Where I live: Dalmeny Surf Beach

Where I live: Sunrise

Golf Course

Surf Beach

Where I Live: View From the Breakfast Table

It looks a bit surreal but I promise this is 100% as taken

 (cropped for web but no editing)

the camera is struggling with lower lighting conditions and a very fast moving target (next frame I took the bird wasn't in it) giving it that superimposed look

Banneton Wholegrain Spelt loaf

I did it.  I gave into my bread vanity and bought a banneton.
 
 I have been quietly coveting one for over 2 years now.  I was making do with plastic baskets and cotton cleaning cloths, which do an amazingly awesome job (not quite as pretty and the loaf size is really just a little too small)  for a total investment of $4 but generally making humungo loaves in my metal bread loaf tins.  The problem with humungo loaves is it often takes us over a fortnight to get through one (sourdough keeps but this is a little excessive an expectation even of that).  Thus I tended to make a loaf and once cool immediately cut and freeze.

It worked.  The challenge being of course is existing as an on the fly single mumma who on most days has her organisational braincells, and honestly I didn't have a lot of those to spare to start with, scattered to the wind by 9 am meant defrosting aint an option.  In my case, at least, there are only so many toasted sandwiches I can stand in any given week thus I gave in and bought the 800g banneton. 

Some love to decorate their homes with flowers to wrap visitors in welcome.  I would love it if every guest was enveloped in the sensations of a fresh loaf just coming out of the oven .  As that just isn't going to happen in my lifetime, being able to present beautiful bread to those in hunger is a balm to my soul.

There is likely to be much tinkering with this loaf as I get more used to the needs of the banneton but overall this produced a loaf that I would be proud to share on any table.

Banneton Wholegrain Spelt (1 loaf)

200g starter (I mantain my starter at 1:1 by weight, flour component aprox 50% white + 50% whole grain)
250g White Spelt
200g Wholegrain Spelt
250g Water
 6g Salt

Where I live: Eurobodalla National Park

- Scrub bordering the estuary between Handkerchief Beach and Wagonga Lake -

Nothing Will Ever Be the Same

Life viewed in retrospect can seem to present itself in one long path.  Sure the path's not straight.  We all make significant decisions that alter our direction, either temporarily or permanently but there is a consistency.  A flow that means that traveling it back it gives the feeling of  traveling a corner not a break. 

Then something monumental comes along and in a heartbeat our path moves; no controlled corners this round.  Life just stops dead in that second,  jumps sideways, then keeps going as if nothing special occurred. 

Depending where your head and heart were at in that second you don't even consciously accept the shift until it all crashes down around your feet.  The thing is, something did happen.  Deep within yourself you find a fundamental shift occurred and it's being expressed, within your life, within your being.  All you can do after you realise is clear away the rubble and find a way to be ok.  To travel at peace with the fact that nothing will ever be the same again.  To recognise you are no longer the person you thought you were and find a new normal.

You are both less and more than you were and now as you look through your life with new eyes you have a choice.   You can choose to see only the muck or heal searching for the the jewels.

Finding Focus

- View from the breakfast table -

 I may have neighbours who play music so that it sounds like it's originating in my living room but life can only be so tough when this is part of the vista from the back deck