Sunday night. After a day at the farm.

This evening, smoked cod.

With white sauce flecked with parsley, served alongside mashed potatoes (of course) and boiled carrots and brussels spouts.

The fish is cooked in milk and chopped onions, the latter are then used to make the white sauce.

It is bland but salty, homely yet redolent of times gone by. You can add cheese to make it richer, but it is better without.

It was an Easter favourite when I was a child.

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Today was Open Day at Collingwood Children's Farm. We took Canisha and Shanra along. We made a picnic and ate cheese sandwiches and boiled eggs and freshly baked banana muffins - T's special - by the Yarra river, in the autumn sun, on the grass at the edge of the farm.

There were donkey rides. The children fed the goats and were amazed at the size of the mud-encrusted, happy pigs. Shanra climbed the horse paddock fence, 3 years old and as agile as an Olympian.

Later, they cooked 'damper' - a simple flour and water dough - in coals, and ate it with syrup. And fed some of it to the goats.

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On the way home, in the car, they drew pictures of the animals in their sketch books.

They ran in to tell their mum about the animals, excited.