Country Style

a letter from the editor

I once lived on the Hawkesbury River and it’s a time I look back on very fondly. It was there that I learnt about the importance of a good community. The people who I could rely on for anything, from picking me up from the public wharf because I’d just missed the last ferry home to helping me carry my baby and groceries up the hill — all things the lovely people of Dangar Island used to do for me when my son Harry was little. With those memories at the back of my mind, I asked photographer Michael Wee and writer Mark Mordue to spend a few days on the river, to capture a side of it that not everyone sees. Their story is on page 118 — and…

in this issue...

ABBY PFAHL She’s swapped the city for an office with paddock views, but Abby still gets her retail fix by finding the best regional shopping haunts for our monthly guide (page 113). Abby grew up in Bowral in the NSW Southern Highlands, where her father ran a mature exotic tree nursery, which was “like being in a big forest”. After falling in love with a farmer, she quit her city job —“reluctantly at first” — to move to his family property in Bookham, NSW, admitting: “Farm life has challenged me in a good way, plus it allows me more time in nature.” Abby’s tips for shopping in an unfamiliar town? “As much as the internet is an amazing source, people are better! If I haven’t visited an area before, I’ll think of…

your page

TEST OF TIME You would think by now I’d be over it, with interest starting to dwindle after 30 years together. But the truth is I’m in love a little deeper with every passing month. I can’t begin to explain how thankful I am for having found your very first edition of Country Style sitting on a shelf in our little country town’s newsagency way back in 1989. It was a love story that was meant to be. I truly adore every issue. Every beautiful photo, every heartfelt story, every mouthwatering recipe. And, especially, every inspiring family and the gorgeous gardens inside their farming properties. Congratulations, Country Style, on your 30th anniversary. Thank you for the memories and the love you have given us so we can enjoy the country and all the splendour…

empty nest

IT SEEMS LIKE yesterday, but it was 2009: I’m at Mascot international airport while our daughter, Aurora, 17, checks in for her flight to the UK. Or perhaps more accurately, her flight from Australia. She’s doing what more and more young people are doing, heading overseas to plan a future. In Aurora’s case it’s to check out the universities that have accepted her application, providing her HSC results are good enough. Travelling alone, she will couch-surf in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Durham and Edinburgh. Phillip and I are bereft as the queue moves inexorably forward. I start to cry. Not yet in wrenching sobs, but with tears that swell slowly and that I try to stifle. I should feel proud of her confidence — and I am — and I want to…

country style

Editor-in-chief VICTORIA CAREY Creative director JO QUARMBY Deputy editor KYLIE IMESON Melbourne editor VIRGINIA IMHOFF Art director ANDREA HEALY Copy editors MELODY LORD, CAROLYN PARFITT Art production/designer MATUS KUNDRAT Junior designer SOPHIE WILSON Stylists LISA BURDEN, NATALIE JOHNSON, SARAH MALONEY Homes group production editor TAMARAH PIENAAR Homes group coordinator SARA SLEEMAN (02) 9282 8456 Regular contributors CLAIRE MACTAGGART (Queensland contributing editor) DIXIE ELLIOTT (Food) ROB INGRAM (Country Squire) ANNABEL LAWSON (Books) JOHN McPHEE (Collectables) BARBARA SWEENEY (Flavours) JULIETTE WINTER (Health and Beauty) SAMANTHA VAN EGMOND (Writer) ADVERTISING AND PRODUCTION Commercial manager RHYL HEAVENER (02) 8114 9420 Homes commercial manager RHONDA MAUNDER (02) 9282 8687 Brand executive JENNIFER BURKE (02) 9288 9145 Advertising production manager KATE ORSBORN (02) 9282 8364 Victoria, SA and WA sales director JACLYN CLEMENTS (03) 9823 6341 Director of sales NSW KAREN HOLMES (02) 9282 8733 Victoria head of direct sales WILL JAMISON (03) 9823 6301 Queensland…

new leaf

FROM THE WINDOW of Michelle Brady’s light-flooded studio, sitting high in the Sunshine Coast’s hinterland, thriving plant life can be seen at every turn. Overlooking undulating greenery and bordered by beds of cosmos, snapdragons, sweet peas and nasturtiums, it is from this sunny workspace that Michelle runs her seed gifts business, Sow ’n Sow, offering beautifully packaged gift cards and seed packets. “My little garden is covered in flowers year-round,” says Michelle, whose home studio is located on the lush two-hectare Maleny property she shares with her husband Nick Bishop, a sustainable building consultant, their daughters five-year-old Bonnie and Freya, 20 months, as well as their schnoodle Maude. An hour-and-a-half’s drive north of Brisbane, the rainforest surroundings were an opportune change for the couple, who had been living in Melbourne but were…