Cottage Life, Village Life

We’ve been nearly three months here at Foxglove Cottage, with another month more to go.  Life has settled pleasingly into routine, something I was desperate for after months of frenetic activity leading up to our exit of Riverdale.  When Dave is away up in Auckland every second week it’s quiet here – my thoughts flow all the better and I find time to write each day.  I am a better correspondent than I have been for years.  My time belongs to me and me only, my meals become simple affairs of cheese and an apple. 

Back in early December we planted a variety of lettuce, herbs, and spinach greens – they have finished now, having fed us throughout the summer each and every day.  As they go to seed, I’m pulling them up and replacing them with flowering bulbs.  I hope we get to see them flower in spring, but the chances are our Cottage will be on the market by then.  I think I’ll feel the pain of parting intensely.  We hope to replace it with something closer to our new home, something we can use easily and share with others.  There is no doubt that this wee home has been a very special place.  Just five rooms – a kitchen, bathroom, lounge cum dining room, and two bedrooms – housework is a cinch, done in a flash with no need to change power points with the hoover.  No ensuite, but the steps needed to reach the bathroom would probably only number a couple more.  Every inch of space is used judiciously to maximise storage.  I’ve even started using the car boot as extra space.

I could have connected, I suppose, with the local folk more than I have… but I’ve found myself drifting to solitude as is my way.  It’s nice though, to walk through town and greet half a dozen people by name.  I like to dip in and out.  I’ve never particularly enjoyed drop in visitors – I think I need to psyche myself up for social encounters.  So I keep my waves and smiles friendly, but rarely stop for more than a few words. 

I walk every morning – most days just as the light is starting to paint the day.  I walk out of my driveway and cross State Highway 8, then turn off right and head up past the old indoor pool, now decommissioned and awaiting a fate on which no-one can agree.  On past the hospital and medical centre, beautiful gardens designed and opened by Maggie Barry of TV Garden Show fame.  Past the old Nurses Home, now an impressive heritage red brick private residence surrounded by holly hedges with drifts of roses spilling through and for sale.

I turn here and start a gentle descent past the school and sports fields, a few more cottages and then the immaculately kept Holiday Camping Ground with its rust coloured wooden chalets, beautiful lawns and groves of redwood trees.  A month ago it was packed with happy campers, now it is more the chalets that are in demand for shearers maybe, or folk just passing through.   A number of large, modern caravans are permanently parked, awaiting the weekends when their doors and windows are thrown open and their owners sit back in deck chairs with a book and a glass of wine. 

The landscape then gives way to fields filled with sheep mostly, who baa mournfully as I pass by, but one holds 6 lovely, plump belted Galloways whom I greet each morning – I miss my cattle, I find.  I turn another corner and on my right is the oxidisation pond (more a small lake really) of the town’s biofiltro plant.  A long, low, seemingly unmanned building turns sewage into pleasant and usable water, something that obviously works exceedingly well, as there is never any odour, the pond and surrounding beach is littered with water birds splashing, quacking and generally enjoying life. 

On my left three sheep paddocks run up to the cemetery which is sited along the top of a hill, sometimes I take the steep path that leads to it, and walk along the ridge – it’s a place so filled with peace that its tangible.  I wish the Crawfords good morning as I pass their shared grave, where Isabella laid for 30 long years before her husband John joined her in 1914, and tell them that we are loving their little cottage. 

Other times I stay on the road, which winds through a valley with a trickling stream beside me, tall oak trees towering overhead giving welcome shade on a sunny Otago day.  Moss grows on the road through here, and it’s very quiet with the headstones just visible on the hilltop.  It’s rare to see a vehicle pass, but once a rough looking, unshaven man slowed his ute to a stop behind me and I did wonder briefly if I was about to be strangled with my designer, felted snood (in a pretty shade of lavender blue purchased recently at the weavers gallery in town) but it turned out he was just checking his sheep. 

At a bend in the road there sits two decidedly sinister houses.  One, an old cottage, was clearly once very similar to ours, but derelict now with grey tattered curtains fluttering out of sightless, gaping windows.  The second is almost completely enclosed by trees which loom over it and looks as if it too, is partly dilapidated although I do see people staying there from time to time.  I call this pair the Haunted Houses, they both have a creepy feel to them, but the one in the trees is the worst by far.

And then I emerge from the tree-lined road on to the Highway again, past the policeman’s house and tiny station, and along a gravel track back towards town, passing a row of houses – one sporting an old coach from the staging days.  Past the Peace Garden where the war memorial stands, and round a bend to drop down into the main street with its veranda clad shops and cafes.  I wave to the man at Wrightson’s (farm supplies) who starts at 7am, and then the ladies in the Four Square (mini mart) – looking across the road to see if I can catch a glimpse of Liz who is setting up her café for the day.  I call “Good Morning” through the mesh door to Jan the butcher, who usually has the Stones playing loudly as she cuts up a pig.  Sometimes I stop for a chat with Kelly who at 6ft 7 looms above me - he works for the council and performs many tasks from emptying the bins, servicing the public toilets, mowing the roadside strips and keeping the streets free from litter around town.  Once a month when mowing the berm outside our cottage, he swings in and mows our lawns for us.  It’s a true case of “not what you know”…

On past the Museum and the Athenaeum Hall, a peek in the window of the beautiful homeware shop, Olea, and past the strange shop selling nothing but smoked eggs and then it’s time to turn to the corner and head back along Whitehaven Street where five blocks along, my little cottage waits…

There is tang in the air most mornings now, and the need for a light jacket at times.  In the last few days I’ve noticed the leaves are just starting to get the first yellowish tinge to them, and the crab apples on the tree beside the cottage are beginning to glow a rosy red.   Soon it will be decidedly autumn, and our time here will be at an end.  And between you and I, part of my heart will remain, I think…

Ode to Riverdale...

And so the farm has gone.

What started as hopes and dreams for the four of us back in 1986 has reached its conclusion.  Sometimes things need to be over though.  It’s right and good that they should be.  Those four are split asunder, divorced and dead, leaving me as the last man standing so to speak. 

During my solo years I came and went, went and came – it was my safety net, always there.  I returned with a new husband whose dreams also centred around the land and we built a wonderful new home there that I poured my heart into and we lived in together until his death just four short years later. 

My beautiful mother adored the farm, and coaxed much from its soils during her time.  She died after 13 years there, and her ashes lie in her old garden, overgrown and holding her safe.

The land sustained me when I had not much else to live on, and even gave me an income, appealing to paying guests.  It’s groves of trees, and dark waters gave me shelter, solace and offered concealment on days when I didn’t want to be found. 

And then another husband came, stealing my heart rapidly.  He too felt the draw of this patch of earth, and gave much to improving it.  I shared my heart-home with him, most happily for 6 years, the best years. 

Dad’s dreams became his warders, as he turned inwards on himself and complained of being imprisoned within its boundaries.  Of course, his confines were all of his own creation.  And yet, as is often the way, he felt the fear of leaving its embrace when his time came calling… but in the end there was no other choice and he left for hospital, to return again as ashes.  Forever resting in its peaceful arms, hopefully he has stopped thinking about it as incarceration. 

We lived on happily with our friends the turkeys, bunnies and hares, plus the many birds that we loved until the time came to leave.  Our 6 years in what to me will always be paradise. Leaving was hard, but the process made completely easy by fate which stepped in and smoothed the path so much – as if by intervention.  Divine or motherly maybe? 

And so we left.  It was our time to go, to hand it on.  More dreams rest now in those verdant green glades, the dark waters still sliding past carrying wishes west, out towards the hungry sea…

The Art of Cheese

Last year we met a very accomplished gentleman by the name of Graham, whom not only was fully proficient at building furniture and kitchen cabinetry, tiling, replacing windows and demolishing floors but amongst these and other talents he also knew how to make a mean cheese.  After sampling several of his handcrafted cheeses, washed down by some of his equally delicious handcrafted ales, I might add, we were inspired to jump on the cheese wagon ourselves. 

Katherine in action

And so I gave Dave the gift of a day long cheese course for Christmas.  Naturally I also gave myself one, and one Saturday in late summer we headed off to the Epsom Community Centre for a day with Katherine Mowbray, author of the book "Cutting the Curd", who demonstrated, in very interesting and able fashion, how to make fresh cheese, liptour, quark, gouda, and camembert.  It goes without saying we ate well at the lunch break.

 

At the conclusion of the course we bought some of the basic gear, some cultures and bacteria, thermometer etc and her book, which we took home and perused at leisure before heading to the shops the next day to buy "the hardware" - stock pots and sieves, draining spoons, racks, cheese cloth, pipettes, curd knife etc.  And a handy little gas burner to give a higher degree of control than electric hobs can offer.  We were ready!

 

 

Another few weeks passed before we could find an entire day free to designate to cheese but arrive it did, and we made our first cheese, a Neuf Chatel.  We'd had this one at Graham's place, and loved its pungent (strong some would say) runny centre that oozed out with a decadance that should almost cause alarm but somehow was just perfect.  Our first two were quite gorgeous, they didn't stand a chance really - we ate them at two and three weeks.  The extra week really added a punch to that pungency!  Sublime. 

Next up, our next big cheese was Camembert.  So impressed were we with the ease of method and result, that we almost immediately (2 weeks later) repeated the exercise with more most excellent cheese.  Interspersed between these were a selection of "quick & easy's" - cream cheese, haloumi, and ricotta.  The cream cheese has been a consistant crowd pleaser, and has a permanent spot in our fridge these days, for swirling through soups, spreading on scones with homemade jam or just melting over broccoli.

The Blues

Time for something different, so we decided to try Blue Stilton type.  Quite a bit more work, but its shaping up really well, and in two months will be nicely whiffy, if the book is to be believed.... meanwhile we have started to stockpile camemberts ready for our onslaught of overseas visitors who have all decided that October is THE month to visit New Zealand....

 

The Camembert - batch two

 



Homemade Pumpkin & Coconut Soup with a dollop of Cream Cheese
and Basil with my own Soda Bread

Uncovering History...

The gold rush came to Central Otago in 1861 when Gabriel Read discovered gold in the Tuapeka River in an area known ever after as “Gabriels Gully”. The township of Lawrence sprang up around this defining find and the miners swarmed from near and far and thus begun the gold rush days of New Zealand...

 

Having spent hours pouring over old papers online we had deduced that our little home had been built, not by a miner, but by one John Crawford, Scottish immigrant and civil contractor to the shire council of Tuapeka.  We also uncovered that it was in existence in 1881 when we found a letter from John to the council complaining about the flooding from the Tuapeka Creek on his boundary. Interestingly he branched out and bought the local hotel – the Tuapeka Flat Hotel in 1882, and within a few short months there was a disastrous fire and an inquest into the cause. It’s not clear if it damaged the building beyond repair, but it terminated Mr Crawford’s days as a hotelier, and he returned to contracting and farming. 

 

Imagine our excitement upon finding this early picture of our cottage in the Lawrence Museum, which seems to have been taken around the mid to late 1920′s judging by the car in the shot.

 

Braeside Cottage

And then during a stay at our cottage in December last year we were delighted to have a visit from Elaine Crawford, her late husband was the great-grandson of John, and she was able to give us a lot more information which filled in a few gaps! The cottage was originally known as Braeside Cottage, as it was sited at the foot of a steep hill, and it was built most probably within twelve months of their marriage which took place in Dunedin in 1870.

Their third child, Duncan, is recorded as being born in the cottage in 1874, and we think it was mostly completed in 1871. Sadly John’s wife, Isabella, died following the birth of their fifth child, aged 31, in 1884. John went on to achieve 79 years, and passed away in 1914 – he must have missed his wife immensely. We sought out their shared grave in the Lawrence Cemetery, and often visit it when we are down at the cottage, taking flowers from the garden of the home they built. 

Even more enthralling, Elaine told us how John was a direct descendant of Margaret de Crauford  - mother to "Braveheart" William Wallace.  This is just the icing on the cake to us with David's Scottish background and my deep love of  the country. William Wallace was born in 1272 in Ellerslie, Scotland. He was the second of three sons of Sir Malcolm Wallace (a minor laird possessing little political power and nobility) and Margaret de Crauford (the daughter of Sir Reginald de Crauford, the Sheriff of Ayr).   Over the years the name became anglicised to Crawford.
           

It gives an even deeper level of joy and contentment to the times we spend within its walls, knowing so much of its origins and understanding a little more of those who lived here in such different, and often very difficult times. 

 

This photo, which is part of the Hocken Collection at Otago University, shows the cottage before the veranda
was added - circa 1916.





Musing on Winter...

I think you either love it or hate it... Winter.  I love it in parts.  Mostly love but sometimes I wish it was warmer in the evenings when it's too hard to light and keep an eye on the open fire in the other (further away) lounge and I'm busy trying to multi task - cooking my dinner, showering, drying hair etc.  It's the downside to living alone.  On the weekends when Dave is here, its a different matter - and nothing is nicer than curling up by the fire with a glass of red.... I love crisp sunny days when I can dry the washing outside but I hate dull, grey ones where the laundry hangs limply day after day before I am resigned to throwing it in the dryer.

In winter the green finches arrive... I never see these dear little birds normally and its such a delight to sit watching them outside my kitchen window as they bob about so merrily looking for seeds.  They come for my grape seeds - swept as whole fruit from my terrace in autumn, but I have started throwing out wild bird seed mix so that they may stay longer.  They hop around with their bright red legs, much the hoppiest birds I know in fact.... and spar with each other and the sparrows - they are so full of personality.... I  love them.

Trying to live a simple life without too much processed food lends itself to winter too... so much more appealing to cook soups and casseroles from scratch and throw the odd roast into the oven.  I have been baking all my bread for months now - having found a super simple recipe for Irish Soda Bread (no yeast) that I have adapted till it is literally perfect... from start to table in under 3/4 hr with so little fuss it should be illegal...   magnificent warm with butter, and toasts just beautifully too.  I make biscuits sometimes having become disillusioned with store bought ones always being too sweet and sickly - not to mention the additives.  I add 85% cocoa chocolate chips, cranberries, pecans, pistachios, spice - whatever takes my fancy.

Earlier in the year we started making our own cheeses - I gave Dave a voucher for a course for Christmas and we went for an all day course together in March.... we went and bought all the gear - which like anything - some is essential for a good result.  When our family business used to sell wine and beer making gear I remember the folk that improvised or just didn't bother with airlocks and hydrometers  etc and I also remember how bad their wines were...  Cheese making, like wine making, is essentially a science, and then a craft... get the technical side sorted and then you can play around with rind washes and combinations of cultures/moulds etc... walk before you run!  We have made some gorgeous cheeses and will continue to expand our repertoire as time goes on.  Our  Camembert is just soooo good, we have friends clamouring for it!  But when a cheese takes 6 weeks to make one is loath to gift it!  I have a tub of cream cheese in my fridge permanently now as it is just so easy to make and so much nicer than shop stuff.  Yum...

The Foxes Visit Dunedin

Now that we had the cottage all straight it was time to let Ma & Pa Fox see it.... so we all piled on the plane in Auckland and arrived at Dunedin airport bright and early one April morning.   Except it wasn't all that bright.... more, well, soggy and cold.

The Foxes by the Robbie Burns statue
at the Octagon

As they hail from the Borders it was wonderful for them to experience NZ's own little piece of Bonny Scotland...

St Paul's Cathedral

The Law Courts
 

The Foxes and the Railway Station

Main Road to Port

We had a fun morning exploring the heritage buildings in the city centre before heading out to Port Chalmers to have lunch at the pub I'd read about... it was a lovely lunch and well worth it.



Bert is ready for lunch

I  love fishing ports
 

 

The next day was drop dead gorgeous so we headed up into Central Otago, stopping at the lovely Speargrass Inn, which dates from 1871, for lunch, before carrying on to explore Mitchell's Cottage high on the hills overlooking the Fruitlands.

 

 

Then it was off to Foxglove... all my passengers went to sleep so they missed the scenery but they loved the cottage when they arrived. 



Speargrass Inn, Fruitlands

 

 

 The view from the cottage is gorgeous, we were lucky to have struck it on such a clear day...

 

Ma got all teary eyed when she found some holly with berries on it...

 

All in all it was a good few days, Ma managed to attend the service at St Patricks in Lawrence on Sunday morning!

Ma & the Holly Bush



David & Bert explore

Mitchell's Cottage, Fruitlands

The Transformation of Foxglove Cottage

 

We took possession of our cottage on my birthday, March 9, 2012 and went down there the following weekend to start work.  All we planned to do was strip out the gear left behind and get rid of the kitchen that the previous owner had started installing - as it was not up to much...

 

 

Having hired a van we visited Bunnings in Dunedin and spent up large on tools, ladder, bits and pieces of necessities and a couple of items of furniture from Trade Me.  We found a dining table and a bookcase and coffee table that eventually transpired to be much too big... be had it cut down so that it ended up just perfect!

 

Very fortuitously, the real estate agents husband was a cabinet maker and furniture maker... meaning he possessed a lot of building and handyman skills too... we set about involving him in our wee project.. 

 

 Which was just as well, as there was more to do than first it seemed... like rip out the kitchen floor and the rotten joists below and do a bit of work to replace the lot with concrete....

 In the bathroom we also had to remove the awful shower fittings and seratone wet area that was so not sealed properly...  In May we came down again, with an even bigger van and more second hand furniture fetched from Dunedin.  Meanwhile back in Auckland we were also filling David's garage with a few bits of furniture and a heck of a lot of kitchen gear, decor items, paintings etc which we decided to ship down once we had got it all together and once the floor coverings were down....  It was just as well that the wee wood burner was functional because it was rather cold...

 

 We also visited Harvey Norman and picked up our kitchen appliances - fridge, ceramic hob, range hood, under bench oven and front loading washer.  We swung by and picked up a nice leather sofa we had bought on Trade Me.. oh, and 4 rather lovely dining chairs upholstered in Cath Kidston oil cloth, and a few other bits of furniture...

lucky it was a BIG van.  We used every inch of space.... really!

 

In June the vinyl in the bathroom and kitchen went down... that was very exciting!  And even more exciting - our bathroom package arrived from Auckland and the plumbers installed our bathroom - yay!  We had a tap at last inside - and we no longer needed to get water from the standpipe in the garden for a cuppa.  We loved the bathroom.....  although we had only seen it in photos until we visited in July...

The flooring throughout the rest of the house was stabilised with an overlay of ply in August and then the carpet went down too.... The gas fitters installed our LPG station for the hot water heating and we had the bottles delivered... and we ate lots of fish and chips in front of the fire!
 

 

 

In September we were down again for another visit and we saw our carpet for the first time... and the kitchen was beginning to take shape, which was Beyond Exciting...  and we were able to assemble our bed.  There was time to try out the sofa and relax, even!  We popped up to Alexandra and collected our new bikes...

 

And there was still time for

Fish and Chips...

Come November and were back again - eagerly anticipating the delivery of our shipment of goods from Auckland this time.... A very special visit as we were no longer staying in the Jafas Motel... we were sleeping under our very own roof! The kitchen was finished, our mattress had been delivered... oh so exciting to make the bed for the first time!  The garden was an absolute picture with the lilac flowering profusely as well as all the roses.

The big event of course was the arrival (a day late!) of our gear from up north... unpacking was just like Christmas... only better.

 

We unpacked all the little touches like rugs, throws and books... and set about decorating.... well, I did.  David chopped some wood...

 

We even had time to hang our curtains!

 

The sparky had been busy and had put in loads of power points, and sorted out some dodgy wiring, fitting new circuit breakers to the fuse board, and installed an extractor fan, heated towel rail and fan heater in the bathroom... and were able to take our first shower... bliss... and the joy of discovering we had amazing water  pressure.... fantastic!

 

We simply hated having to leave... 

 

 

In December we were back for our first holiday - 10 days!  We had time to finish decorating, as well as enjoy New Years Eve celebrations with our new friends, Graham and Jill, Jennie and others at Anthem House even though we were still feeling the cold, despite it now being summer.  We tore ourselves away for a couple of days touring the Catlins, an area of outstanding natural beauty and prolific wildlife.  We saw seals, hectors dolphins, yellow eyed penguins and a few angry sea lions!

 

 

We stayed at Porpoise Bay right on the waterfront and were treated to a rather worrying sea lion attack on some surfers....

 

and a splendid display in the early morning by the amazing Hector's Dolphins as the surfed the breakers for over an hour... magic.  We had a great dinner out at the Niagra Falls Cafe, and saw some beautiful sights - the Nuggets, the Purakaunui and McLean waterfalls, the lighthouses at Nugget Point, Waipapa Point and at Bluff - we hated Bluff by the way!  "What's the best thing about Bluff?  Seeing it in the rear

view mirror..."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We carried on to Invercargill and visited a few shops, buying a barbecue and some outdoor furniture... before heading "home" to Foxglove.  For an overnight trip we packed a lot in... 

Back in Lawrence we spent an enjoyable time foraying into Central Otago to Roxburgh to buy cherries, apricots and raspberries, we rode our bikes and went for walks.  The evenings are superbly long in the   south, it doesn't get dark till nearly 11pm in summer.  We certainly made the most of it.  We loved reading by the fire (yep, even in summer!) and drinking wine in the garden by the lilac tree...

 

 

 

We are very social when we are down at the cottage, being right in the village we can see the world go by and have met lots of people including the descendant of the original owner, a meeting I will blog about another time.  Lots of people drop in and we get lots of invites to dinner and drinks, in fact we soon realised we were to need more dining chairs - we kept having to get the directors chairs from the outdoor set round the dining table...

 

 

Not long after we had to leave in the second week of January, Malcolm and family came to put up the garden shed we ordered... somewhere to store our firewood, garden tools and the bikes.  She's a whopper of a shed at 3 metres by 3 metres.  Around the same time, the talented Graham was busy designing and handcrafting the french doors from cedar that replaced the ugly aluminium ones so we had an eventful trip back down again in February when we were able to see both new additions and very promptly filled the shed with the stack of wood that had been delivered a few days beforehand...

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sparky had been in our absence again and fitted the chandelier pendant above the table and installed the reading lights over the bed..

 

 

 

 

  

 Also my Valentines Day

 gift to David had arrived...
 

                           ...River's Reach by Diana Adams

   

Gradually we got it all sorted and by the end of our visit the following February - a year later... it was pretty much finished. 

We still have to paint the outside, we've experimented with test pots and chosen our colours...

We bought two more dining chairs....

Sent to England to have a plaque made for the front...

and bought a really cool old garden seat at a local garage sale for the front porch...

We've seen all the seasons, seen snow falling, watched spring burst... something we don't experience in the North...

And now its just about a few little jobs each visit and a whole lot of relaxing!

We still have the odd feed of fish and chips...

... but we much prefer to put a leg of merino lamb in our oven to slow roast.

 Here's to the good life!