General News
7 July, 2026
A Mum's World: Puffer jackets, potholes and pasta
Winter has arrived in the Wimmera and the Grosser household, bringing freezing tiles, roaring fires and the return of Ugg boots.
Did it just get cold or was I simply too busy spinning to notice?
All of a sudden it’s arctic, my frosty toilet seat is arch-enemy number one and I’ve had to build bathmat stepping stones across the freezing ceramic tiles.
Feeding the loungeroom fire isn’t only optional at present, it’s life preserving.
Short socks are out, with gloves, scarves and Ugg boots very much back in.
Thank goodness for hot water and deep baths as that’s sometimes the only way to get some heat back into my bones.
The puppies are both sporting dishy new winter puffer jackets and I’ve fluffed-up lots of extra hay in the chook shed so the girls have further furnishings for comfort.
It really is winter in the Wimmera isn’t it?
And wet too, the bit of Burnt Creek behind us is flowing and we’ve puddles a plenty.
Bun-bun-the-middle-one came home to mind our dogs and chooks while we took an end of term trip to Perth last week.
I had road envy the whole time we were interstate – literally not a pothole to be seen.
Even though it rained every day of our time in Western Australia, there were constant rainbows and I didn’t ever feel cold.
Yes, I was nearly blown into the waves at Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse where the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean, but the wind didn’t cut like a knife and the rain only made me wet, not hypothermic.
We flew home just in time for the Victorian snow fields to be deeply coated in fresh white powder – thank goodness – no sight of that elusive global warming here.
Planes, trains and automobiles behind us, we arrived home to a roaring fire then released Bun-bun back to the big smoke.
I caught my breath, paid nine bills and dealt with the one hundred and fifty emails that accompany a few days off, then planned my next adventure.
My baby girl had been galivanting around our state in a ten-vehicle convoy with 49 fellow travellers from her student residence.
Touring hometowns, toasting marshmallows in bonfires, eating in shearing sheds, cuddling lambs and riding motorbikes, she’d been generally having lots of exhausting fun.
We’d factored in a couple of days at home to sleep in her own warm bed and eat her favourite goats cheese pasta, beef stew and apricot crumble with lashings of cream, before heading back to work and study in the city.
Hooking east along the Western Highway in the rain we enjoyed the full Victorian experience of a variety of life-threatening potholes – with the obligatory traffic jam thrown in for good measure as we got closer to town.
As the closing stint of the trip was taking twice as long as expected, that final cappuccino from the last servo stop saw us suffer the crippling pain of full bladders.
With a great distance left to travel, a car park miraculously appeared in Spring Street, and we dashed into the warm Windsor for a wee.
C’est la vie!