The 'bones' of the National Rose Garden can only be experienced in winter!

It's the middle of winter, and, at the National Rose Garden at Woolmers there is hardly a single bloom anywhere to be seen. All the roses are sleeping in their winter dormancy. Even so, if you are visiting Woolmers, which, by the way, is open right through the winter) it's well worth taking a walk in the Rose Garden.

I think when everything is wintery, (sometimes it is even so covered in frost that it looks for all the world like snow) that's when the 'bones' of the garden are easier to see - it's when the whole design is most visibly apparent. And there is always a lovely veiw to take in over the surrounding country-side and even the hawthorn hedges surrounding field seem more starkly obvious.

This is a trememdously busy time in the Rose Garden - possibly the busiest time of the entire year. It's the time of major pruning of the roses and also the time they must be fertilised and then mulched. The mop-top Acasias are trimmed back hard in order to keep them in shape, and all the hedges must be cut.

And all this hard work so that, come October, we can marvel at the millions of roses which will then be getting ready to burst into full glorious bloom!

'Cookery Nook' is also known as the Baker's Cottage, though I love the first name best as it's just so quaintly evocative. And the reality is every bit as picturesque as the name, as you can see from the photo.

'Cookery Nook' is the first building you see as you walk onto the property and it's everyone's idea of how a small colonial cottage should look, with a lovely dark grey slate roof and even a sweet little 'front yard' to complete the picture. The small building next to the cottage still has its large oven at the rear of the building, where bread was originally baked for all the convicts employed on the property.

Build during the 1840s 'Cookery Nook' was originally the Bakehouse - obviously where the baker lived - and the baker was quite an important person in the scheme of things back then, though he probably would have been an assigned convict working toward an eventual ticket-of-leave and freedom.

Fast forward to the modern era, and, as I saw, when I peeped inside, the little cottage has been made into lovely cosy two-room accomodation complete with a log fire and a print by local artist Michael McWilliams hanging over the mantel.

There's a tiny fully-equipped kitchen fitten into one corner of the main room, but hampers can be ordered from the 'Servant's Kitchen' near the main house if you don't want to do your own cooking. And, I noted that the queen-bed in the bedroom next door is fitted with electiric blankets just in case the weather is cold.

Its easy to understand why this is the most popularly requested cottage acommdoation at Woolmers Estate, though there are several other restored cottages dotted about the Estate which have also been converted into self-contained holiday accomodation.

I was also keen to see some of the remarks vistors have recently put into the Visitor's Book - "A wonderful step back in time", "The highlight of our Tassie holiday", "such utter peace and quiet" and much more tellingly - "Such a totally romantic stay!"

Winter lunch at Woolmers

It's winter, the perfect time to think of hearty soups and enourmous, cheerful log fires, and that's exactly the reason I had lunch today in the "Servant's Kitchen' at Woolmers Estate near Longford.

Let me set the scene - the room is redolent of a bygone age with ancient flagstone floor and lime-washed walls. The view, between two towering pines takes in the Western Tiers in the distance and they are bluer than at any other time of year because they actually turn a deeper shade of blue, when the weather gets colder. You look out over the Macquarie River toward a patchwork of fields divided by hawthorn hedges. It's easy to see why the early settlers named the broad valley the Norfolk Plains, so much does this region resemble the English countryside.

In days long gone the "Servant's Kitchen' is where a convict cook or serving woman would have been slaving over that huge log fire - big enough to roast an entire beast and taking up almost half the room. In fact this whole scene has set me off wondering what those long-ago convict women would have been cooking in this very place, and I've resolved to enquire further into this.....

But back to my present-day lunch - I chose (from a choice of three) the delicious sweet-potato soup and it came to me with hot newly-baked damper - the perfect winter warmer.

These days Woolmers is open every day right through the winter, huge logs are added to the fire each day and the soup is freshly set to simmer away! Yum!