Feeling Like A Domestic Goddess

Today I baked pumpkin pies from scratch - roasted my own pumpkin, made my own crust and baked them in lovely pie dishes.

I marinated a trout in chili, ginger and garlic and made delicious Asian inspired fish puffs with masala powder which will be served with pasta coated lightly in butter and lemon juice.

I used the leftover stone fruit I had (peaches, plums, apricots and nectarines) and made homemade fruit roll-ups for healthy snacks.

I can't wait until the fig tree, olive tree and apricot trees fruit - I'm looking forward to canning and making apricot brandy, fig pudding and my very own olive oil.

There's something so peaceful about this place. The local roosters wake me up when they crow at 5am (which is strange because they're not particularly close to me so the noise isn't loud - but the sound still wakes me up) but that's fine - that's probably when I should be getting up. You don't hear the constant drone of cars usually - the highway isn't too far away so sometimes at night you hear big trucks going past.

In Canberra, I'd seen and heard kookaburras twice even though they were supposed to be common in the area. Here, I hear them laughing several times a day. The rest of the day I hear songbirds, parrots and the children next door at the preschool playing in the yard.

Bonnie thought I'd find the kids' yelling and playing really annoying - but if anything, I find it amusing. Today the kids were playing "Ice Cream Truck". One little boy ran around pretending to steer and screaming, "DOES ANYBODY WANT SOME ICE CREAM??? DOES ANYBODY WANT SOME ICE CREAM???" and making the other children chase him for their imaginary ice cream. As if that wasn't amusing enough - one little girl stopped and shouted, "OY! OY! I can't get ice cream if you're driving so fast! I HOPE THE POLICE ARREST YOU!" I spit Diet Coke everywhere.

The neighbours are great. I've never lived anywhere where people drove up to introduce themselves within moments of your arrival and shoved their number into your hand "in case you need anything, anything at all". One of the neighbours saw that I was alone, it was 10pm and I was tired and asked me if I needed anything for dinner or if we were set. It was endearing.

I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. We haven't quite worked out the religiosity of this town (we fear that it would be highly offensive to ask) and are waiting to see if anyone asks why they don't see us in church on Sunday. I doubt it'll happen, but we'll see.