Winter by the beach

Just got back from a wonderful week away at Rosebud.

Rosebud, what a beautifully evocative name for this special place on the bay side of the Mornington Peninsula. It's named after a ship that was shipwrecked off the coast there, many, many years ago.

I'd say the defining feature of our time away at Rosebud is always sleeping in and lazy mornings in pyjamas until noon, when we finally emerge from the house and go looking for things to do. In Summer, it's almost always the beach, whereas in Winter, we have to get a bit more inventive.

It was a rainy week, this time, and we had one outing to the Ashcombe Maze, but it turned rather dark, rainy and cold while we were there. We explored the place, found all the fairies and almost all the gnomes, but it wasn't as pleasant as it could have been on a fine day. The man-made landscapes there are quite breathtaking.

I always, always take my laptop and write late into the night, or catch up on reading that I have less time for at home. Sometimes I take a notebook to the beach so I can write down ideas that come to me. Supervising children playing on sand, or swimming (in the warmer months) does lead to a lot of pondering, and from that can spring some gems of ideas, which have to be captured before they vaporise.