Dirty Little Hands Head for the Hills

This week these dirty little hands cleaned up and shipped out to the farmy quiet country of my folks' property. While my mum and dad visit family overseas, our job is to tend to the animals, plants and general upkeep of the house.

Unlike my modest little Melbourne patch, here the gardens are of a standard Peter Cundall would be bloomin over. The vegies look after themselves; the fruit drying rack stands ready for the plenties of figs and tomatoes; instead of indian miner birds and mozzies, tiny wrens and lizards titter around the front yard. The strips of lawn in between the massive garden beds are soft and lush and perfect for midday snoozes and over-sized newspapers.

Beyond the sprawled house yard, there are chooks, bottle-fed baby lamb, dogs with permanent smiles.Daily tasks are not really tasks at all, but fun ways to spend the time. 

It's occurred to me as we walked through the wet grass of the top paddocks, that this might cost us a lot of money to stay if Mum and Dad renamed the place something like 'Country Retreat' and we weren't related.