The Twilight Zone

The time period between Christmas and New Year is a twilight zone, where meals consist of leftovers and the plethora of public holidays mess with everyone's orientation to time and date.  Struggling valiantly to remember what day it was, we nevertheless kept busy with all the family over from the east coast, and lots of things to do and see around Goolwa.  Not that the weather played ball: the wind blew a gale, the temperature struggled to crack 20C, and there was just enough rain to make things miserable. One of the visitors got sick and it was at least a small mercy that they had the room where one could lie in bed and look at the sea. For that matter one could lie in the bath or sit on the toilet whilst looking at the sea, should one so desire.

Out on the windward side of Granite Island the waves smashed into rocks and sent showers of spray splattering up to those of us who had ventured out for a walk. 

We raided the op shops downtown, where thanks to someone else's eagle eyes I finally found a bandana for sun protection while bicycle riding. I know, I've had lots of bandanas but I am very good at leaving bandanas behind in all sorts of places and have been distressingly bandana-less for the last week or two. My new bandana is a win, even if it is emblazoned with the "Phuket Cooking School" logo.

Heaven for literary op-shoppers.

Of course no-one can sit in a unit and look at the bad weather for too long when just over the other side of the Fleurieu McClarenvale was fairly bursting with wineries begging to have us pay them exhorbinant prices to taste their wine. Eagle eye found one of acceptable value and we all rocked up to H&L winery for wine tasting and lunch platters. 

Platters sufficient for even the foodies amongst us. Olives and almonds grown on site amongst the vineyards.

Here we met Nicole, who 5 years ago left a corporate career in New York to volunteer as a backpacker in an Australian vineyard. The vineyard happened to be H&L, there was an eligible bachelor son lolling about the grape vines, and now Nicole is an integral part of the H&L wine dynasty.

The pour.

We dutifully swirled, sniffed, and sipped.

The swirl.

The sniff.

Not being a great wine drinker myself, I tipped mine into the reject cup or gave it to Roger who happpily savoured two for one. A few customers came and went but no one else was tasting wine, so our allotted 90 minutes stretched comfortably to accommodate a leisurely platter lunch, by which time the sun had come out and we took vineyard photos before we left.

Our children proved themselves to be great cooks, something they most definitely did not inherit from their parents. We dined fabulously on gnocchi, sumptuous salads, and leftover ham. Our house-sit chooks pumped out fresh laid eggs, and when it all got a bit too healthy there was plenty of left over Christmas goodies to keep our blood chocolate levels suitably raised.

Yummy, and not a chocolate in sight.

Back at home the chocolate Labrador was not impressed with our daily absence, as the house rules stated that she was relegated to the outdoors when we were out. The cats were not impressed because they were cats, and took to playing thunderfoot up and down the hallway at night to create maximum disturbance to sleep schedules. The kitten cat took a dislike to the Christmas tree and beat it up thoroughly, leaving me to crawl around reinstating branches and baubles as best I could.

We explored Port Elliott and Goolwa wharf, and everyone had lots of train-related excitement. There was so much train-related excitement, in fact, that it merits a future blog post all on its own.

A preview of train-related things to come.

On that note, I'll leave you to enjoy your own thing, whatever it is you do in the weird limbo between Christmas and New Year, where normal calorific rules don't apply and even people who go to work have been known to have chocolate for breakfast.