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Well it's been a big week in my Sourdough journey and so far I've made 5 loaves in 7 days since I found Elaine Boddy on Instagram.  Her Master Sourdough Recipe and Process is super easy and has taken all the stress out of making sourdough.  I wrote about it in this post and her book in this post last week.  So far I have made my sourdough in the round bannetons however today my large oval banneton arrived in the post so I'm baking this later today and we are having it with minestrone soup tonight.  Making this bread has been such a highlight this past week.  Last Friday night I called my neighbour over to gift a loaf to them as they are great neighbours and they were very impressed with my baking.  They are now going to make a starter themselves and give the sourdough baking a go.  Given he is a chef, it was great to impress him and they loved the bread and sent a text with OMG delicious.  The loaf below is my first wholemeal loaf which I made on Sunday afternoon.

Early on Sunday I went on a "Women's in Nature" Bush Walk, Mindfulness morning which was really nice.  The walk was 2.5 kms to a camp fire setting where we stopped for morning tea with the billy for an hour and then the 2.5 km walk back to the cars.  Sunday was a beautiful day however the wind was very wild which made it very cold.  I had about five layers of clothes on and even though it was cold and windy it was quite invigorating verses miserable.  When I was out at Deepwater in NSW August 2019 on a Photography weekend OMG that was FREEZING.

There were eleven ladies and the walk to the camp fire area was a silent walk which I thought would be weird however it was really nice.  You didn't have to make small talk or keep up, you would just walk at your own pace and take in the beautiful nature surroundings and generally have some peace and thinking time.  I am not very fit and the first hill we had to go up I thought, OMG what I have I got myself in for here I'll never make it however I pushed on and naturally there were some walks up the steep hill and some down hill as well.

We made it to the camp where the fire was lit and the billy was put on to boil while we chatted to one another.  We had some tea or cacao, some home made biscuits, rice crackers, dip and fruit which was lovely.  On the way back we chatted to one another and I had to have several stops on the way when we got to the big hills.  I met some lovely ladies all whom needed to take a little bit of time for themselves out of their busy lives.  Everyone had a great morning and women are known for putting everyone else first so having some time to just be in nature and care for yourself it was a really great morning.  I also got to wear my $30 Kmart hiking boots I bought 18 months ago that haven't been used yet and mine are grey and pink which I love.  I'm not a hiker, however I love a bush walk and so felt really good when we had finished.