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A is for apple pie

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Not far from the town that loves trout is another town called Thornton.  A harsh sounding name for a small and gentle town siding up alongside the Goulburn river with a population that could easily be counted.  Having a town named Thornton could lead the imagination into viking territory with antler helmuts and swinging swords tearing through the town in search of...bread.  And they would be pleased with their ransackings if it went no further than a converted school house come bakery.  Local bakeries that are true bakers are heading into the history books at a rapid rate.  The commercially prepared pre-baked and heated offerings that crumble into dust as soon as you bite into them don't come anywhere near a good homebaked version.  With food manufacturers more interested in fast raising profits than slow rise bread dough commercial versions are not a substitute for the real thing.  Good quality bread requires skill, time and some form of magic as anyone who has delivered a high ti
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The great caravan resting place

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Holiday parks are often the places that old caravans come to well, not....die exactly, just be repurposed.  They get deposited on a numbered site and become the foundations of an onsite cabin.  Their wheels are either removed or just find a resting place in the dirt as their undercarriage is hidden behind trellised timber.  The going no-where caravan beings its new life with some serious wall removing surgery to reveal open kitchen and bedroom with soon to be added extension to allow a cabin like living space without the need to eat of your converted table slash bed from its former life.  The caravans in the holiday parks could tell a tale of travel with still attached number plates and faded stickers seen through cafe curtained windows from a youthful past somewhere depicting pineapples and wooden skis.   Historic kitchen grills and vintage ovens have no place or electrical certainty in today's outdoor grilling zones although we're not quite in that category.  We settle for th
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The Good Lounge

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Some of us remember the good lounge.  This was usually kept in the good room.  The front room.  The room reserved for guests.  This comes to mind in our little indoor outdoor cabin area stuffed full of outdoor plants and unwanted furniture.  The brown lacquer is peeling from the arms and the cushions remember fondue parties but nothing holds a melting mozzarella ball to this lounge when it comes to comfort.  Good rooms began to disappear with most things that were kept for best.  Good dinner sets, good ties and the round wooden serving platter with a handle and wooden ball in the centre to secure your cocktail onion loaded toothpicks.  We don't really keep things for formal occasions because they rarely exist now.  The neighbours are unknown to us let alone strategically placing them in our formal lounge.  The formal lounge was lost to the media room and the over the fence neighborly chat was eliminated with escape proof prison high colorbond fencing.  Now neighbours disappear behi
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Meet Cheddar

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Meet Cheddar.  He's a King Parrot. I'm not sure if the title King Parrot reflects their standing in the bird pecking order or more just a taste for the finer things.  Cheddar so named, was given this title having been found standing on a cheese knife placed across a cheese platter in our outdoor undercover living area.  In his claw was a large piece of cheddar.  I sat down in front of him and he acknowledged me with a minor squawk to inquire vintage or not.  He was quite comfortable between the pate and smoked salmon.  He's now a regular.  And so are his kids.  One morning baby Cheddar sat in the tree outside our front door calling - for a cheese platter I guess.  They make a sound like a rusty spring mattress.  Not fantastic at 6am but he was hungry.  Cheddar had put his order in at the all day fly through bird feeder on our verandah and was chowing down like someone in a hotdog eating competition.  Then he flew up to the trees, sat next to junior and began stroking his ow
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No trout required

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Similar to flying the Royal Standard, Sam the toucan indicates we're in residence.  A mascot of the famous Irish beverage Sam sits atop the bar to view the world and join in the morning coffee ritual.  Our place at the Pondage provides an endless thoroughfare for the local feathered friends.  Sam didn't put them off at all.  They still come by the bus loads.  The cooler mornings offer a film of fog across the pondage that burns off by lunchtime to acknowledge the rising and falling water levels of the controlled Eildon dam, about six times the size of Sydney harbour.  Needless to say fishing is the foremost thing on most people's mind in this town.  Similar to a one track mind, this town devotes its thinking to one fish only - the trout.  You wouldn't guess it on the way in past the Trout Motel, gearing up for the trout fishing championships and the statue of the trout fisherman in the town centre.  The Trout Disco in the early 1980's was the place to be - or so I&#
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