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!

Ghostly voices from the graves...

Ghostly voices came strangely to me from out of the graves in an old country churchyard...

OK not really all that ghostly, as it was a bright sunny afternoon and not at all eerie or mysterious because the voices came from actors at a most unusual theatrical performance.

The church was Christ Church in the middle of Longford and the graveyard clusters around the beautiful little stone church built in the 1800s - the village of Longford has, over the yers, gradually grown to surround the church.

The theatrical performance by Launceston's Mudlark Theatre was actually right in amongst the gravestones, some very old and worn and tilting every which way. It was an enactment of the lives of some of the early convicts buried there. Their lives have been carefully researched and their stories are authentic and highly dramatic.

The story I specially liked best was about a convict woman who had worked for her freedom, married and eventually bore her husband no less than fifteen children. After she died (probably of exhaustion!) he re-married and produced a further eleven children - such unimaginable numbers and telling us of such hard lives.

These stories have been digitised and you can buy the CD in the form of an Audio Companion which, along with two fascinating stories inludes original compositions by guitarist Chris Jacobson and music from The Chordwainers played on unique leather instruments.

The CD can also accompany the self-guided walking brochure of Longford's Christ Church graveyard, Voices from the Graves, which reveals the rich and intriguing stories if 14 people who are buried there, and also the booklet, In Heaven as it is on Earth, telling even more stories.

If you are interested, visit the Heritage Highway website at www.heritagehighway.com.au/news/13125492

'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!"