The last minute Christmas rush

Now I know that there are not many people who have their Christmas shopping completed, wrapped and under the tree before Christmas Eve.  The last minute rush is almost traditional for some.  I remember occasionally being kicked out of shopping malls at 9 o'clock on Christmas Eve as the worn out staff tried not to lose their cool in their effort to get rid of the annoying last minute shoppers.  The roller doors came down and the big burly security guard stood stoic and grim, shaking his head at pathetic protests of desperation.  He did not look at all like a jolly Santa.  But there was that dreadful sinking feeling that the shops were shutting one after another and there were still presents not yet bought.  Someone in the family was going to miss out on Christmas Day.  Oh the nightmare of Christmas.

It's not supposed to be like that.  Maggie Beer has a new Christmas recipe book out and Nigella Lawson, Jamie Oliver and all the other TV cooks make Christmas look perfectly magical.  The preparation of food and the consumption of the feast with family and friends is supposed to be joyous and infinitely easy.  Or so we are told.  I don't think anyone of us mere mortals really believe that, now do we?  The preparation of a hot cooked meal for a host of relatives is no easy feat.  It is successfully done in many kitchens in many houses all over the world but it is certainly not easy.  And in countries like New Zealand and Australia, it is a stiflingly hot task.

I am fond of the memory of the first Christmas I spent in Australia.  It was just Roger and I.  We took a picnic basket of crackers, cheese, grapes, chocolate and a bottle of wine to the Botanic Gardens in Melbourne and sat under a tree each with a book to read.  We spent the afternoon in quite pursuit of Peace on Earth.  Now that was magical to me.  In the past the lead up to Christmas, throughout my library career, was usually full of stressed customers and the pressure of booking in leave three months in advance or missing out.  I often had no idea in September what I wanted to do at Christmas so invariably I would agree to work through and let other staff take holidays.  And every year, come the first week of January when everyone else looked rested and relaxed from their holidays, I would regret the decision.

So this year I have some advice on how to beat the end of year stress and the last minute Christmas panic.  Here it is.

Take your break now and go on a mini holiday in the last couple of weeks before Christmas.  Don't wait till after when you are already too stressed to wind down.  Avoid the shopping malls with their endless earworm Christmas music.  You will never get it out of your head.  Do your shopping in small towns rather than big cities.  There is less stress and less hype to distract and pressure you into buying in panic.  In fact, come to Lockhart.

This Friday night the town is having late night opening and a street festival to get the community out enjoying the season together.  And if you are still looking for gifts at that point, then there are a number of opportunities in Green Street to find something that you are unlikely to get elsewhere (certainly not at the price).  The Blue Bird has good books and unique handmade retro crafts for sale and the other shops, Heaven in Rags, Intuition, Ginge and Fluffs are all places that offers something quite different and special in a world full of mass produced and chain stores.  There is a relaxed atmosphere in Lockhart this Christmas, come and catch the bug.

The Taste of Summer

Last week The Blue Bird Cafe launched the new summer dine-in lunch menu.  We now serve our most popular pizza during the day all week...the Hawaiian.  As well as a home-made baked pasta like lasagna or spinach and ricotta cannelloni.  The spinach is grown in our own garden free from chemicals.  We use our own Napoli sauce and as many local ingredients as possible.  Or there's omelette - vegetarian or ham which has been going down well in this hot weather as they are light and airy.  Our nod to the classic mixed grill is still a work in progress as we work out a way to present a grill within the limits of our kitchen facilities.  We do have a tasty chicken schnitzel which has lots of flavour and is served with sweet potato (kumara to the Kiwis) wedges, corn and a herb gravy.  And last but not least we are serving the classic fish and chips dish with a tempura battered NZ hoki fillet, beer-battered chips and a crisp salad.  It's starting to sound like a real restaurant menu at last!

But best of all is the new dessert range.  How long has it been since you last had a banana split or an ice cream sundae served at a real milk bar.  Well, wait with longing no longer because you can do just that at The Blue Bird of Lockhart.  And we are making our own toppings...raspberry, real caramel and real chocolate sauces plus the Blue Bird Special Sundae with our own fresh made blueberry topping, whipped cream, and blue heaven sprinkles.  Oh, and don't forget the cherry on top!

It's the Simple Things that Make all the Difference

Let me share with you one of the heart-warming encounters that has brightened our days of late.  Since the Spirit of the Land Festival we have had scoop ice creams as part of our traditional milk bar offerings.  Selling ice cream sounds like a pretty cool way to make a living.  I mean, rows of brightly coloured flavours, sweet, cold and creamy, what could be better.  It's like being the Candy Man really and ice cream never goes out of style, not with big kids and not with little kids.  But it also comes with a degree of stress.

For instance, about this time last year we received our first delivery of ice creams.  The intention was to sell ice cream alongside the drinks fridge we had recently parked in the doorway of the shop.  Just remembering back to our first form of revenue, a mere year ago, reminds me of how far we have come in twelve months.  I remember too, the constant stream of customers, frustrated puzzlement crossing their faces as they realised that they were blocked by a tall fridge and would only get inches into the cafe.  "Do you do hot chips?"  They asked peering around the fridge into the construction site that had once been a cafe.  There was no floor, the walls were only half plastered, tools and paint pots were scattered everywhere.  "No, sorry we are under restoration."  "Oh, okay.  How about a spring roll then?"  Yes, truly that was a genuine question that made us laugh.

But I digress.  I started to say that selling ice creams had its stresses.  That first day, in 30-something heat and high humidity, we took receipt of a freezer full of ice creams and felt optimistically that all our cash flow troubles would be over now that we could trade a bit.  That afternoon was stormy but the break in the sultry weather held off until the evening when lightning lit the sky and unbelievably cut the power.  An ice cream freezer newly stocked was melting fast and we were plunged into despair.  See, the stresses of ice cream.  That episode did have a happy ending by the way.

However, ice cream brings joy to many people and it has truly been a pleasure these past few weeks to be the Mr Whippy of Lockhart.  And here finally, is the heart-warming story.

About two weeks ago an older gentleman came into the shop.  He pointed to his wife sitting in a wheelchair outside and said that she would like to have an ice cream.  "What flavour?" I asked and added.  "Would you like to bring the chair inside so she can choose?"  He shook his head, they were out for their walk and weren't stopping.  He pointed to the Hokey Pokey tub.  "That one will be fine.  Just a single scoop will be enough."  As he left he said: "See you tomorrow."  I watched him take the cone out and hand it to her.  They continued on their way and his wife happily licked her ice cream.  He has been in every few days ever since and it's always the same.  A small cone of vanilla ice cream, not too big, her heart is content with just the simple pleasure of a wee taste of ice cream.  I am afraid that I haven't learned their names yet but my day is always brightened meeting the needs of this lovely couple.  And it seems to me that a life where satisfaction comes as a small scoop of vanilla ice cream in a cone, like when you were a kid, is the best one to have.

Prize-Winning Tomato Sauce

In October The Blue Bird entered some of our secret recipes in The Rock Show.  Roger entered his own creation called "Cumin-side there are oranges in here Tomato Sauce" and took out not only First Prize but Champion in the Men's Section.  It was his first attempt not only at the sauce but also at competing in a show and he was tickled that he did so well.  We are now considering bottling our prize-winning sauce and selling it in our shop.  So watch this space for the chance to sample some.

I entered my Hummingbird cake in the Ladies Cake Section.  It competed alongside a number of cakes of all varieties and won Second Prize (the competition was strong).  As it is the first time I have entered a local show, I was proud of my achievement.  And the prestige has opened all sorts of future possibilities for products available at The Blue Bird.

Gluten Free Lockhart

Do you eat gluten-free?  The Blue Bird Cafe has been offering our customers gluten-free options for a while now in our own handmade pizza bases and sandwiches.  The response we have has inspired us to expand our menu for those on special diets.  That means that we need you to help us create fantastic and tempting dishes.  We are inviting the gluten-free, dairy-free and diabetic communities to contribute your suggestion or better still a recipe that you enjoy and want us to make.  Through the Blue Bird you can share your favourite dish with other foodies in the same boat as you.  Your ideas can help make Lockhart a destination for gluten-free, diabetes and dairy-free lovers of good, fresh food.

If you have a suggestion or a recipe to contribute, please send it to: bluebirdlockhart@gmail.com.  We would love to hear from you.

NEWS FLASH!!!
We now make our own Gluten-Free bread and it has already been given the thumbs up by customers.  We are happy to make you a fresh take-home loaf on request (please give 24 hours notice as we are not making large quantities at this stage).  So come in and try one of our sandwiches made with our own bread.

From the Cafe With Love

When we bought the cafe a year ago we made contact with Peter and Barbara Veneris to learn more about The Blue Bird.  They invited us to afternoon tea and we spent a few hours picking their brains to hear stories about the cafe during their long reign.  I remember Peter's first words to me on the telephone when I introduced myself.  "Oh, we have been so worried about what would happen to the cafe", he told me.  I set his mind at rest that we had nothing but the best intentions to restore and revive The Blue Bird and continue the tradition that the Veneris and the Matis families had begun all those years ago.

That long afternoon tea turned into the first of many opportunities that Peter had for reverie about the cafe.  Once we took possession and started work on the building repairs, he began popping down to the shop whenever he remembered something important he wanted to tell us..about the original colour scheme, the dates of the alterations, the names of tradesmen he had forgotten, the old menu.  At first I was apprehensive when members of the family arrived to take a look around.  The cafe had been closed for so long and of course the first thing that we did was pull much of it apart before beginning to restore and reassemble it.  I was concerned that they might be distraught over the state of the building but as they arrived over the next few months we showed them around.  It was lovely that they saw beyond the state of disarray.  They remembered instead when they were children growing up here and later, adults returning after time away.  They instantly understood us in a way that others may not yet.  We are not from Lockhart and we did not grow up, as others did, at 'The Cafe', but we felt an instant rapport with the place from our first encounter and we have its best interests at heart.  The memories of the Veneris and Matis families are helping us piece together a jigsaw of history before our time.  It is a story that we are keen to know more about. 

Peter was an inspiration to us.  He came down to see us when he was able and was never distressed by the shambles of the reconstruction work.  He had already seen so many changes to the shop over the years.  Changes he and his brother had made, repairs, re-modelling, adaptations to keep the business alive in times of adversity and competition.  None of what we were doing phased him.  He offered us his full support.

When we opened the doors Peter and Barbara came down to the cafe as customers rather than workers.  We have had to work on getting our coffee just right for Barbara's tastes and Peter suggested that we get her to show us her technique.  Whenever he visited, we noticed that Peter was still keenly aware of the needs of the customers around him.  A habit not easily forgotten.  His eyes twinkled when the children came in for their lollies, watching with fondness the process of them counting out their small fortune and working out what they could get for their money.  One lolly from this jar, one from that one.  High finance.  He graciously shouted friends a cuppa and a piece of cake while he chatted on about the old days and he enjoyed a milkshake like he was a kid again.

Last week Peter passed away.  We were honoured to have met him and extremely grateful that we got the chance to share the cafe with him, open again for business, before he went.  We are indebted to have heard some of his stories first hand and have done our best to record them.

A tribute to Peter and Jack and the Veneris families is currently on display at the cafe.

Photograph courtesy of the National Museum of Australia exhibition "Selling an American Dream: Australia's Greek Cafe"
http://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/selling_an_american_dream_australias_greek_cafe/the_exhibition

One Year On...

Here we are at our second Spirit of the Land Festival.  We moved to Lockhart just three days before the 2012 festival and set ourselves up with scoop ice creams and slushies outside the shop.  This year's festival came around and we concluded that despite having participated last year, we still had no idea what to expect this time round.

Of course that is because this time, the cafe is open for business.  As we planned for this year's festival we reflected on how far we have come in that one year.  In December, financial necessity prompted us to open the front door with a drinks fridge and an ice cream freezer parked in the entrance.  That confused people a bit, not being able to get beyond the front door I mean, but it meant that we had a small income to keep us going while we painted and hammered and worked hard inside.

At the end of January, we started with a small menu of toasted sandwiches and seating just in the front window along the bar side of the shop.  Everything else was still barricaded off, a work in progress.  In March, we made a push to get more of the cafe ready to go on show.  We wanted to accommodate more people at the Antiques Under the Verandah weekend.  By that point we had about a third of the cafe open for seating.

Over the long, hard, slow crawl of winter, surviving our first year in business, we launched the Blue Bird Bookshop side of operations and the Blue Bird Pizzas.  The entrepreneurial spirit saw us through the winter months and prepared us for the spring season.

So now we have again made a concerted effort to, this time, open the restored milk bar for Spirit of the Land.  As a result we are pleased to have two thirds of the cafe open to customers.  At this year's Spirit festival we were able to use the bar as a milk bar again serving ice cream, milkshakes, fresh juice, spiders and coffee from behind the counter.  A new internal freezer has meant that we can use the ice cream/milk tubs as they were intended.  It has been a while since the bar has worked and as far as we know we are one of only a handful (if not the only) working milk bars left in Australia.  It is hard to imagine that once upon a time there was one in every town and now the genuine thing is an almost extinct breed.  But it was marvelous to step back in time and be a real Greek-Australian cafe again.  My huge thanks to all the helpers we had over the big weekend.  It was the teamwork, their enthusiasm and their tremendous efforts that made the weekend such an easy success and I know that they all enjoyed themselves immensely as I hope the visitors did.

So now we are recovering and settling in to the new set up, fine tuning our routine in the new look cafe.  We are looking forward to creating a new menu for summer.  So on that note, meet you at the Cafe for coffee and an ice cream...see you there soon.

Loungin' Around

Lounging around?!  What a concept!  The owners (and workers) in the Blue Bird don't have much time,, I'm sorry to say, for sofa surfing.  Wishful thinking however, has led us to convert the front window to what we hope is a comfy lounge.  Customers can kick back and relax with a coffee in one hand and a book in the other.

As you will see from the pictures (or even better, from your last visit), we have recreated everyone's childhood living room with the black and white television the focus of the room, family photos hanging on the wall (my family that is), and handmade cushions.  It is the next stage in turning back the clock on The Blue Bird and while the 'cafe lounge' is a more contemporary innovation, we wanted ours to reflect the past, your past, my past, the comfort of our collective family homes.  We want the Blue Bird Cafe to be all about the comfort of tradition and the familiarity of home.

And just to let you all know, we have not given up on the booths.  It is still the number one question we get asked.  It's begins with the comment, "you've changed the place".  Well yes, we are new people, with new ideas and things do change in life but we have great sympathy for this lovely building so we make our changes with that in the forefront of our minds.  Your question then becomes, "what happened to the booths?"  Let me reassure you that the booths were one of the things that endeared the forlorn cafe to us and inspired us to buy it.  So the answer is...of course we love the booths and intend to put them back.  It has been a long hard process to get the cafe this far and hopefully when the day arrives that we relaunch the lovely Blue Bird booths, it will have been worth the wait.  In the background, unseen, we have spent a lot of time and effort working on them to be safe for people to sit on again.  So please hang in there for as long as necessary because Rome wasn't built in a day but it is still one of the popular destinations in Europe.

That's Amore!

"When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie...that's amore".  Oh it is so true.  These days the cooking smells of fresh dough pizza drift from the Blue Bird's oven and out onto Green Street on a cold winter night.  It is the aroma of heaven if I do say so myself.  Not much compares with the smell of baking bread and as we use fresh bread dough to make our handmade pizzas, the cafe smells like a bakery on the evenings we are cooking pizzas.

We proudly make our own tomato Napoli sauce to top our bases so we know that it is fresh and made with real ingredients to our own recipe.  We make our own meatballs too that nestle on top of the cured meats on our Bavarian pizza.  And our Greek Lamb has been specially prepared for us by the local butcher and marinated to our own tastes in herbs and spices that we think evoke the flavours of Greece.  When our garden is abundant in basil, our Margherita pizza is made with our own fresh basil blended with Australian macadamias into pesto.

We aim to make the best pizzas possible because already, only a couple into our new careers as pizzeria cooks, we recognise that a pizza made with amore really is something very special.  And it shows.  The best pizza makers in Melbourne have made it their lifetime's work.  It's not just a flash in the pan job to them, they make pizzas night after night into their dotage.  They love and live for making pizza and now that we have entered the business, we have come to understand and appreciate a simple pleasure that belies the art of the pizza.  Watching the dough rise, handling it in its soft warm state, is a visceral pleasure.  There is a systematic skill to laying it out on the trays and spreading each with Napoli sauce, toppings and just the right amount of mozzarella to make melted strands of cheese without it being oily.  It is a sheer delight.

So if our customers enjoy our pizzas (and early feedback, not to mention repeat orders indicate that they do), it is because we enjoy making dinner for them.  And hopefully it shows.  After all

...That's Amore!

"So, looks like we have ourselves a reader..."

A line from the comedian Bill Hicks sums up our little joint venture of Blue Bird Cafe and Blue Bird Bookshop.  Readers visiting our town have something to tempt them at The Blue Bird in our range of quality second-hand books.  Having been a librarian for so long (one who was so passionate about encouraging the lifelong love of reading that I started seven book groups) I haven't been able to give up the books.  The original plan was to start a second-hand book shop in Melbourne but when we saw this sad and lonely, lovely Blue Bird, we decided we might be able to combine the traditional with the contemporary business of cafe bookshop.  We knew that it works in Melbourne with BookTalk in Richmond (not to mention many other cities around the world) and we figured that Lockhart needed a bookshop to boost the businesses in town.

There was a bookshop here when we arrived and so we had decided to shelve (ha, ha) our idea, but a couple of months after we started our own project, it closed down and moved elsewhere.  So, we figured, why not..we had the stock and saw no sense in leaving it in storage.  So Blue Bird Books began.  And now here is my pledge to our reading customers.

The books we stock are and always will be...quality books.  This means that they are newly published or perennial classics, in good condition, reasonably priced and hand selected by a trained professional (yes that is me).  The choice on what goes on our shelves comes down to...either I have read it myself and have recommended it to others, have discussed it in a book group or it comes on the high recommendation of a respected customer of mine in one of the libraries I used to work in.  So in other words, I can vouch for it.

So next time you are in Lockhart and The Blue Bird check out our titles.  The prices range from $10 to $4.  Here are a few of our choice picks:

When Colts Ran by Roger McDonald (2012 Miles Franklin Shortlisted)
Mr Pip by Lloyd Jones
Room by Emma Donoghue
There Should Be More Dancing by Rosalie Ham
Indelible Ink by Fiona McGregor
Dear Fatty by Dawn French
House Rules by Jodi Picoult
Father's Day by Tony Birch
The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver
Those Who Came After by Elisabeth Holdsworthy
Everything I Knew by Peter Goldsworthy
....and
Matilda is Missing by Carol Overington

Happy Reading.

Lamingtons and Oyster - Made at The Blue Bird

Although we are still operating with limited kitchen equipment (a mini oven and a two burner portable hotplate), we are proudly making a number of our own food lines in-house at The Blue Bird.  Every morning I make a batch of our own recipe sausage rolls which come out of the oven around 11.00am and are sold out most days by 1.00pm.  Word of mouth has been spreading the news about fresh made sausage rolls (not to mention the smell of cooking pastry drifting down the street) and we have a few weekly regulars coming back for seconds.  You can imagine my surprise when a visitor to town came in asking for one of our famous sausage rolls.  Famous?!  He had had them recommended by someone further down the street I guess.  I can't imagine how else they might be "famous".  World famous in Lockart?  Like L&P which is world famous in New Zealand.  The secret to the sausage rolls?  I guess it is using fresh ingredients like herbs from our own garden.

I also make some sort of sweet treat in the little oven.  Where would I be without it?  An impulse buy has become an indispensable tool already.  Today's sweet was coffee cream cake which came from my old school recipe book. An egg-less cake that never fails. It was originally chocolate but it makes a good coffee cake that is not too sweet.  I made up a silky coffee flavoured cream topping to give it that bit more of a coffee hit.  Other days I have fashioned my own version of the perennial favourite lamingtons.  The look rustic because I don't have the secret technique for coating them in coconut without making a mess but that is how you can tell they were made by hand and not a machine I guess.  Muffins are made here with lots of fruit in the Twoberry Muffins (blueberry and cherry) or Black Forest.  I tried to get fancy with writing a 'B' for Blue Bird in the top of the muffins but by the time they baked it just looked like a gooey squiggle.  Never mind.  At the weekend I often make scones for Devonshire Tea, spicy fruit or plain served with apricot or cherry jam and fresh cream.  Last week I made some old-fashioned cinnamon oysters, clipped from the back of a baking powder packet by my mother in the 1970s.  She tucked it in a recipe book but never got round to trying it out so I had to take up the mantle.

A new friend from The Rock is a keen CWA slice maker of some local repute  She has shared some of her best 'slice' recipes for future cafe use.  She assures me that the jelly slice will walk out the door in winter.  So I made lemon ginger slice (just like nan used to make someone told me when they tried it), and one that was simply called 'slice' made with sultanas and coconut.  I added my own twist of pink strawberry marshmallow topping and called it Marshmallow Chew because it sounded better than just plain 'slice'.  My friend tried my Custard Sponge Kisses sandwiched together with strawberry jam and cream and said it was like an old-fashioned powder puff, just like her mum made. Don't give away my secret recipes, she told me.  I laughed and said that one day, when we are famous, I might publish The Blue Bird Cafe, Lockhart's recipe book as a souvenir piece.

You never know which sweet treat will be under the glass dome at The Blue Bird as I try out new recipes.

Antiques and Trucks

The other week Lockhart celebrated a local festival, two events in one day.  Saturday 9th March was the Antiques Under the Verandahs and Historic Truck and Commercial Vehicles Show Day.  We worked like Trojans all night to make The Blue Bird look its best yet by opening up two thirds of the cafe and tripling the seating area.  Roger and I finally dragged ourselves off to bed at 1.30am only to have to wake up to the alarm which was set to 6.00am for an early start to the day.

We opened the doors at 7.00am and soon after, the first of the stallholders at the antique market stalls lining the street under the verandahs, came in for coffee.  From that moment until 2.00pm Roger did not raise his barista's head from the coffee machine while I served scones, jam and cream, pies, sausage rolls and a couple of old-fashioned favourite sandwich combinations, egg and lettuce and salmon, cucumber and cream cheese.  A couple of local girls were on hand to help us out for the day and I am very grateful they were.  There were a few organisational things we will get better at over time as we do more and more festivals like this one and Spirit of the Land but I think all up, we did pretty well and I hope that the visitors on the day appreciated having The Blue Bird open and trading again.  And by the next Spirit of the Land we will be old hats as we will have last year's festival under our belts and know what to expect.  It seemed appropriate though that we work as hard as we did before the Antiques day to get The Blue Bird looking as good as we could so that the visitors who have been used to coming to the iconic cafe would be able to get a glimpse of its future potential (just as we did when we peered through the window about this time last year).

The renovations have taken a lot longer than we anticipated (and than the town would have liked) but my answer these days to the question of "when will you be properly open", is: "we are open...come and see."  We are working hard to re-establish a business that was closed for a year before we saw it.  We fell in love with and bought a building with a lot of history and a great deal of potential underneath its sad state of disrepair.  We did not by an operating business and so it is our efforts that have jump-started it to this point.  And we bring to The Blue Bird Cafe our take on both its past and its future.  We are not just reviving the tradition but we are injecting the practises of 2013 and starting a few traditions of our own.  The Blue Bird has survived 110 years by moving with the times and still is.

So the answer to the more pertinent question about when we will be able to provide evening meals to the town of Lockhart would be: "in good time".  Things done well do take time and with just two of us, Roger on the renovations and the coffee and me on the food, we are striving to do this well.  But we also have ourselves to look after as well as The Blue Bird and if we were to do things with any more urgency than we already are, it would not be good for us.  So be patient, we are getting there and keep looking in to see how far we have come.  There is always something new these days at The Blue Bird Cafe.

What's New?

We have reached the stage with the renovations where we are open for service 6 days a week but The Blue Bird Cafe is still a work in progress and we cannot as yet offer a full menu.  We now have our temporary menu posted on our new menu page...check it out.  It will grow in time and there will be weekend specials as we try out new menu options before they make it permanently to the menu.

Expanding Horizons

It has been an exhausting project, much bigger than we first recognised but somehow we manage to keep sane and keep smiling through.  And thanks to some quick thinking on our feet, constant tests of our endurance and the occasional smidgeon of much needed luck in places, we are getting there.  Little by little what started out as a micro-shop just inside the front door, selling ice creams and drinks, has expanded lately to a half-pint milk bar cafe in the first quarter of the original shop.  We are still working on the back area and the kitchen continues to cause us headaches (we discovered what lay behind the cooker the other day), but we are increasing our menu by one new item a week as well as our milk bar shop front.  And the town is embracing the return of childhood favourites such as choo-choo bars, wizz fizz and wagon wheels.  The front window now gives an indication of what is to come with the revival and it is looking good.

Our little communal table seats eight and on Fridays when the ladies of Lockhart come in for morning tea, we expand it to fit as many as 20!  And our little Blue Bird book shop is contributing to the cause...every book bought here goes back into the renovation project.  I am using my librarian background to promote reading and book groups in Lockhart.

And then there is the occasional function like the time the Woodhaven Hostel residents came for Christmas and enjoyed a morning tea of reminiscing at their old haunt, The Blue Bird Cafe.  The floor had just been laid at that point and we spent the morning preparing and polishing it to invite the oldest residents of the town in for a cuppa, a bit of festivity and a sneak preview of things to come.

So I think we can safely say that we are on our way and able to offer coffee, tea and hospitality to the town and those travelling through.  We are proud of our progress so far.  There is still some way to go before it is fully operational but stop by for a sandwich, a muffin or an old fashioned milkshake when you are next in Lockhart.  You will be pleasantly surprised at the progress.

World Famous in Lockhart...

The Blue Bird had its moment of glory on Prime News Wagga Wagga on Monday.  Young Peter Veneris happened to be passing on his new mobility scooter (he has found a new lease of life on the thing and is able to visit us more often now) so the reporter grabbed him for an interview.  Not bad I thought.  Here's the link

http://au.prime7.yahoo.com/n4/news/a/-/local/15893229/historic-cafe-gets-new-life-video/

Surviving January

I think that it is safe to say that I have survived my first January in Lockhart (despite there still being a week left in the month).  It hasn't honestly been too bad in terms of the heat.  Sure we've had some hot days and some stormy weather but the humidity is not as high as I have been used to in Auckland (which is exhausting) and the grey rain not as frequent as in Melbourne over the last couple of years.

We were warned that January was the quietest month for visitors and the locals would be on holiday but it has been nice to have had some relative calm after Christmas to ease ourselves into our growing business and menu.  We add something new to our shop and cafe fare each week so there is always something different to tempt even our most regular customers.

But January has not been very easy on us for a number of personal reason that will one day make it to the book (if I ever get the time to write one).  We've moved house three times already this year and that I guess would be a bit much for anyone's patience to be tested!  But we battle on and keep telling ourselves that life will get easier and that when you are down, the only way forward is up.

The renovations are ticking slowly along and we are constantly tweaking and refining our original plans so that I have lost count which alphabet letter we are up to now..plan C or D?

The traditional black and white square vinyl flooring is still waiting to have its final section glued into place.  As I mentioned, before Christmas we had a devil of a time laying it.  The day we chose to get it done the lads turned up from Wagga and decided that because it was so far to travel, they would work as long as it took to get it all done in one fell swoop.  But the weather gods and that Irish ratbag Murphy had other plans.  To get me out of the way (and because we couldn't turn our ice cream freezer off) I was set up outside the shop under the verandah to mind the drinks fridge and ice creams during the process.   So I got to see most of the proceedings through the window with my nose pressed up against the glass like a kid outside a toy shop.  The day started out hot and humid but the temperature dropped when a storm came through and I had to watch as the rain fell and just about flooded the gutters up to the footpath.  We had concerns about how our old roof and guttering would stand up to heavy rain so Roger got up there to check on it.  He assured me it would be fine as long as we didn't get a downpour...but of course downpour it did.  "It should be okay" he amended, "as long as there is no wind".  And the next minute, the wind kicked in.  So I sat outside biting my nails while the lads battled with a nail gun and compressor that were being difficult enough to resort to nailing the cement sheets in by hand.  They were not amused but we were lucky that we had a visitor from Melbourne to help and also a local friend able to drop everything and lend a hand to the cause.

But before the day was over a 300kg roll of lino had been manhandled on to the roof of our vehicle in the pouring rain, a wet little dog had stowed away in the back of the van to shelter from the storm, and the lads hammering cement sheets down had blisters from wielding hammers.  The final nail in the coffin to getting the job done in one go was when they ran out of adhesive and had to admit defeat.  Christmas then intervened (and try getting a tradesman to come out in early January) so here we are at the end of the first month of 2013 still waiting to get our floor finished.  So close and yet so far.  Still, it will happen and I hope that by next week I can report that the floor is complete and that we are full steam ahead.

Extreme weather

Anyone who has been following the news reports around Australia about the extreme fire danger in the last and coming week, may be interested in hearing from someone who it sitting in part of that extremity, watching, waiting and generally not knowing what might happen.  However as I hunker tensely down for my first experience of Australian fire weather, the town of Lockhart seems to be continuing life as normal around me.  Everyone I meet tells me we'll be fine here.  There's no bush to speak of around and grass fires don't have much fuel to get out of control.  However with a desert wind whipping dust and grit straight down the main street and in our front door, rattling sheets of iron that have been on the roof since 1930 and threatening to sweep them clean off the rafters, I am not as comforted by the sagely wisdom of the old timers as I should be.

I'm only just getting used to living in this country and the changes in the weather over the last few months has been like a rollercoaster of extremes.  We had thunderstorms over Christmas that provided us with a festive display of fireworks after a day of building humidity.  The short but violent downpours were followed by a welcome balmy cool and a stunning sunset.  I could however have done without the similar performance of weather just one week before when we had the laying of vinyl scheduled.  However, the weather is the one thing you can't do much more than simply work with, cope with, or battle against.  As I'm sure the old timers in town will tell you.

But now, just ten months after the second 'one in a hundred year flood' to occur in two years, we are being assaulted by a heat wave of 40-43 degrees with no foreseeable end (or that's how it seems).  Add to that the wind which is currently gusting to 75km/ph but hovering (yes that if a good term for the dust cloud hanging around the horizon) around 57km/ph.  I think I have reason to be a bit tense but as I say, no one else in town seems that concerned.  It's apparently character building.

In an era when a news cycle is gauged by the minute yet new information still happens at the same rate as it always did, we are under the illusion that we are the only ones to whom this has happened before.  But the Lockhart Historical Society will show you photographs of the town in flood and they will tell you stories of fire, of drought and dust that were the flip side of the boom time sheep stations brought to the town.  Isolation breeds strong communities and hardy people who simply go with it and work with, cope with or battle the weather odds, getting on with their day.

And with air conditioning in every home nowadays we wonder how they used to live without it.  But as I swelter in a nightly bed of sweat, I have no illusions of how hot and uncomfortable it must have been for the pioneers of Lockhart.  Living in the country means that the trials of life are always present, not some distant memory or story in a history book.  People in the country never forget that the land and the weather rule their lives far more than any government or global market.

So today my character builds and I learn to just get on with things.  We'll be right.

2013...the start of a new year

Happy New Year everyone.  Welcome to 2013, a year full of promise and hard work.

The lead up to Christmas was a big one for us at the Blue Bird as we worked our little tails off to get the shop ready to receive guests en masse as family descended from NZ and around NSW and Victoria.  We had lino flooring laid in the final week (more on that later), and we catered for our first private function a day or two before Christmas.  So festive food was laid in a constant stream across our tables over several days through the week but thanks to lots of helpers, it was a very successful first family Christmas at the Blue Bird.  We are resurrecting a tradition that was one for many years in the Veneris and Matis families..holding the family Christmas lunch in the cafe. It was one of the few days of the year that Jack and Peter closed the shop to customers and indulged in a family gathering.

But even though we were closed to customers for the day, the steady stream of family members coming and going carrying food and drink across the Blue Bird's threshold attracted onlookers and a few travellers in need of directions and assistance.  We were happy to lend a hand and make the day a successful one all round.  There just seems to be something about the Blue Bird that draws people to the door.

And we had the spectacle of nature's fireworks to entertain us on Christmas Eve with a few thunderstorms passing through and lighting up the sky.  When it passed it left a gorgeous sunset and a balmy cool evening breeze to enjoy.

So now it is the beginning of the new year, the guests have gone home and we are straight back in to getting on with the restorations which are going well but still have a bit to finish off.  The temperature gauge is rising this week with 40+ degrees predicted for the next week.  So Roger is up on the roof getting the swampy working so we can continue to work in here.  The building's natural airflow has kept it quite cool up to now but we figure that we will need to give it a hand sooner or later with the air conditioner.