Spring Lunch, August 30th

The Script Producer (10 year veteran of Australia's favourite police show and now living in the mountains) drove up with her brother one fine spring day.  I had hoped they might stay for a couple of days until I found out the Script Producer's new diet; no carbs.  In my blithe consumption of grains, my understanding of what a carb involved probably stretched to a dim recognition that beans might be implicated.  And then there's the rest... no grains, no beans, no rice, no bread, no cake, no potatoes (!!!how can someone live without potatoes! And why would you want to?)  What on earth would I feed them?

My non-carb catering could just stretch to one meal, but not a weekend.

While I'd be slashing my wrists if anyone told me cheese had to disappear forever from my plate, the Script Producer was taking the new austerity with surprising complacency.  Mainly, she said, because meat and wine were still allowed.  So that's what we had for lunch.  Meat (a fine butterflied lamb leg on the BBQ) and wine (an even finer red brought by the guests).

Now the Script Producer is one of those beloved guests who first visited early in the renovation project, when the comforts were extremely limited.  Despite this she was an endless source of encouragement and motivation - and breezed in with helpful suggestions and - even more helpful - curtains, which still hang in the main guest bedroom.  She also brought me (on the way back from parts further north west) a small eucalypt, which is now growing in the far corner of the triangle paddock.

Once more she brought with her exactly the thing I needed but hadn't got around to organising.  I had been thinking a circle of roses might be just the thing for out the front (mainly because everyone assures me roses - like geraniums - are pretty much impervious to my limited gardening skills, at least in this soil).  And there was the Script Producer, with a beautiful lush rose bush in a pot.

They left late afternoon, and while I was planting the rose in pride of place out the front I noticed the cow in the next door paddock - which I'd been stalking for days waiting for her long overdue (by my standards, not hers) calf - had indeed given birth to said calf.

Ah Spring, rose bushes and calves.  The season of growth.  And what a lovely lunch and great company to start the season with.

The Script Producer's rose bush