Hold the front page, the sun is out

It's just after 7.20am in the morning here in Evershot and thanks to Phil leaving the curtain ajar in our twin room I've been awake for over an hour already, woken by a brilliant shaft of rarely glimpsed English sunshine. If I were the praying sort, I'd be offering up a quick request that the golden orb in the sky should prevail today and as in my daughter's favourite nursery rhyme (Itzy-Bitzy Spider) dry up all the rain so that me, Phil and Itzy can venture out in search of Tom Hardy today.

Is there such a thing as a sun dance I wonder and what does it involve? Germans running around naked depositing towels on sun-loungers by the pool?

The Acorn Inn is an absolute delight. One of those old English country pubs that not only has bags of atmosphere but also serves excellent food, is full of good cheer as well as beer and even has a long thin games room featuring a dart board, a pool table and get this, an ancient traditional skittle alley. It's like ten-pin bowling without the silly shoes and seems like a fiercely enjoyable game to play among friends while you're having a pint of Dawrset's finest ale. Phil, whose antecedents hail from Belgium is not only naturally good at drinking beer but seems like a dab hand at the old game and so he beat me three times in a row at skittles. The other good thing about the game is that it's actually the most active pub game I've ever played, what with having to set up the nine skittles at the end of the alley every time they've been knocked down. So you can eat and drink in all good conscience knowing that you'll only be putting on 8 kilos instead of 10 on an average night at the Acorn.

No sign of Phil stirring enough to make us a cup of cha so it looks like it'll be down to me. More from the (weather) front later.

DADDY T

Winter sunshine

There's pretty much nothing I like better than warm winter sunshine. We've woken today to a beautiful day at Pacific Palms and I've already sat out on the veranda writing in just a T-shirt, while Mila wheeled around me on her trike. It feels like we're coming to the end of a long, wet winter. Hooray! I'm sure there'll be a bit more cold to endure but hey I can sniff spring just around the corner.

It's crazy that weather can have such an effect on one's moods but it certainly does. In fact, one local I knew had to move north from here as she had seasonally-affected depression and this area has generally excellent weather so it must have been bad. Anyhow, before I betray my English roots by making this blog all about the weather, I'll move on.

I've had a busy and productive week of writing and blogging on "Our Patch" - www.ourpatch.com.au. I'm enjoying coming up with a different subject every day and throwing it out there. Blogging is never going to be great literature, it's more akin to the opinion pieces in the newspaper I reckon, but hopefully some of what I write will be food for thought for somebody.

One of the great things about travel writing is not just visiting a whole variety of countries and areas but revisiting them in your head. Over the last week it's been Vanuatu and Montreal and now I am onto Pacific Palms where I live and Woolgoolga, while at the same time planning my next trip with the Canadian Tourism Commission to the Arctic and Toronto. In the meantime, we're also dreaming up a three month stint in Europe next year over our winter. That's another great thing about the job, that I can base myself anywhere - my colleague and fellow blogger Louise Goldsbury is currently spending the summer in New York, lucky thing.

In our case, after the two girls have played pass the parcel with winter colds and flu for the past three months, we're intent on getting out of here during the chilly months! I'll try to line up work in the UK, where I am hoping to visit the Norfolk broads for the first time, Italy, France and Spain. And top of my list is Denmark, a place I've never visited but always wanted to. When I didn't have kids and my Mum was still alive, living in London, I was able to spend every winter over in Europe and it did make for a pretty sweet life of near perpetual summer.

But then again, variety is the spice of life, and having grown up in a country where it's cold and rainy for eight or more months a year, I know that I really appreciate it when spring and summer arrive. Plus there's a lot to love about the other, cooler seasons too. And when it's dry and clear in this area in the winter and there's nobody about on any of our beaches, it's one of the world's most beautiful places.