The Cafe Life

The latte lifestyle has certainly come to Beechworth – at last count there were over 10 places to buy a coffee. But the best one is definitely “The Larder” owned by our friend Georgie – an old school friend of Jane’s who moved here about 5 years ago. Make sure you visit when you’re up here.

Every weekend the streets are bustling with out-of-town baby boomers in search of the weekend paper and a good coffee. The beautifully preserved main street of Beechworth is full of gift and fashion shops which thrive off the weekend tourers. Apparently less than 15 years ago many of the shop fronts were boarded up and unoccupied.

Tom O’Toole’s famous Beechworth Bakery has led the retail resurgence while adding centimetres onto the waistlines of locals and tourists alike. It’s not the “done thing” to praise the Beechworth Bakery – many of the local commentators think it’s a bit passé – but they should think themselves lucky Mr O’Toole chose Beechworth to plonk his bakery.

Love from the Eclairs and Boston Buns

Rain and more rain

After 10 years of Melbourne drought it's nice to land in a spot with lots of rain, heaps of water and only very occasional water restrictions. Over the last week we've had some good examples of heavy Beechworth rains lasting for over 48 hours and over 50mm. Great for the new garden. Love from The Garden Gnomes

We've moved in

We’ve moved into the new house at 3 Jardine Street, Beechworth and it’s been a frenzy of activity since then. The first week we camped in the new house – felt very strange and empty – thank god for the open fires which added some warmth to the beautiful old empty house.

But it was the calm before the storm – then the trucks arrived from Melbourne with our stuff. Jeez we have a lot of stuff! After a few months without all the accoutrements of modern life you realise how little you actually need to live comfortably. It’s been nice to say hello again to a few well worn and trusted items but mostly it’s been dreary hours of unpacking items that we probably don’t need.

Lots of great work on the house and garden – Jude and Clyde stayed for a few days (our first official visitors) and transformed the front garden. After 20-30 years of neglect, 2 days of hard work and 2 large trailer loads of rubbish the front cottage garden has been restored. What a transformation.

The kids loved having Grandma Jude and Pa Clyde to stay and it was sad farewell when they left. Love from us all