The latest

I am being a very bad blogger these days.  In my defense, I was overseas for two weeks.  You can read all about that here.

But recently I have made a couple of cakes.

A marscapone meringue layer cake for a friend who was leaving work:

And some neapolitan cupcakes just because:

(extremely tasty – I ate four)

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The last few days in Melbourne have been absolutely magnificent. 20degC every day, blue skies, plenty of sunshine.  Our ornamental pear trees are getting over excited and have started flowering.  Of course the weekend forecasts rain and much colder temperatures.

We had a lovely time visiting Lake Eyre and a few other places last week, you can check out my holiday blog to see all the pictures.

Daily Photo

In December 2010 we travelled to Indonesia to climb some volcanoes.  What someone neglected to tell me was that Mt Bromo, where we were going, had been erupting for days, even weeks, before we arrived.

I was less than impressed but on the positive side, I didn’t have to hike up the side of the volcano because no-one was allowed that close to it.

Home for the holidays

Or more specifically, home from my holiday.  We arrived yesterday morning after a murderous overnight flight from Denpasar and promptly fell into bed for five hours.

If you want to see all the pictures and read all the stories, you can do that here.

When in doubt, eat

This week, after being sick on Monday and Tuesday, I recovered sufficiently to go out a LOT and eat a LOT.

Thursday night I went out for dinner with a couple of friends and we ate at Alpha Ouzeri – which doesn’t have a website – but it’s a greek restaurant and the food is delicious.  The staff are friendly and we had a great time.  Friday I had lunch with someone I used to work with, we went to Shark Fin Inn and had yumcha.  Friday lunch at Shark Fin is insane!  But the food was good.

Last night the boy and I went to our favourite restaurant, Rockpool.  Instead of stuffing myself like I normally do, I decided to go with three small entrees for my dinner, and what a winning idea that was!  I had sushi, then the boy and I shared a plate of Joselito Iberico Jamon (mmmm…. like melting butter in your mouth), and then I had king prawns with goat cheese tortellini.  I did have to have dessert too, I had the hazelnut macaron and banana icecream sandwich.

And just this morning I’ve had breakfast with another friend, we went to Tom Phat and I had a delicious plate of poached eggs with bacon, mushrooms and avocado.  I love eating breakfast.

So, to clarify: when you get sick, go out and eat.  I’ll be spending the rest of the weekend on the couch in my sleepy pants.  Don’t call me; I’ll call you if I need anything.

p.s. We are heading off to Indonesia next weekend. Very excited.

p.p.s. In case you’re wondering (Barb), for dinner at Rockpool I wore the purple shoes at the top right in my header.

Daily Photo

While everyone else was inside the caves not taking photos, I was out in the sand dunes getting this. I haven’t tweaked the colour at all; this is exactly what it looked like in Dunhuang.

From Russia with love

Whilst in Russia earlier this year, the boy declared he wanted to get some real Russian matryoska dolls (also sometimes referred to as babushka dolls). Luckily for him, we found a shop selling nothing but handcarved matryoska dolls.

And since he is the cat person in our house, he saw these and fell in love immediately.

They really are very sweet, and beautifully made.

The level of detail on each of them is amazing. And they are all slightly different.

Epic

Jeremy Clarkson uses the word “epic” a lot, mostly to describe cars that he likes very much.  Clearly he has never been to Milford Sound in New Zealand.

The Full Monty

Some of you do not know me on FaceBook so you won’t won’t have seen the link I put up there to the finally-updated, new-look, full-fat holiday blog.

To whet your appetite, here’s a preview picture:

And now that you’re really interested, go here and read the day-by-day account.

Home sweet home

We arrived home Saturday night, after leaving Moscow at lunchtime on Friday.  No wonder I’m still jetlagged.  But damn it’s nice to be home.  AND the house was in good shape and Huffle was happy.  Uncle Heath was a big hit, it seems.

I’m busy working on the photos and blog posts for the holiday, but here’s a random arty shot for you in the meantime.

Holiday… Celebrate…

Why yes, it is that time of the year again, when we get on a big plane and visit another country.  This time it’s four countries – China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Russia.  Beijing to Moscow by train.  I get on a plane in five hours, try not to miss me too much 🙂

We have a friend staying to look after the Huffle, so she’ll be fine.  See you all in four weeks!

Picture

When we were in Broome two months ago (has it been that long already?), we visited an art gallery and saw this picture, and I immediately fell in love with it.

We decided to buy this version printed on canvas, and brought it home and had it stretched on a frame. It’s about one metre (just over three feet) wide, and we’ve hung it on the wall above our bed.  It looks gorgeous.  The artist is Ingrid Windram, and you can read more about her here.  She’s Australian and does some lovely stuff.  We also brought a print of “Brolgas in the Moonlight” but since it’s framed I can’t get a decent photo without reflection off the glass.  If you click on the link to her website and then on the “prints” page, you’ll be able to see a picture of it.

Shadows

From our recent trip to Broome.

Happy 4th of July

For all my American friends. Taken at Fort Mason in San Francisco last year.

Bird

When we were staying in Dunkeld in January, I managed to catch this little fella in mid-song one evening.  It’s a New Holland Honeyeater and the yellow splashes on his sides are stunning!