The Cumberland

So here is a cool little fact for you, well I guess its probably more of a rumour, as I am yet to have it completely confirmed...but tonight I had dinner at my local Pub in Castlemaine, but not just any pub... a pub owned by Billy Brownless, which I think is pretty cool.  Rumour has it that he owns the Cumberland Hotel in Castlemaine...and who am I to argue with the word of the locals.  Plus I like footy and Billy so I think its pretty cool.  

Oh and if anyone can confirm or deny this rumour...I would appreciate it! 

I guess that's just all part of the adventure!

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Spring Clean

So I realise that it almost the end of September (in fact it will probably almost the end of october by the time this blog goes up) but tonight I did a big spring clean and it felt soooooo good. In fact I would almost go as far as saying it is something I would like…well maybe just should do more regularly. But while I was cleaning I also did something else…something that I have never done before by choice. Tonight because I knew I had a lot to do, I turned the TV off.

Now before you say oh big deal, and stop reading this is a big thing for me. I am one of those people that likes noise, I don’t really like being by myself, and so when I am I like background noise so I don’t notice that there isn’t anyone else around. However, because my house is only one room if the TV is on it’s never really just in the background, so be a distractible person as well, I get distracted and have often wasted my whole night watching programs I don’t even like. So tonight, as a start of something new I turned off the box, put some music on (because you can’t have nothing) did my spring cleaning and then got stuck into my list of tasks.

What surprised me the most though, was that I actually really liked it with out the TV on, and I felt like I had actually achieved a lot more that I normally would. In fact I would even go as far as to say I was proud of the fact that I could turn it off and I would like to think that in the future I will just turn the telly off rather than just watching it for the sake of it.


I guess that's just all part of the adventure!

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It's still relative

I know it was just yesterday that I said that distance was relative in the country...tonight I am heading to Daylesford for a weekend away with Dave, Kitty, Mim and Brad and I am loving the fact that its only half an hour away for me and the rest of them have to travel the full 2hrs... Even though I don't mind the travel anymore, its still nice when you don't have to do it. Especially when it means you can just relax and enjoy your night and then head out.


I guess that's just all part of the adventure!

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A Dark Highway, a Cop and a Gum tree

So I know normally one blog a day is enough…but I really need to share something with you…tonight I had what I would call a ‘real country’ experience…and I thought it was super cool.

Tonight on my way home from Ballarat I was driving along minding my own business...keep my eyes peeled for roos and other wildlife (cos that’s what you have to do in the country) when up ahead I saw some yellow whirly lights, the kind that you see on the top of pick-up trucks, so I assumed that someone had just broken down, but it appeared it was all under control. Anyway, as I go closer I saw another light…a torch light waving frantically so I thought to my self maybe I should slow down a bit and check this out…and it was lucky I did coz as I got closer I realised that there was a gum tree that had fallen down and was now blocking the hwy. So I pulled my car over, and jumped out to chat to the man with the torch. It turned out the torch man and his friend were actually wildlife rescuers and they happened to have whirly lights on their van. They also had some old saws, so they were trying to cut the tree up so that it could be moved. So I decided I would help.

They were chopping the branches off and I was moving them to the side of the road out of the way. Eventually a truckie came along and he was helping too, and all was going well except that once we had removed all the branches we still couldn’t move the tree, so we had to call backup. Once the tuckie finally got the person on the other end of 000 to work out where we were…apparently they hadn’t hear d of Castlemaine or Daylesford…the told us they would send some one out. By this stage though, we had cleared enough of the tree for traffic to go through, so the truckie told me I could go if I wanted…but I told him that ‘I only just moved to the country, and so this kinda thing just doesn’t happen to me so I wanted to see how it panned out’.

Eventually a police man came along and out of the back of his van he grabbed a chainsaw which, to my disappointment, isn’t standard issue for country cops, he just grabbed it when he heard what he was going to. So the Cop removed the rest of the tree and everyone went on their merry way.

It was really quite exciting…and part of me feels like I really am from the country now, but I think my excitement about the whole thing probably just shows how city I am. Oh and I discretely took some pictures...they are a little dark, but you get the idea.

I guess that's just all part of the adventure!

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It's all relative

One thing I have learnt while living out in the country is that distance and traveling time is all relative. Seriously, if I was in Melbourne and I had to travel half and hour or 45mins to get somewhere I would probably complain about how far away it is…but now that my nearest Kmart, Coles, Big W, Myer etc etc is 40mins away in Bendigo, I don’t really mind…it doesn’t actually seem to take that long. I guess just the fact that it doesn’t feel like it takes that long to get home to Melbourne anymore is another good indicator that I am on country travel time, because even though it takes 2hrs…it certainly doesn’t feel like that anymore.

Anyway, the reason I say this is because tonight, I went to Ballarat for tea, which is a good hour from my house, but it really didn’t bother me at all, in fact I would almost go as far as saying I enjoyed the drive. Why did I drive all the way to Ballarat? Well I wanted to catch up and have dinner with my friend Flic, who lives there now. It was actually really nice just to catch with her, and even though I had traveled what seems like a long way it really just felt like a normal drive, as if I was just going round the corner or to the next suburb over in Melbourne. I know it seems strange, but its true…distance is all relative when you are in the country.

Oh and while I was at flic’s place I did get a little bit of house envy…coz she moved to the country too, but her house has like 5 separate rooms…unlike mine which just has the one.

I guess that's just all part of the adventure!

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