152/365

Making spicy broadbean felafels and salad with minty yoghurt, using all fresh produce from the garden (except for the yoghurt, which was locally sourced).

151/365

Helping the Fryer's Forest community clear their flooded main access bridge. Just me in my bare feet (no wellies!) and a bunch of hippies, chucking sticks downstream and hauling logs to the sides as the golden-brown water gushed on.

It's rare for me to feel that I'm actually doing something important and useful. It's a good feeling.

150/365

Getting at least twice as much dried mango as I paid for from a grateful market holder, who thanked me for waiting patiently while he served some bossy women ahead of me.

I can't abide people who are rude to the people serving them (which seems to be a more common occurence in these impatient times). Do you really think you're that important? I got news for you sister, you ain't.

149/365

Swimming in a vast, peaceful sun-warmed dam, black with natural tanins, the sun beaming gently down on my lightly tanned flesh.

148/365

OH MY GOD IT'S CHRISTMAS IN FOUR WEEKS! CHRISTMAS! DID YOU HEAR ME AT THE BACK?

147/365

Taking delivery of my shipment of boxes, 3 months later!

Pashley is back (but not back together... anyone know a good bike repair shop??) as well as many, many shoes and DVDs.

146/365

30 degrees of absolute perfection in Melbourne today.

Also, spending an afternoon with an old school mate, debating climate change with her hubbie in between reading to their adorable 3 year old.

145/365

Having my brother tell me that I have a sister now, for the first time in 33 years.

A sister! Of my very own.

144/365

That strangely sad/good melancholy feeling you get when on a long journey back to the city after spending a week in a lush green place.

143/365

Trying not to laugh while telling the boys off for not turning out their lights and going to sleep. They were that cute..."But I thought it was only 8.45, not 9.45!", "But he pretended he was in pain, he MADE me go over there!"

142/365

Planting a plumtree. Sounds simple, doesn't it? Well, let me tell you, it involved digging a metre square hole (dropping the spade in fright when a small snake slipped out of the grass), wheel-barrowing two barrows of mulch through the tall grass, and fetching several buckets full of dam water to water it with.

Damn those plums better be good!

141/365

Basking in a waterfall of compliments as everyone devoured my Apple Clafoutis.

140/365

Lopping artichokes from the tip-top of plants one and a half times bigger than me, while Sean (age 8) and Riley (age 10) scramble to find them in the underbrush.

139/365

Introducing Riley (age 10) to the strategic mathematical mind-boggling goodness that is Paddocks.

For those of you who don't remember - draw a square as big as your patience on graph paper, mark all the corner 'dots', take it in turns to draw a line between adjoining dots, and when your line closes a square, mark it with your initial. Most initials wins. Suitable for ages 6 and up.

138/365

Koo Wee Rup: what a great name for a town. I am loving rural Victoria more and more.

137/365

The Awwww! when the lights went down and the Ahhhh! as they came back up. Nothing like a mini blackout to make you appreciate the modern magic of electricity.

136/365

Mooching around town with the Sydney-based Miss Chetty (or I guess Missus Mountford now that she's married... WHATEVS CHETTY). Popped into Meet Me At Mike's (the analogue version) and ate far too many macaroons... what a lovely way to spend a Saturday.

135/365

Getting a surprise visit from my bro and his wife (!), who burst in while I was doing the washing in my PJs.

134/365

Sitting on the top deck of the ferry back to the mainland in the brilliant sunshine and thinking: I haven't been this happy since New York.

133/365

Learning to make "poor man's cheese" from fresh milk and apple cider vinegar with Alison of French Island Olive Oil.

132/365

The koala who tolerated me and my camera with a great expression of "harrumph" on his fuzzy little features. Boop!

131/365

Walking along a lonely stretch of the rugged beach and stepping onto grey "rocks" that gave way under my feet like puffy cushions.

130/365

Walking up from the caravan to the farmhouse to be greeted with the most lovely breakfast spread - fresh coffee on the stove, homemade bread and jam for toast, muesli with strawberries and stewed rhubarb, and fresh milk and yoghurt courtesy of the jersey cow up the road. These ladies know how to live.

129/365

The quizzical little boy on the jetty who told me that the ferry had just left, but reassured me that it would be back in about an hour, and was I going to French? And who was I staying with? And had I been there before?

Thank you little dude, you made me glad to miss my ferry.

128/365

Trying on a pair of my dad's old overalls and finding that they fitted perfectly. Uh-oh.

127/365

Driving. It's such a luxury for me now, to get in a car and drive wherever I want, whenever I want (traffic permitting), in my own little bubble.

I do wish Melbourne had better public transport. I probably will end up purchasing a car at some point; but for now, I'm enjoying the luxury of the odd drive in my mum's snazzy little Mazda.

126/365

Charlie the cockatoo's welcome dance, consisting of raising his crest, flaring his tail feathers, and bobbing groovily from side to side like a sulfur-crested Tony Manero.

125/365

Having 2 little snow-white kids jumping on me and trying to eat my hat while my friend laughed her head off (between snapping shots).

124/365

The exhilaration of walking two beautiful dingoes along a country road, nearly having my arm yanked off in the process. I was a little wary until the more affectionate of the two jumped up on me and tried to lick me to death.

123/365

Bottle-feeding calves and lambs. It's been a long time since I did it on my uncle's farm as a child and I forgot how slightly unnerving, but eventually lovely and calming it is.