MAGGIE "I FEEL VERY LUCKY"

Optimism, determination and love brought Maggie Beer back from a serious accident last year, and provided the impetus to create a life that brings her even more joy.

- WORDS SAMANTHA TRENOWETH · PHOTOGRAPHY by CORRIE BOND · STYLING by MATTIE CRONAN

The smell of coffee wafts through the cottage, which is warm, even though it's bitter outside.

There's been a cold snap overnight and a deluge. Raindrops hang in spider webs on the limbs of a peppercorn tree. Lemon trees and a pummelo are in full fruit. Herbs spill over the rims of clay pots in the courtyard, and an immense patch of Daphne spreads its heady scent by the back door. Stone fruit trees are covered in buds about to pop, and beyond the garden, green fields roll towards rows of vines, then forest. Everything appears verdant but "it's what we call a green desert at the moment," Maggie Beer explains.

"We've had some rain but not enough yet. It was the worst drought I remember in our 53 years in the valley."

Yet the drought that devastated farmland in the Barossa and much of South Australia has not been Maggie and her husband Colin's fiercest challenge these past 12 months.

Far from it.

Today Maggie is strong, brimming with life, cheerfully dashing from one task to the next before our photo shoot consumes the rest of her day. "She's a whirling dervish," says Bonnie Charles, our makeup artist, who has worked with the much-loved cook, campaigner, food producer and writer since her Great Australian Bake Off days.

But 12 months ago, it was not a given that she would be standing here today, greeting The Weekly team with her characteristic warmth and verve. On August 16 last year, Maggie fell from the top of a steep, narrow staircase, fracturing bones and causing significant other damage.

"It was a terrible fall," she admits. "I was very lucky." And then, in her measured, patient way, she recounts it step-by-step.

"It had been a really big week," she begins. "I'd been in Canberra on the Thursday, meeting the Governor-General. I came home Thursday night, and on Friday I went to a training session for the Maggie Beer Foundation chefs in Adelaide, and then I drove home.