Plum Hot And Bothered

Chutney-making on the warmest day of the year is a lifestyle move to turn the air blue.

- Michele Hewitson

Somebody asked the other day whether we were “lifestylers”. I am not at all sure what a lifestyler is, but I am fairly sure that we do not qualify. Lifestylers, I imagine, are those people who live in the country, as we do, on a nice slice of land, as we do, and who post on social media pretty pictures of weed-free vege plots with rows of beans and fancy lettuces that have not been eaten by bugs, as mine have been. Lifestylers have, presumably, style. They wear fetching straw hats and casually creased linen overalls bought from that posh shop in Greytown and drink blood-orange gin and boutique tonic on the wisteria-shaded verandah while grilling their organically grown corn over a suitably rustic, hand-built, charcoal-burning barbecue.