Saturday kitchen

Saturday in my kitchen looked like this....

Having been away for a week, the urge for culinary creativity was strong. And messy.

This is the duck.

(My dismemberment skills leave a little to be desired.)

Duck is marinating in soy, star anise, five spice and cinnamon.

This is the jam

Peach with a dash of cointreau. Breakfast on Sunday morning looked like this...

Then there was they way I like my eggs

Frittata made with left over chorizo, pork and fennel sausage, potato and goat's cheese - perfect picnic food.

Then, the picnic dessert - mini raspberry swirl cheesecakes.

What was the picnic food for? How did the duck turn out?

Stay tuned.....

The view from above

I've never been a great fan of air travel. Planes are a convenient way of getting long distances in not too much time. Small planes are an evil best avoided. But as I have now discovered, helicopters are something else altogether.

Thanks to the Melbourne Convention and Visitors Bureau, I had a great weekend at Philip Island in Victoria. If you are ever there, Silverwater Resort is the place to stay (thanks Sarah).

And from a helicopter, Philip Island looks like this...

OK, so I haven't had a long trip. But as a way of seeing the world from above, the helicopter is definitely the way to go. It was FUN!!!!!

(But people who make sculptures out of chocolate.... maybe need to get out more?)

The Stars of Venezuela

Two days in Philip Island, three days in Melbourne and some great new friends.

For the purposes of ice breaking, team building and distraction on a two hour bus trip, 21 mostly strangers were divided into teams of four, each named after a different country.

Presenting Team Venezuela

No names to protect identity, but from left to right

Melbourne, Canberra, Mumbai and Tel Aviv.

After starting with some quizzes which we failed to take seriously, our competitive streak was roused when we found ourself one point off the lead. The final challenge - to present the most creative photo we could.

To highlight the highly successful bonding process that had occurred, we presented the following picture.

The Star of Venezuela

You can imagine how closely we were standing together to take that.

Second place?

We were robbed.

The Hallowed Turf

I didn't think I would be thrilled, but I was...

Me on the hallowed turf of the MCG. (More about Melbourne later - stay tuned) If you are into handknits, the wrap is Juno Regina which I love.

Produce

The first tomato from the garden.

It became a very nice tomato salad eaten with some grilled goat kebabs, home made tzatziki and flatbread. Yum.

And the good thing is, plenty more where that came from!

What I did on my holidays

School finally starts today for new students. For everyone else it is tomorrow. Hip hip hooray say all the parents, being thankful that we do not live in Tasmania where they don't go back for weeks.

So in true start of term style, here is the mandatory first week back exercise.

What I did on my holidays - a trip to the country

Mid January we were lucky enough to have a few days down south. Bronwen has friends with a house at Tilba Tilba who put it at our disposal. It's a lovely old timber cottage on some acres, with some cows, mountains to look at, lots of green, lots of frogs croaking at night, very quiet and peaceful.

A perfect verandah for eating, drinking and playing games, a great collection of books, with many old childhood favourites, a great big bath and a collection of games in the cupboard (Star Wars Monopoly anyone?)

We had a lovely time doing not much interspersed with trips to the beach.

We discovered sea anemones in the tide pools and bluebottles on the beach at Bermagui, had a lovely time at Mystery Bay in the big rockpools, which when the tide is in are deep and freezing but fantastic to swim in, built sandcastles, made origami frogs, had fish and chips at Tathra and Narooma and did a lot of kicking back and relaxing.

It was great.

One Fear Finally Faced

It's been a long time coming, but Claire finally conquered her fear and did the Freefall at Questacon. Needless to say, Iwasn't there to see the first time she went down, but when I turned up to collect them all, I was dragged inside to watch. Sorry, no pics.

Well done Claire!