Well hello there

Yes this post has been a long time coming.

It's been three weeks today since we arrived at our new abode, "The house on the hill" and it has to be said that it's been a shock... culturally, emotionally, mentally and physically.

Leaving Broome feels like I have broken up with a boyfriend. My right arm is missing. I'm in mourning.

The problem is that there simply is no remedy other than time. And I am SO impatient. Reading "It's Called a Break up because It's Broken" simply won't work this time, because there was simply nothing broken about me and my relationship with the Kimberley.

The thing is I don't HATE it down here at our little shaggy shack on the hill. In fact I can see myself growing to quite like it...once it's had a complete makeover.

It's just that I haven't quite come to terms with the fact that my fabulous life that was Broome is over.

The thing is though, I still have my true love by my side and he is as the saying goes, "as happy as a pig in shit".

Speaking of pigs, look what I spied on my way home from Perth over the weekend.

Culture shock well and truly.

Personal training

Let's face it, I've had a bloody good time in Broome over the last couple of years. In fact I have no choice but to face it, every time I look in the mirror.

A bottle of white here, a few rums there, cold beers after work and then some hot chips to soak it all up. Cold chips too if the truth be told.

Granted, it's not the 17 kilos I gained when I lived in Karratha, and maybe, as happened in 2006 when I left Karratha the weight will miraculously fall off once I get below the 26th.

Then again maybe it won't. So just to be safe I phoned the gym.

It didn't get off to a great start.

Kate: "Hi Peter, Kate Matthews here, I need help."
Peter: "That's no problem Kate but are you going to be better than all the other times you've said that?"
Kate: "Well..yes...I hope so...I'll try..."
Peter: "When can you come in, tonight? Tomorrow?"
Kate: "Well I'm busy tonight (sunset drinks on the beach) and tomorrow could be tricky...(Pizza at 12 mile)"
Peter: "Right."

I have this sneaky suspicion that I am going to be told, if I want results I'll have to give up the booze.

But I do want results, I do. I want to fit in to all those clothes shoved in suitcases and garbage bags under the bed, in the back of the wardrobe, in the linen cupboard.

And I don't want to compare my arse to Matthew Pavlich's nose anymore.

So, personal training.

Tuesday, 4.30pm.

Cheers.

Scones

If one more person asks me if I'm good at baking scones I will punch them.

Don't let it be you.

While I have improved in the kitchen in recent years, it's fair to say my level of expertise when it comes to cooking is minimal. Baking less so. Poor Woody. He'd love a girl that's handy with a beater and some flour.

But what it is it about farming and scones? Do I really need to know how to bake a good scone to succeed in our new life?

I have been on many, many farms over the years and not once have I been offered a scone.

In fact the only person I know who makes a mean scone is my mother and she ain't a farmers backside. To be blunt.

Though she did grow her own pumpkins for the scones. They were rippers, fertilised by Sarah's dead mice if I remember correctly. They froze one summers night under the fan. The mice, not the pumpkins. I digress.

Being adopted the scone gene was never passed on. Oh the travesty.

But you know what? I've never been one to shy away from a challenge and now that I've read the CWA cookbook and have seen that the degree of difficulty in baking scones is "low", I might just have a crack.

Wouldn't it be nice to say "yes, in fact you smart arse, I'm the best bloody scone baker in the whole of the valley."

Maybe, just maybe.

I'm a blogger...

I’ve wanted to keep a journal or a diary for years. However despite many starts, my undiciplined nature and sometimes it could be said, laziness, meant my inner most thoughts and feelings were never recorded for more than maybe a week at a time.

But as Bob Dylan said, the times they are a changing.

Kate Matthews is now all about dicipline. I am growing my nails. I am losing ten kilos. I am paying off an outrageous debt, (accumulated as a result of my insatiable appitite for fun. And shoes.)

And I am a blogger! Blogging being the modern day journal and damn it I am a modern girl, despite what they say.

Well when it suits me anyway.

So as I lie here on the day bed on a delightful Broome evening, windows open, singlet and boardies on in the middle of winter, cotton wool between my toes watching Australias hopes of retaining the Ashes fade into oblivion, I am blogging.

I am going to document my experience in leaving this most magnificent town and my beautiful, fabulous friends (yes that’s you) and moving to Toodyay to live on the farm.

There will be tears. But, it’s hoped (I’m hoping) that my insatiable appitite for fun and adventure will hold me in good stead to survive anything that this new life will throw at me.

My excitement at moving to the farm is genuine. As is my terror. However my glass is not just going to be half full, it’s going to be brimming over.

Brim, brim...