WRITTEN BY OUR EDITOR-IN-CHIEF SARAH LANG

WRAP UP OF NEWS AND HAPPENINGS IN OUR REGION

Firstly, an apology to all of you, our readers for not publishing our planned October edition. Sadly, our October magazine was a victim of the last-minute cancellation of the original Live. Love. Life. Festival. But we are back after the unexpected holiday and feeling refreshed and charged and frankly, a little feisty. One of the positives that always comes through after something like that happens is that you see local country folk digging deep and resolutely ensuring that the show must go on.

So, whilst the official curated Live Love Life events have disappeared, most of the affiliate events that had been booked and arranged by local businesses are still going ahead in the truncated Live. Love. Life Daylesford weekend. Businesses had already invested heavily in terms of booking artists, setting aside dates and planning so we encourage everyone to support these events as much as possible. Events include Food as Medicine at Lakehouse Cooking School with Sam Gowing and Alla Wolf-Tasker AM on Saturday 17 November; Farmers Arms Hotel in Daylesford is offering a delicious spread of local produce, wine and beer for only $49 from Friday 16 through to Sunday 18 November; one of our favourite places on the planet, Lavandula Swiss Italian Farm are inviting everyone to attend “La Primavera” and to “take the waters” Swiss Italian style on Sunday 19. More arts and wellness related events are being held at Convent Gallery and Daylesford Healing Massage has a program that is literally bursting at the seams. For a full program and tickets, head to www.livelovelifedaylesford.com.au

Two businesses that were hit particularly hard by the festival cancellation were husband and wife team, Melody and Sam Hryckow, founders of Fish and Moo Productions and the owners of The Palais in Hepburn Springs. Melody and Sam had mortgaged their house to purchase an enormous circus big top for the festival. An actual real circus tent! The Palais had had tradespeople working all hours to get it ready in time for the opening. So when the LLL Festival was cancelled, these guys hooked up and created the world’s first “World Circus and Cabaret Festival”. Diamonds are only created under pressure and we reckon that this is going to be a new diamond on the festival calendar. To learn more about the events on the Live.Love.Life weekend, head to page 20.

We have some tickets to giveaway to the World Circus and Cabaret Festival - simply email us at found@lostmagazine.com.au and tell us which of the acts performing in the WCCF you would like to see most and why. You could win two tickets to see the event!

We got to attend the Daylesford Wine Show Awards Dinner on Friday 26 October at the Lakehouse. What a great night! I felt like I was a kid in a candy store sitting amongst a room chockers with ridiculously talented wine growers from our region. I wanted to sit next to all of them and learn everything I could. We dined on some wonderful food from the Lakehouse kitchen including a shoulder of Green Hills Farm lamb that made me want to weep. It was so incredibly delicate and yet full of flavour. I have long suspected that there might be some wizardry that goes on in that kitchen... It was also incredibly inspiring to taste and enjoy the wines that had taken top honors. Zig Zag Wines picked up Best White Wine (other than Chardonnay) and then Best White Wine in Show for a 2017 Riesling which was the crowd favourite and Midhill, Romsey Creek, picked up the Best Wine in Show for their 2017 Pinot Noir. The Past Presidents Award (for Best Red Wine 6+ years old) went to Idavue Estate from Heathcote for their 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon. Whether you are a local to the region, or a visitor, go and buy yourself some local wine. There are some absolutely terrific wines out there and who doesn’t enjoy buying wine directly from the grower?

Got news to share? Drop us a line at
found@lostmagazine.com.au