This year has been full on. Summer slipped by in the blink of an eye. And since Lucas started nursery downtown, we’ve hardly had a moment free. We needed to press pause.
So we booked ourselves a little cabin down in the Shenandoah Valley, and took off for a much-needed getaway.
Sans child. Sans wi-fi. And after a few glasses of wine, sans a care in the world.
Our cabin for the evening was tucked into the most gorgeous woodland setting, where you couldn’t hear a car horn or siren for miles. The only sounds were just the lone crow, squirrels scampering across the crunchy leaves, and the swoosh of an occasional breeze across the treetops.
We settled into our cabin and lit our campfire.
One thing we didn’t need a break from was a good meal. But unlike our usual dinners at home (which usually involve lots of prep, tons of stress to get it on the table in time, and then a forensic amount of clean up after), this time we did things differently.
A one-pot meal we could throw in a dutch oven and kick back by the fire while it stewed for a couple of hours.
And like any recipe that calls for a whole bottle of wine – you know it’s going to be good!
Beef Bourguignon over potato gnocchi
It definitely took a while, but when you’ve got nothing else to do but sit and talk, and sip wine and look at the moon rise, you don’t really notice! Well worth the wait, we ate late and stayed up much later.
The next morning, we slept in. I know a lot of parents probably complain about a lack of sleep, which I never really understood. I have always been such a high energy person, I never missed the hours of lost sleep when I had a baby.
But being here, I now realise how a nice, long lie-in is such a luxury for mums and dads. You don’t have to get up. That’s when it feels so good to be lazy.
Breakfast was another easy skillet on the grill. My campsite take on huevos rancheros, we felt like a couple of cowboys as we sipped our mugs of coffee waiting for the chow bell.
With the last bits of breakfast mopped up, there was nothing to do but snuggle up and just chill until checkout time.
