member’s house and we call it Games Night . We all bring delicious food and we play family board games and shout and laugh until our tummies ache and we start to worry that the EPA will slap us with a noise pollution fine.

Sometimes, there are quiet one-on-one moments. A chat beside the kettle. A hug at the back door. A deep and meaningful discussion in the driveway beneath the stars. But most of the time, our gatherings involve a lot of noisy group-talking and laughter. And it keeps me sane.

Laughter is great medicine.

But laughter amidst friends who have your back and your front - and your lost stitches on your knitting - is the bomb.

Crafter laughter is the best medicine of all.

·  *Not her real name. Just in case she wants to keep up the illusion that she is a knitter or embroiderer.