Respite.

On Monday the school holidays will finally be over and I will have three children at full time school.....and only three years to wait until all four are ensconced. Last weekend,
when my husband had totally lost sight of me under the deluge of children and activities we took matters into our own hands and unceremoniously ditched all of the children with my mum (thanks mum) and escaped for 24 hours.

Our ultimate destination was Quamby Estate, in the countryside 20 minutes outside Launceston:

Of course we had to have lunch en route.....I dressed up in this Collette Dinnigan number which I bought in Melbourne almost two years ago and accessorised it with every pink bead that I have in my wardrobe.....some of which had to be restrung by my daughter in the car on the long drive up north:

At the Joseph Chromy Restaurant we had lunch overlooking the vines:

Which on closer inspection looked remarkably like the paddocks which made up the long and arduous cross country course from my schooldays.....this was momentarily off-putting as I was a notoriously bad runner back then.....so bad that people who knew me at school have difficulty reconciling how two of my children could possibly have represented their schools.....in cross country.

The food was quite good though:

And it was buzzing with people....coincidentally there were old school friends having lunch at another table.....and they may have almost consumed a bottle of bubbly each by the time we finished up.

Look how nice Quamby Estate was:

Oh the utter luxury of having people bring you food and drinks when you ask for them from the comfort of a sofa.....usually it's me who has to get up and go and rustle something up. I loved every minute of our stay at Quamby and momentarily fantasised about what it would be like to live there. Then it was time to drop back down through the portal into everyday reality and rescue mum from the children.

The effects of this relaxing 24 hour respite may have been somewhat negated when my husband promptly left me at a friend's farm for two days......with our combined seven children to look after.

Not long until Monday now.

Rx