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Snap: to the apple country When oh when will we next hop in the old Holden and motor up the Calder past dark Mount Macedon with its century-old gardens around colonial-times summer retreats from heatwave Melbourne (pre-air-conditioning), pausing maybe at Woodend for an up-market coffee at the top, or a plebeian vanilla slice at the bottom, bypassing Hanging Rock (sinister even in sunlight) and Kyneton and Castlemaine, to apple-paradise Harcourt? Helen at Rose Hill, her little dogs playing nearby, will likely be in her garden, deadheading her roses so glorious last month; her lavender bushes attaining their early summer apotheosis of perfume intensity so pervasive, so invasive, my wife will step out of the car and swoon almost on her way to the veranda of Helenıs B&B a stone box once an apple store next to her old homestead, once an apple-farmerıs. I shall inspect the little fridge to see what Helenıs got us this time? A bottle of cider again from Henry of Harcourtıs cidery? (It goes down like apple juice then you stand up tipsy.) A white wine from some boutique vineyard near Bendigo? Their frosts, crucial for white grapes, are reliable as Germanyıs. Then thereıs climate change: without rain the region falters; credits to draw from the aqueduct are hard to come by. Helenıs pond is drying up, her ducks walk well out before they swim. Her daughterıs horses switch their tails across each otherıs rumps. The sun turns green fruit red. The migrant workers are expected. Thereıll be big thirsts at the local. Weıll lurk in our cool-store B&B. Wednesday 12 December 2007 Max Richards Melbourne