Life at Riverbend

 

 

June the 30th and we're already half-way through another year! Where does each day go? Well, here's a quick summary:

The kookaburras' mad cackling wakes us in the morning. I roll out of bed and go to the kitchen to switch on the kettle. I then sit in the sun and enjoy my first cup of tea of the day. Going back into the bedroom I find that Rover who sleeps between the pillows, has rolled himself into my warm spot and refuses to be moved. So I go back outside taking a carrot from the fridge to feed the possum in his possum penthouse. The almost-tame kookaburra has been following me around and it's his turn to be fed some of Malty & Rover's dog-food. All that effort calls for a second cup of tea!

Cup in hand, I wander down my "Meditation Lane" to the bottom of the property where I can look far downriver and possibly spot some early-morning fishermen trying their luck. The track is full of life. I surprise three dilatory rabbits breakfasting in the grass. The resident kangaroo watches me from a safe distance. A butterfly procession is in full swing. I sit down on a sawn-off treetrunk and, sipping my cup, ponder: 'Does a butterfly know that it used to be a caterpillar and does a caterpillar know when it goes to sleep that it will be a butterfly when it wakes up?' Life flows. Life ebbs. Knowledge has not solved its mystery. We have learned how to blow up the world and walk on the moon, but we still do not know why we are here.

If it is a weekday, I go back inside at around 10 o'clock to switch on the computer to watch the gyrations of the stock-market. As my old mate Noel Butler used to say when I questioned him once why he bought and sold some of those "penny-dreadful" shares, "What else is there?" Some days the market is good to me, on others it isn't, and on some it turns downright ugly but, as Noel put it so succinctly, what else IS there? In between watching stock quotations and listening to the news on the radio, I answer some emails and walk up to the gate to await the mailman. And so, almost without realising it, lunchtime comes around.

"Happy Hour" is when I take my afternoon nap on the sofa in the lounge when Malty & Rover join me. Waking up refreshed, I take a book outside and read for a while, sitting in the sun. Again, almost without noticing it, dinner rolls around after which it is only a couple of hours before I head off to bed to listen to Philip Adams' "Late Night Live" at 10 past 10 on ABC Radio.

And that's it! Multiply this by 365 and you have a fair summary of the whole year. May there be many more years like it!

Stop and smell the roses

 

What time does your alarm clock go off each morning? Five-thirty, six o'clock? Chances are it's earlier than you care for. Then, after a hurried breakfast - if you have time for breakfast at all - you head for your car or the nearest train or bus and spend the next 40 minutes or more lost in an angry herd of fellow commuters.

When you finally arrive at your office you find it pretty much the same as when you left it yesterday. There's your small desk in a nondescript workstation; there's your computer bulging with unanswered emails that arrived overnight. A small pile of faxes also demanding your attention sits beside a phone that will start ringing even before the workday officially begins at 9 a.m.

After a cup of bad coffee, it's down to work. You probably have a meeting to attend, a project to wrap up or a deadline to meet. You're always busy, always feeling the pressure to perform, to hit the mark, to compete with all those others beavering away behind the office partitions. For the next eight hours you work, pausing only for the occasional coffee refill or to chat briefly with another employee. Lunch is a cling-wrapped sandwich eaten at your desk, on quieter days a hot takeaway from the shopping centre across the road. At six you turn off the computer and head for home. It's usually dark by the time you arrive. Between dinner and sleep you try to make time for the important people in your life - your kids, your partner, your friends. There's rarely any time left to spend on you.

As you head off to bed you realise two things. The first is that another day has passed you by in a blur of paperwork and telephone calls, traffic queues and office politics. The second is that tomorrow that alarm will ring out in the early morning gloom and you will get up and do it all over again.

STOP!!! YOU NEED A HOLIDAY!

Not a holiday with long airport check-in queues, jetting from place to place, but a quiet, peaceful, refreshing country holiday with long, sunfilled days full of idleness and starry nights when you can almost hear the silence, if you know what I mean. You may even find the time to read Cindy Dowling's wonderful book "Sea Change - Australians in pursuit of the good life" ☺

At "Riverbend" you don't get woken up; instead, you wake up when you're good and ready because the only noise you hear is the one you make. At "Riverbend" idle time is not wasted time but the time you need to get back in touch with yourself and your partner.

Shrug off your big-city hang-ups and embrace a simpler life at "Riverbend" - for a week, for a month, or perhaps forever because "Riverbend" is also for sale - click here - as we're heading for an even simpler life in the wilds of Borneo.

 

At the end of the rainbow is Riverbend Cottage

 

Legend has it that at the end of every rainbow sits a leprechaun, hammering on a shoe, who will reveal the whereabouts of a crock of gold.

While many of us have seen a rainbow, few have been lucky enough to witness where it actually ends.

Now you know where it ends: at Riverbend Cottage.

 

Their last night at the Best Exotic Riverbend Cottage

Laurie and Carmel

 

Everything will be all right in the end; if it's not all right, it's not yet the end.

Everything has been all right for Carmel and Laurie during their second two-week stay at Riverbend Cottage, the weather, the fishing, and our get-togethers with a glass (or three) of a good Pinot Noir and some nibblies, so this must be the end.

Last night was our last 'Movie Night' when we watched 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' with Judi Dench and Bill Nighy.

There will be a sequel when The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel 2 is released in March 2015.

We hope there will also be a sequel to your visit to Riverbend Cottage, Carmel & Laurie, and that we will see you again, perhaps even before March 2015.

Keep well and your happy memories of Riverbend Cottage until then!

 

Old Gold Folk Club

 

We took our guests Carmel and Laurie to the Old Gold Folk Club sing- and play-along in the old Gold Rush Colony at Mogo.

Forget about the rain! (as welcome as it is in our watertanks ☺ ) Two huge blazing fireplaces in the Diggers Rest Tavern, with tables set with tiny candle lantern, created a cozy atmosphere for a great afternoon and evening.

left-to-right: Padma, Carmel, Laurie

After bit of a slow start, the place soon filled and warmed up.

Star of the evening was "The Man with the Concertina", Steve Wilson from Bombala, who had the place feet-tapping and hand-clapping in no time.

So what's the difference between an onion and a concertina?

Nobody cries when you chop up a concertina! ☺

Stay with us for the first Sunday of the month and we'll introduce you, too, to the delights of the Old Gold Folk Club!