The Baynhams

Today we had our 6 monthly dental check up at 8.30am. Having rushed around to get 3 kids to the dentist: dressed, fed and with minty fresh breath we decided to make the most of the morning and went on a drive into the mountains looking for a blueberry farm we have been to over the last few years. They don't advertise themselves widely. They are a family who supply to many of the restaurants in the Newcastle area but if you ring ahead they sometimes let members of the public "pick-your-own"

We had company today in the form of Karen (a friend who likes to leave wickedly sarcastic comments on this blog from time to time) and Karen's two daughters Amber and Kayla. These girls are slender and smooth skinned with long blonde hair and butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth faces. Do not be fooled. They are wild and feisty and will break many poor boys hearts in the future (while causing their Dad Simon many a grey hair in the process)

Anyway, I am wandering, back to the story...

Yesterday was a scorcher. Still 42 degrees centigrade at 6 O'Clock in the evening (That's almost 108 if you are an American reader!) Today was cooler, only 22 degrees. How can the temperature drop by 20 degrees overnight? The last few years we have picked blueberries on hot humid summer days. We have worn thick layers of sunscreen and hats and glasses. We have been eaten by mozzies and Sian even got chomped by a leach. This year we had our hats, we had our sunscreen, we had our mozzie spray, we had our cold bottles of water, we had our bottle of salt (for the leaches) We couldn't have been more prepared.

It rained

It rained heavily

It rained like someone had let Gods bath overflow and we were directly underneath it.

We got totally, utterly, absolutely soaked to the undies. And that was before the man had unlocked the gate to the blueberry enclosure. It was great fun! We picked and picked the biggest juiciest blueberries until we had 6 overflowing buckets. At one point I had more in my bucket than Kayla (remember innocent little Kayla...?!) She sweetly asked to see how many berries I had in my bucket. I bent down and leaned my bucket close to her so she could see inside and with one deft move she tipped it downwards so that half my berries tumbled down and into hers...! Are you starting to understand me? Grey hairs, lots of them...

After an hour we were shivering and our fingers were wrinkled like kids that had stayed in the bath too long. We had laughed and laughed and finally we went back to the farm house veranda and handed in our buckets to be weighed. We walked away with over 6 kilos of Blueberries between us.


We headed home wet and happy and left a trail of dripping clothes abandoned through the hallway as we ran to get first turn in the warm shower. Something tells me that we will be eating blueberries with every meal over the coming days. Blueberry pies, Blueberry muffins, Blueberry pikelets, Blueberry smoothies... Yum!


Now before I sign off I need to pre-warn you about Karen. She has often been on days out that I have blogged about afterwards. She has the nerve to say that I sometimes exaggerate the days events. She seems to think there is an element of storytelling in my writing and that sometimes the details are livened up a little to make the day sound better. She goes so far to say that when she reads my blog she knows in her head that she should take the story with a pinch of salt.

If I say the waves were 2 meters high she knows there was a gentle swell.

If I say we climbed a sheer rock face she knows we went for a stroll up a grassy hill.

If I say we were attacked by hoards of angry bull ants she knows that one or two little ants scuttled across our picnic rug.

If I say I got soaked to the undies....





.....She takes a photo!