After the promise of rain all week, some finally fell on Friday evening. Clouds drifted across the landscape until the house was shrouded and rain floated through the air in soft sheets. It was far from a downpour, more a light splattering of drops, but it was enough to give me hope that rain will come again. After letting the rain tap my skin outside, Rohan and I sat down to watch some House of Cards as it is our new addiction. Halfway through an episode and the power went out. We padded around the house in the dark, and with the moon hiding behind the clouds, there was no light to penetrate the inky, black darkness. Each time the power goes off I'm suddenly reminded of all the reasons why we need a back up power source and our new water tanks. With the power out we only have the water in our pipes if the bore isn't pumping and at the front of the property our electronic gate stays firmly shut. So it was an early night, but not quite an old fashioned one as we both lay in bed, the room illuminated by the glow of our iPads.
Saturday morning and Rohan was up early to go hunting rabbits with Nam (and I've got a vision of a Disney cartoon in my head now). I, however, had woken with one of those headaches that makes you feel like your brain is sloshing against your skull each time you move your head. Standing up was like running a marathon, and Rohan, the saviour that he is fed me toast, tea and painkillers in bed before he headed outside. A few more hours of drug induced sleep and I was up, slowly inching around the paddocks trying to get fresh air to cure me. David, Jane, Lisa and Neale were coming up for the weekend and I was desperate to get my brain in working order before they arrived. All the things on my Saturday to-do list lay untouched, and I was even more grateful to house guests who arrived with lunch, wine, herbal tea and good spirits. I felt like a terrible host though, drifting off in conversation, pressing my fingers into the point at the back of my neck where I could feel some relief and wandering around the house in a zombie like state.
With my brain not working and a frantic week before I hadn't organised anywhere for dinner and so we headed to our new local a couple of k's up the road, the Shamrock, which had only opened the weekend before after a long period of renovations. I'd read some of the history of the pub and of the town it's located in, Dunnstown, which was named after James Dunn, a man who grew barley and made whiskey at a distillery located there in the 1850s. A once thriving town, it was populated by the Irish who fled the potato famine, and was popular given its location to the Ballarat goldfields. The distillery closed down and the Irish turned back to potato growing.
At home that afternoon I'd tried to get my head together by reading the Britt family history book that Jane had lent us. Reading it I realised her family history is intimately woven into the landscape all around us, with the pub down the road part of her extended family's stories. Looking at the map of the area with the names of the families that owned parcels of land, I saw Irish name after Irish name. Some of them are names that are familiar to me, names that belong to Irish families who also lived in the south-west where I grew up. As we drive towards the pub I wondered what place it will play in our new lives?
Inside it was busy and stories began to seep out of every brick. I recognised faces from the Christmas party at the community centre and while only a week old I had a sense that the pub would become a hub for the local community. The footy tipping chart hung on the wall, a few names (including Paddy O- can you get more Irish than that?) already pencilled in. At the bar we chatted with Shane, the publican and realised that even here we needed a booking for dinner! We ordered, thinking we'd eat at the bar, but got a table when Lisa did some hunting and some reorganisation. Towards the end of the meal, Shane got up and in ways reminiscent of a 21st thanked us all for being there, encouraged us to join the footy tipping and introduced the first of their sat night bands. I did some people watching, creating stories and lives for the people in the pub. 'There's a book in that pub', I said to Rohan Sunday morning as we lay in bed, 'I'll have to go back each week for research'. I'd sent Kat from work who has bought her parents house nearby an email telling her we'd taken our maiden voyage to the pub and she replied saying that her dad knows our property and knows about a whole range of the previous owners. He's keen to meet up at the pub to share a beer and some stories so I definitely have to go back now!
Sunday meant coffee, wandering around the Mill markets for bargains and then we took a trip up to the top of Mt. Warrenheip and peered out through the trees to find our farm in the distance, our rows of olives looking neat and symmetrical from far away.
Once our guests headed home, we decided to take our first off farm trip and headed to Warrnambool where we were picking up a load of kindling for our wood fire in the form of fence posts from where my folks had their fence replaced. Much as I love the olive groves and paddocks, I had been feeling a bit landlocked and was itching to hear the sound of the sea rolling in the distance through my bedroom window.
If you're not from Warrnambool, you probably don't understand what the big deal is, but all I can say is if you're ever in the south-west then you have to do yourself a favour and try a burger (with double sauce to pretend you're a local). With my fix of the seaside it was time to head home and there the olives were waiting.
Tonight the rain has arrived, I sat at the kitchen table with Maryann who dropped in on her way home from work and we sniffed the air - that gorgeous smell of rain on hot, parched land. Indy and I wandered around the grove, rain falling while the sheep huddled under the trees. There, in the paddock, with rain falling on my bare arms, I was happy. A perfect farm moment captured in memory.
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