The time-honoured tradition of jumping off the Brunswick Bridge. Photo: Candida Baker

Which is best?  City life or country life?  Candida Baker likes to have a foot, or in her case, a hoof, in each camp…

So there we were standing in the arena, giving my daughter’s two city cousins, Joanna, 15 and Max 12, a little riding lesson when Max called out, “Look! Your horse is falling down!!” Somewhat alarmed I looked up to see one of our horses enjoying a post-breakfast roll, and I couldn’t help laughing. “He’s rolling, Max,” I said. “That’s all.”

“Oh,” said Max. He paused in his attempts to use our old Arab’s reins like motorbike handles. “Why?”

The inevitable “Why?” was a question we’d heard rather a lot of during the previous week.

Why for instance, did our water smell, well, somewhat like a mixture of leaves and bleach. Fair question really, and that’s exactly what it did smell like for a while because unfortunately the very large fig tree that shades the house in summer, also drops its little fruit into the gutters, and if we don’t manage the cleaning of the gutters and the dropping of the berries in fine synchronicity, somewhat leafy smelling water is the result.

The city cousins were visiting us for a week, and it was the first time they’d come to us. Usually we leave our horses, dogs, cat, gumboots and smelly water behind and head down to their place near Collaroy beach, and indulge in lots of shopping at Warringah Mall – or one of us does – no names no packdrill, Anna; catch some culture in the city, and head back to the hills, refreshed but usually relieved to leave life in the fast lane behind us. Now here they were, with Cathy, their mum, all set to enjoy a week in our cottage, spiders, smelly water, falling horses and all.

Compulsory country wear.

It was a wonderful thing to introduce them to the notion of the country produce stall with all their honesty boxes, to the fact that the key lives in the car, to the idea that you can stroll into the macadamia farms and pick up an entire bag of macadamias in no time, and that macadamias, roasted, with honey and cinnamon are a treat to die for – even if it’s possible you might actually die before you crack enough to make it worthwhile! We took the Landcruiser across country, while the kids hung off at perilous angles on the running boards, had picnics in the woods, visited our local waterfall and swam in the freezing cold water, doggedly went to the beach every day even when it was grey and cold, watched them all jump off the bridge at Brunswick Heads over and over again, until Cathy and I were turning blue just looking at them, so we were forced to go to the Starfish café for calamari and chips and chocolate mousse, and on the very last night of all, drove deep into the macca farm, crossed the river, and lay on our backs gazing up at the stars, and saw not one, not two, not three but four shooting stars.

When we finally got cold and stood up to begin the journey home, I put my arm around Anna to give her a cuddle, Max spotted us. “Group hug,” he shouted gleefully, hugging Anna and me to him as tight as he could, and then being 12 and a boy, he got all overcome with boyness and banged our heads together, and was rather surprised when we thought it was just a tad painful.

The cousins took to it all, although they weren’t quite sure about wearing empty ice-cream containers on their heads to avoid swooping plovers and magpies, and I had a small moment of regret when I gave into Max’s incessant demands that he have a drive in the farm, and I thought we might be about to meet our mutual maker, but my advanced training skills from a Rauno Aaltonen (The Rally Professor) course many years ago, came in handy, albeit from the passenger seat. (Do you know – if you actually slam your foot down on an imaginary brake hard enough I think you can stop the car!)

Does it sound dangerous? I’d like to think it was ‘safe danger’. When I grew up in the country in England, my mother would throw us outside after breakfast and other than to return to eat we would often spend whole days outside. Nowadays I’ll often catch the teenage girls on their inevitable iPads ‘playing’ some outside game on technology, while the swing, and the sun and the garden and the lake and the beach and the animals all beckon. Or at least, they do to me.

It was a wonderful week – where the city kids discovered they could yell as loud as they liked outside at night without disturbing anyone, and the country kid got taught how to play chess, and forgive a 12-year-old boy for being, well a 12-year-old boy.

Groaning with goodies – The Harvest Bakery on a Saturday morning. Photo: Candida Baker

One of the highlights of the whole week, and it’s an addictive highlight I warn you for those who haven’t discovered it yet – is The Harvest bakery - harvestcafe.com.au - on a Saturday morning. Sitting in the Harvest Deli’s beautiful vegetable garden with a double-shot flat white and a salted caramel doughnut, is pretty close to heaven in my book – and in Max’s too, who finished his own doughnut and then did all he could to steal my crumbs – to no avail, I might add. They also have a beautiful gluten-free chocolate-coated salted caramel muffin which is another family favourite. It’s a city treat in a country setting – a perfect mix.

When I was little, one of my favourite Beatrix Potter books was Johnny Town Mouse. Of course, at the age of six, I didn’t realise that Potter had based her charming story of a country mouse who accidentally ends up in the city, and is rescued by a Town Mouse, who then pays a visit to his country friend, on the Aesop Fable ‘The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse’, but it appealed to me because from as far back as I can remember, my family had lived in both the city and the country – but for me, as for Potter, obviously, my preference was – and is – for country living.

Sometimes when it pours with rain for weeks on end and the orange mud is permanently ingrained into everything, including the grey horses, or when it doesn’t rain for weeks on end and I have to spend a fortune buying water, or when a rat makes a nest in the engine of the car, or when horses do in fact ‘fall over’, and need the chiropractor, or any number of strange and bizarre accidents that can seem to befall country dwellers I must admit to a bout of nostalgia for a house where clean water comes endlessly out of a tap, where you can walk to the shops, or keep a garden under control, but when I’m too overcome, I know I can book a flight to Sydney for a few days R&R. I guess that’s what they call a balanced life.

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