A Little Reflection

I'm not really into new year resolutions. For me, I guess it's a good time to reflect back on the year that was and make a little self analysis. Then it may be good to come up with a few realistic goals and targets for the year ahead.

Turning fifty has had more of an impact on me than I realised. I feel less scared. Scared? I guess scared of taking on something that I once only ever dared to dream about. I have always dreamed of running that little cafe in the hills serving wonderful mediterranean food. I imagined a nice, rustic cottage decked out with lovely little objects for sale and of course my daughter Nicole's beautiful photographic works captivating people as they admire her mesmerizing landscapes hanging from the stone walls. Now that is an image and a half, isn't it. And all quite true. I have dreamed of this.

Then the dream changed. For a while it was "let's start up a cheese farm". Then it was let's plant macadamia trees, avocado trees, coffee trees, tea trees. We fleetingly considered a vineyard. That passed quickly. We gave more thought to growing veggies. Not exactly sure what happened there. It was definitely more viable. For a while the Borb and I talked about building a wood fired oven and making pizza's for drive through traffic on the week-ends.

Now I see myself doing something from the hills of our beautiful farm, but not running a cafe. I don't want to make mediterranean food. I want to do something really rather basic. Perhaps good old fashioned country food. Australian food. Preserves. Jams. Scones. The mind is ticking.



So what am I going to offer? There is much tree-changing going on and bush holidays have never been more popular. Do we put up some cabins, or B & B's. I think not. Somehow, for anyone who knows me, really knows me, food has to be involved. I did enjoy doing the Mediterranean cooking classes at the Tafe College, but they were very few and far between. They were also a tremendous amount of work for not much gain. It really was a labour of love. Excellent experience though.


So here's the thing. The latest thing. For today at least. I'm thinking of doing cooking classes. Nothing complicated. Simple country cooking in majestic surrounding country. Imagine a little stone cottage up on the hill with the most amazing views. Our soil is black basalt, claggy, rich, fertile, sticky and we must be very careful building anything on it. It is very treacherous. Anything is likely to move or crack eventually. Has that stopped Hubby? No way. He sees it as just another challenge. He wants his stone building and by golly he will get it. He is never short of a goal or two or ten. But it's not him, it's me that is looking for "what am I going to do".

Cooking classes on our hill. It sounds great. At this point in time, in this place in my mind it sounds the right thing to do. I am aware that I am not getting any younger. Fifty is well and truly middle age. If I don't do something before long, my opportunity will have come and gone, and I shall probably be one of those people lying on my deathbed "wondering". And won't that be sad.