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Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Week 29 • Over My Head Photo Challenge i heart faces

 

This week over at i heart faces, the challed is 'over my head'. Here's a shot I took of Bee, obviously breaking the law and standing in a 'no standing' zone!



Edited to add: A No Standing sign such as this is not actually for pedestrians like Bee but for cars. If there is a No Standing sign, it means that you are not allowed to stop your vehicle or park in that area. Do you have this kind of signage in your part of the world?


Please head on over to i heart faces and check out all the shots that go 'over my head'!

Sunday, July 11, 2010

My amazing 'girls' weekend & lunch dining experience....


This weekend was fabulous. I went away with 7 women to Point Londsale - a gorgeous seaside town here in Victoria. 

It was a last minute decision to go and I am so so glad I did. Some of these women I have known for 11 or so years - a couple were just new to me. I went with the expectation of having a 'rest' from my family and maybe a laugh or two. Can I just say, I don't believe I have talked or laughed so much since oh another weekend away I had a few years ago now Sydney with a completely different group of women who were equally as fun. What is it about women and freedom I wonder?

Anyway, we rented a most gorgeous house in Point Lonsdale called Illoura. It was stunning!

Friday night, we stayed up chatting, giggling, guffawing, drinking until about 2.30am. Saturday morning some of the women made a gorgeous hot breakfast then we all went out to explore the town. Some went to a Day Spa and others (like me) wandered the town, had coffee and shoppped.

Back to the house and we prepared dinner - I had already prepared a Chicken Curry, another woman cooked us Tandoori Chicken and Spinach Pizzas. We had Vegetable Curry and rotis. We were stuffed full by the end but not too stuffed that we couldn't enjoy the delicious Apple Crumble and icecream that another friend made.

We laughed and shared.

We left our lovely rental home and on the way back to the real world stopped at a superb restaurant called Loam. An amazing and wonderful dining experience. 

Loam is not a 'normal' restaurant where the menu has a list of meals from which you choose. In fact, the 'menu' is a list of ingredients. The waiter, instead of asking you what you want, asks you to look at the list and tell what you don't want to eat. I opted to not have Roe, Beef Tongue, Mussels and Squab.

Our wonderful waiter told us to treat this as a dining experience and as if we were going to dine at a friends place - you get a surprise in what you are served. Great idea!

We had delicious sour dough bread supplied by Zeally Bay Sourdough from a local town, Torquay, accompanied by burnt, twice whipped home made butter. So, so delicious!

First up was fresh, whole radish served with coffee 'soil'. The coffee 'soil' was made up of coffee grounds, sugar and salt I think. Certainly something I would never ever select to order but it really was amazingly delicious!!! Who woulda thunk it? lol




Next was a selection of fresh pine mushrooms. Lightly sauteed with fresh garden silverbeet laid on a bed of pine needle yoghurt. Can you imagine? Again, no way I would order such an item but so tasty. 

Next, all but two of us had Veal Rump, Spinach, Pearl Onion, Wakame and Black Garlic. I loved loved loved this!



Two of the others had the Beef Tongue, garlic puree, tomato and quinoa and they said it was delicious but I was having none of that! (It did look so yummy though)

Finally, dessert - Quince Parfait and oh my goodness!

Ingredients were Quince, Honey, Lemon, Spices such as ginger, coriander, nutmeg and cinnamon. So unusual yet absolutely sublime! Crunchy, home made honeycomb - yum!


We finished our meal, 3 hours later. The service was amazing. The food was stunning. It was a terrific experience.

So, I arrived back home after 6pm - a wonderful, fun and food filled weekend. Tired but relaxed.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Facebook: July Challenge - Deterioration: first 6 submissions

The theme for July is DETERIORATION - meaning: anything that has worsened in condition or quality over time. Some examples you might like to consider are - rusted items, objects needing repair, abandoned buildings/cars or even old age!!!

I have joined in the above challenge and it means that I have to take one photo a day to represent the above.   

Below are my first 6 days submissions:

1. My daughter's bicycle that sometimes gets left out in the rain...


2. Our upright piano that lives on our patio....the ivory is lifting off the keys but gosh, it still sounds great!



3. An old bottle collection that sits out in the unused cubby house



4. Old Wheel Barrow sitting in our backyard - rusting away but still gets used.


5. Tarpaulin Shelter that has frayed to shreds - this is meant to be protecting a couple of lawnmowers. I think our cats had something to do with the way this looks!


6. An old fence experiment around our little vegetable patch. When our dog was very young she was a super digger. She would dig everywhere, we couldn't stop her and she most loved to dig in the lovely soft dirt amongst our vegetables. My engineer husband came up with the idea of mildly electrifying the top wire of the fence. So he attached a car battery to the wires. He failed to take into account that in order for it to shock, she needed to touch it with her nose as her fur acted as a marvellous insulation. Needless to say she continued to dig and there was no shock to be had! 

(Side Note: Our gorgeous dog Kiah, lived to the ripe old age of 15 and this fence was installed before she turned 1 - she passed away in 2007 so that means this is around 17 years old!)