On being 40…

When I turned thirty I wrote a few observations as to how I saw myself, and my aspirations and plans for the future. I have no idea where it is, but it would be fascinating to see how my perspectives may have changed over the past decade.

In any case, I am going to be a little self indulgent, and record my thoughts on being forty in this forum.

During lunch last week with a friend, we debated the best decade to have lived. He suggested that there was no better time than the 1970s. Whilst I obviously think they were good years, I enjoyed the 90s as a new adult. I do think now though that the best years of life are definitely ahead of me. As much as I enjoyed the PJ years (pre Jane), life now is just so much more complete.

I have developed strong views (me – opinionated?) on environmental and economic sustainability. I am not sure when, but my change seemed to coincide with my enlistment into Army. I have always wanted to live on a farm, but hadn’t given a lot of thought to how I might farm. In line with a kind of collective awareness/awakening, I find myself evermore drawn to concepts such as permaculture, organic farming and natural farming on the land side of the house, and economic sufficiency on the financial side of things.

I can’t understand why more people don’t share my views, but I have to remind myself to stay off my soapbox. No one has an obligation to operate in a more sustainable manner, and cannot be challenged if they choose not to do so. I can’t judge, as to do so potentially robs me of worthwhile human encounters. My friends and colleagues tend to see me as a bit of an oddball; almost eccentric. I am comfortable with that.

I care as much for food as I ever have. My views have changed a little so that my focus is as much on the point of origin and manufacture as it is about the finished product. I want to know that the ingredients are the very best I can source. Ditto with wine and beer. I support artisan and craft producers wherever possible and get a real kick out of farmers markets. One of my biggest food peeves is restaurants who apply a classic name to a dish, but put something completely different on the plate. I enjoy good coffee – generally black.

I am enjoying the work I do, and find I am much more settled than I was during the frenetic twenty/thirty years. I can perhaps best describe it in rugby terms. As I got a little bit older, I started to play a lot smarter. I would no longer rush headlong into each and every contest, but would pick my battles. Those I engaged in I would do so with maximum effort. I find work is a little like that, and that approach certainly helped me through RMC as an older cadet. Taking a break from the kitchen has perversely allowed me to become a much more creative and better cook. I have a greater respect for the magic that happens in a kitchen.

On physical fitness – I may not be quite as fit as I was in my twenties, but I am not far off it. I make a point of exercising every day wherever possible, and take pride in being able to meet and beat the fitness standards prescribed for those fifteen years my junior. I have pretty much given up contact sports, and now enjoy squash, swimming and swinging kettlebell weights. I intend to maintain my fitness through not only this decade, but all of them. My Dad is my inspiration as far as fitness is concerned. At 71 he is still able to walk dozens of kilometres per day swinging a whipper snipper.

I have a couple of hobbies I really enjoy. Food is a pretty obvious one, and my spectrum of interest covers food preservation (including air-dried salami and ham), brewing beer, sourdough bread and cheese. Outside of the kitchen, I enjoy woodworking, and have made a lot of the furniture in our home. Going through school I was never any good at woodwork, but have developed reasonably good skills over time. When I reflect back, I think that I developed a degree of confidence or arrogance that allowed me to establish a veneer of competence (not just in woodwork). Over time that has dissipated – failure will have that effect! I think that now I am in the process of developing competence through reflection. Through knowing what my capabilities actually are, I now enjoy the challenges represented by new crafts and tasks a lot more than in the past.

Family is now my focus. What I do I do for Jane and MacKenzie, and I look forward to giving him a brother or sister to share our life’s journey with (should Jane and I ever spend time in the same town for more than five minutes!). I can watch MacK for hours, and Jane has enriched my life beyond imagining. Our farm in Canowindra will be a family haven. I am looking forward to the hard work, the sense of accomplishment when able to see the fruits of our labours and the change of seasons. In a couple of years, the boards in the cheese cave will be groaning with rounds maturing, the brewery will have bottles of cold pressed cider, Jane’s Grandmother’s ginger beer and a couple of my own recipe brews. The cold larder will have hams swinging in the breeze as they engage in their slow, eighteen-month journey from free range foraging Berkshire pig to glorious prosciutto. I am hoping to have salamis made in both the Italian, Polish and Croatian traditions. I want MacK to be able to find his own understanding of our natural world through his explorations and experiments.

In summary, I still dream big, but I now have a family to share those dreams with. The focus of those dreams has evolved from money to tangible goals that allow me to continue to develop. I may become increasingly eccentric and fussy with food, and I will embrace that change wholeheartedly. I have redeveloped a love of learning (having just finished my first undergraduate degree) and look forward to continual study in both formal and informal avenues into the future. I am concerned with the quality of the world we may leave to our children and grandchildren, and am sometimes bewildered at what I can do to change things. I have to remember to do only what I can do. I hope I am becoming a little more grounded each day.

I still get frustrated when menus have basic spelling mistakes.

Leonard Cohen is my preferred musical artist.

Les Miserables is still the most powerful musical I have ever seen.

I have really enjoyed both Sons of Anarchy and The West Wing.

Bread is my passion. I want to bake bread for other people.

I would like to learn to dance and speak French.

I won’t eat at McDonalds

I don’t like Coke

I love to swim in the ocean, and should do it more often.

I want to visit New Zealand and Europe.

I would like to explore more of Australia.

Oats are my breakfast of choice.

Coffee over tea, water over juice, and cider, beer and wine in equal measure (all over spirits).

This is a little of what makes me tick at forty… See you in ten!

Almost time to go home

My time away from home is rapidly drawing to a close. It is only a few days now when MacK will be able to cuddle me instead of the computer screen. I have a friend who was away for a considerable length of time last year, and was only able to speak to his kids via skype and phone. For the first couple of weeks after his return, his youngest (three) would only talk to him if she was holding a phone at the same time. It is both funny and sad at the same time. I cannot begin to imagine how those long since departed managed their absences from home during times of war and work away from home.

I will have been away for almost thirteen weeks by the time I get back home, and it has been difficult both for Jane and I (much more difficult for Jane, dealing with a boisterous toddler). Jose Paronella (Paronella Park, near Cairns) came out from Europe to build a life for his fiancé with the intent of returning for her when he was established. His return took eleven years. It simply beggars belief!

As much as I am a closet luddite, I am also very grateful for the technology that we do have available to us in this ‘enlightened’ age. I owe a lot to skype and the power of the internet.

I would love to bring MacK to where I have been staying. I think he would get a kick out of the animals that are around us. In front of our accommodation, we have a lake (I think it is an enhanced natural feature) that has goldfish and a monster carp (I am the only one yet to see ‘Nessie’). There are ducks, wood ducks, egrets and marsh hens. We have seen several clutches of ducklings born, and it has been a little sad to see their numbers drop over the first couple of days of life. Rabbits and kangaroos surround us, and the variety of birdsong is brilliant. I know rabbits are a major pest, and I am quite happy to pot them in the future. Right now as I wander across the lawn I think MacK might get a kick out of seeing them, with their funny, floppy ears, hopping across the lawn.

I have been able to have a bit of fun while away (although would rather have spent the time with Jane and MacK). Last Saturday we went to the Rutherglen for a winery tour. We started at All Saints (Wahgunyah), which is lovely. They have built a red brick castle as the backdrop for the winery and have a really good restaurant and cellar door. We had a tasting in the VIP room (must have had us muddled with someone else), and were able to sample a cross section of their range. I wasn’t too keen on their whites, but the reds and fortifieds were well worth the effort! We were lucky enough to get a taste of one of their top flight Rare Muscats (aged a minimum of twenty years in barrels). It has the richness and depth of a Pedro Ximinez sherry, and similar fruity characteristics.

Our last port of call for the day was the aesthetic opposite of All Saints. Chambers Rosewood Winery has just been nominated the number one cellar door in Australia. You walk to the cellar door past barrels which have the Australian coat of arms, and the date 1887 carved into the front. The cellar door itself is a rugged corrugated iron building with little to recommend it to passers by. When we walked in and asked for a tasting, the old bloke pretty much turned his back on us. We stood around for a bit, unsure what we were doing when he turned around and told us to help ourselves to both the glasses and the wines. Some of the wines were excellent, and the fortifieds were really good. They have a sign on the wall saying something along the lines of:

We like to keep our products reasonably priced.

Accordingly we choose not to spend money on fancy buildings, fancy labels, bottles or any other bullshit!

It turns out the old bloke in the cellar door was the owner, and is a fifth generation vigneron. His family replanted the vines in 1907, and he has been one of Victoria’s top wine judges since the 50’s. Appearances truly can be deceiving!

On the Sunday morning I took an early train to Melbourne (think 0400 departure time), arriving in the city just after 0730. I walked across to the South Melbourne Markets, and caught up with a couple of friends for breakfast. It was a little cool, and I thought I might buy a jumper if anything took my fancy.  I was lucky to see a lined woolen duffel coat at a 75% discount. It was a much-appreciated addition to my travelling wardrobe for the day! In addition to breakfasting with Lauren and Ash at the markets, I spend the afternoon catching up with an old friend and his family in the city. I was able to realise a long held goal (as insignificant as it is in the grand scheme of things) by being able to sample the bread baked at Baker D. Chirico. I bought a loaf of the Casa Linga sourdough. It really is as good as the reports say. If you ever get to Melbourne, his bakery is definitely worth a trip to St Kilda. The train back to Albury didn’t get in until 2315, so I was a little fatigued come Monday morning.

In a couple of days I will be able to return home to Jane, MacK and the tropical build up. Not looking forward to the weather, but can’t wait to be with family again. Then we are on the downhill run to packing up the house and moving south to Brisbane.

A Spring catch up

To our occasional readers, an apology for the time between entries. Again I am away from home and family on residential courses. Whilst contributing to my professional development, formal education and long term resume prospects, 13 weeks away from the creature comforts of home is a long time.

I am on the homeward stretch now, and look forward to returning to the three dimensional world in the next couple of weeks. Now that MacK is old/cognitive enough to engage with the computer, I have become the quintessential modern day ‘flat pack Dad’ through the wonderful services of Skype. Whilst our schedules don’t always overlap, the opportunities we have had to chat have been magnificent. I have been able to watch my boy change and develop, and it was a wonderful thing to see the first time he pointed to the screen and said “Daddy!”

It is funny that now he is comfortable seeing me there, and is happy to sit and draw and occasionally look up and grin. He will also point to my facial features on the screen and occasionally the screen blurs as he hugs ‘me’ via an envelopment of the computer monitor.

Half of my time away has been in the Gold Coast Hinterland, where I was able to spend a bit of time on Mt Tamborine. If you ever get the chance to climb the Mountain (a hill on any other continent), take it for the views alone. Of course, the artisan cheeses and chocolates are also a good draw…

I am currently in Southern New South Wales, experiencing whatever it is that is the climatic opposite of an Indian Summer. With the limits on luggage allowance and the volume if kit I needed to bring with me, I decided to compromise on cold weather gear. In this instance, compromise means to not pack it. The Gold Coast Hinterland was warm (and I wore none of the cold weather kit I took there), and we are now in mid October. It couldn’t be that cold, could it? If you are following the weather reports for this part of the world, you will have seen the unseasonal snowfalls and lingering effects of Winter.

This last weekend I took a train to Wagga Wagga to see a couple of old friends. We had a really good night at Kapooka. The Army band was playing and they capped the night off with a spectacular rendition of the 1812 Overture, complete with requisite artillery fire. We went four-wheel-driving on Sunday morning and as a consequence I missed my (and the day’s only) train. A road trip was required to get me back to my current abode. Fortunately for Matt, the trip was only 120 km or so each way.

Peter is down in Yarrawonga this week playing golf, and we are aiming to catch up for dinner on Wednesday evening. I did suggest Rutherglen, but it appears that not much is open during weeknights. We will sort something out…

Jane is ‘enjoying’ the buildup to Summer’s humidity, and she assures me that despite being born in the tropics MacK shows no sign of wanting to be there. He is struggling with the increase in humidity and will enjoy our move to Brisbane next year. I have had my return date confirmed, and the course is being shortened by three days. It might not seem a lot, but just the thought of being home!