Merry belated Christmas!

It was the second Christmas for us this year: a while back the boys and I travelled via Jetstar DeLorean to Ballarat (henceforth B-Rat) for Christmas Day 2015 Take One. It was lovely and we had a great time but OMG it was so hot it wasn’t just the turkey’s arse that got roasted.

It seemed a typical B-Ratty summer; we arrived on a perfect 25C Wednesday, and by Saturday were rugging up for 16C days and 4C nights. I even had to buy Finn some trackie daks because I’d forgotten his. (This is Ballarat, you doofus – you should know by now!)

Mum’s cherry tree got a few more days of chill/sunshine but I finally got all the fruit – I think Dad put in some overtime this year!

I harvested around 15 kilos, about a 700% increase on last year! The birds pinched another half a kilo. Merry Christmas you thieving ratbags.

Free cherries are especially awesome as they’re about $10/kg in the shops at the moment.

Super fresh, organic and FREE. This is less than half of our total crop. (Suck it, Woolies!)

The temperature hovered around 30C for a few days after that, then on Saturday leapt to 40.6C with hot northerlies gusting to 76 kph.

We cranked up the aircon and enjoyed Mum’s amazing Christmas dinner in our cool little sanctuary oblivious to the fact that only 10km up the road firefighters battled out-of-control blazes at Scotsburn and seven homes were lost. The country community rallied and within hours there was about a tonne of water, food, clothing and toy donations at the Buninyong Town Hall. I can’t imagine how awful it would be to lose your home, especially at Christmas, but I hope the support of such awesome people makes it easier. (If you’d like to make a cash donation you can do so here.)

I worry about bushfires, particularly in Victoria – summer gets so hot and dry, like an oven. The paddocks around Buninyong are carpeted in gorgeous golden grasses but bone dry and would go up like a match. Bloody drought. When we visited as kids my memories of Ballarat are so different – cool dampness, rain down at Lake Wendouree, lichen, and mist in the trees. And lots of snails.

The next morning Justine, my pain in the arse of a sister, needed a lift to town to catch the early airport shuttle bus so we were off at 4.30am. Saw her off on her adventure – to ‘Murica and Canadia (!!) for her second Christmas – then headed down Lydiard Street with my camera. Nice and cool, and with only the occasional car so I could stand in the road for better angles. They also provided handy light trails.

Christmas is over for another year! May you have a very happy new year full of good stuff and many adventures. Thank you SO much for reading, following, liking, commenting – you make my day!

See you in 2016!

– Michelle