A Weekend in the Country

We just spent the weekend at the (holiday) vineyard of some friends, up in the Hunter Valley. It was exactly my preferred type of weekend - much cooking and eating, lovely wine, a log fire on Sunday night (even though it wasn't really cold enough to justify it), walks, reading, happy children (they have three), even a happy teenager (mine) ... I think the offspring are mainly happy as they're now both on holidays for a couple of weeks.

Now I'm a day behind on my magazine deadlines, but since the publisher always pays me late, I'm refusing to care.

And this coming weekend I'm running away again, driving five hours north to visit a good friend who abandoned me and moved to the country (she used to be my neighbour). We plan to make marmalade and quince paste and gossip and plan her garden and play with her baby (9 months old) and cook hearty roasts and eat too much ... I might even motivate myself enough to take up my knitting needles.

It seems that my preferred activities would be more suited to a wardrobe of tweed and wellies, whereas what I really really want (thank goodness my size is already sold out on NAP) is this: