A do-nothing, eat-everything Christmas Day

Food, glorious food

Christmas Day breakfast is a weirdly healthy affair starting with a Morning Sunshine herbal drink, filled with cucumber, pineapple and mint. I choose English Breakfast tea and a selection of breads and pastries, followed by a green smoothie bowl of kale, banana, strawberries, and granola, and finished with an egg white scramble with salmon and tuna, on toast, micro herbs, and cherry tomato jam.

Later on, not feeling all that hungry, I decide to not bother with lunch. But, by 3.00 pm, I’m ready to partake in the complimentary afternoon tea served daily from the pool bar. I order tea and chose from a selection of the local delicacies on offer.

By 8.00 pm my stomach is growling again. Today’s special four-course set menu starts with a mushroom cappuccino amuse bouche served with local breads and a selection of flavoured butters. Next, fresh Tasmanian salmon, braised in rosemary oil, with roasted pumpkin, capers, and sesame seed dukkah.

Third course is a beef wellington smothered in red wine gravy, surrounded by mozzarella balls, baby carrots, asparagus, zucchini, and turnip, on a jack fruit puree and leek ash. Finally, a dark chocolate mousse and raspberry sorbet, decorated with orange rosemary jelly and slices of homemade chocolate.

When I return to my room, I find my bed turned down with the canopy fully unfurled. In the centre of the bed is a small traditional basket filled with tiny Christmas-shaped cookies. Nice touch!

Lounging like a lizard

I spend all morning alternating between sunning myself on one or either of my deck loungers and gliding up and down the cool waters of my private pool – slapping on sunscreen and insect repellant at each changeover.

From my prone position, I watch a cluster of tiny finches dipping and diving in the shallow waters at the edge of the pool, while one-by-one white herons casually glide overhead. A glorious three to four hours of doing nothing is punctuated by long chatty phone calls with family back home and scrolling through friend’s Christmas posts on Instagram and Facebook – adding a few of my own to the mix.

The afternoon is no different – just a change in location. Back inside, under the welcome relief of aircon, I spend another three to four hours uploading and processing photos, crafting a couple of videos, and finishing my Christmas Eve blog post.

By late afternoon, I’m ready to venture out for afternoon tea at the pool bar. I don’t stay long. The 30-degree heat and nipping mozzies drive me back to my room, where I spend another couple of hours working on videos and photos while chatting online with Michayla.

By 7.00pm, noises from the dining room remind me that its dinner time. I change my clothes, throw on some lippy and a shawl, and stroll down the restaurant. One advantage of eating alone is that it doesn’t take long to work through a four-course menu, no matter how hard you try to stretch it out with sips of your cocktail. There’s just no conversation to slow it down.

By 9.00 pm, my early start has finally caught up with me. I’m suddenly feeling very drained. Enveloped by my canopied bed, I quickly drift off to sleep, grateful to have spent my Christmas Day exactly the way I had hoped.