Lily

Flowers I got on Friday still look fab! My favorite - lillies.... very pretty....

Lovely friends

Anzac Day this year was a great day. We did nto make it to the dawn service which J is not happy about. However he was wearing his little 'badge' all day and we made a promise to go next year again.

We had S and A here as you know and we had a lovely looong breakkie with bacon and eggs (and lots of coffee for the sleep deprived parents) on the front decking. Lots to talk about and to catch up on. I love havign guests and I am really happy for the fact that we have such lovely friends... We are very lucky!  
After breafast we went for a little drive and showed them the view from Mount Coot-tha over the city and then to South Bank (where we squeezed down a Movenpick icecream, nice!!). Back in the house we all had a lovely afternoon nana nap (heavenly) before walking Friedels and then the bbq arced up! J did his fabulous caramelised onion and chick pea salad, I did a green salad and dessert and then we bbq’ed NY steaks and some lovely snags. Dessert: rhubarb crumble and vanilla ice cream.

L is the best baby in the world! She doesn’t cry a lot, she is happy and content and also let the parents eat din dins together whilst sleeping! She really is adorable and so cute. Not all babies are you know. Everyone thinks babies are all cute. Nooooo they are not. Some are quite ugly really... Luckily for S and A they have the cutest little button. (no wonder really with good looking parents!) It was really nice to have them (mainly Little L really, once the baby is born they become the centre of attention and the parents secondary....hehe only joking!) – it was so lovely to see them and we will miss them all when they are in the UK.

Frida was well behaved and very gentle with the little one – I am very pleased with that, there would be zero tolerance to any mischief from her side. But she was as always a very well behaved dog!

half way through caramelising....

After circa 30 min.... And after 40 they were peeerfect!!

Rhubarb crumble....

J with the Little L

Very funny and lovely message in our Guest book.....

Murky morning

It's a cold and murky morning here in Bris Vegas. I have been on the phone with mamma and pappa for almost an hour, had 2 cups of tea and I am in my PJ's. Lovely morning if you ask me... Sometimes it is nice with some rain and colder weather, just so it"s 'allowed' to sit inside and read, drink tea and rug up. Loving it.

(hopefully this does not go on for weeks now...)

Today we have no plans; we are considering going to the movies - Gold Class - and order ice cream that magically appears whenever you want it (half way through the movie?). Sounds like a good idea.... However some reading, blogging and general hang out in the house doesn't sound bad either.... Will keep you posted.... :)

Visitors

S and A and little L is coming to visit us. We are very excited. We have not seen S and A since Christmas and we have never met little L as she is fresh to the world. They have just landed and are on the way here. When they get here we are eating for sure doign lots of talking and holdign of little L. Pictures to follow.....

Lavender

The lavender is pretty happy these days and growing out of control.....................

Little gifts

J is a thoughtful man who brings me flowers and presents regularly. On Friday he gave me something different... A very funny little notepad for the fridge and also some stickers for my letters, exlibris, etc.
One funny and one very cute gift.... Thank you xx

2 new rooms

We have had the office downstairs and 2 guest rooms upstairs. this means when we have guests everyone sleeps upstairs (our room is in the corner with on suite and then one guest room in the other corner, next to ours and the last one (the smallest one on the other side of our room) (not sure if this made sense but anyway....) Once we got all the furniture in and got settled I immediately felt that the downstairs room would be better off as a guest room than an office. We have never really used the office downstairs much, as we rather both be where the other person is, i.e. on the top floor. Finally we got around to moving the office upstairs (to the smaller of the 2 rooms) and the 'brown' room is now downstairs. I am so pleased... it turned out much better than I thought it would and the downstairs room is now a cosy den (before it was a sad and 'cold looking' office. Oh it is so nice when plans work out. The office upstairs works really well as it is a smaller room and is closer to the kitchen and living room (where we always are) and we can talk and ‘hang out’ even though one person is using the computer...

Here are some piccies....

Cosy den...!

 The curtains march the pillow on the bed and also the art work on the wall (other color though!)

Corner of room

Offices are never sexy but I do like this, smaller, and easy access for us

Other side of the office, note , not yet styled properly...

Winter

Winter had arrived. It is about 23 degrees today and we are still wearing shorts. Oh well you do get acclimatised so I must admit the other morning it was 16 degrees outside and J was wearing a beany when he walked Frida in the morning....!  They laugh at us in Europe when we talk about the fact that it is winter here now... And yes, we are lucky but to be honest I miss the REAL winter sometimes. I know all of you living over there don't but I really do. This is a picture Sis sent to me from when they were up at Are (North) over Easter. It just looks so beautiful and crisp !!!!

The love bone....

Frida and her love bone..... This is dog language for 'come play with meeeeee' .................

Pasta a la J

J made a lovely Jamie Oliver pasta the other day. Weird recipe where you take snags and all other ingredients in the food processor (typical Jamie Oliver style) then you cook it in a frying pan and then add to the pasta. Eat with loads of parmesan and basil....

The sulker

Finally we are back to normal. Frida is no longer obliged to wear her bucket on the head as the paw has healed! Wonderful news!!

We have had a sulker in the house for weeks now have a look:

(I don't blame her either, must be awful to have that thing on the head....)

Easter egg delight

When Clair and Paul was here las weekend they gave us a home made Easter egg. We left it for a few days (we had some other eggs to finish first) and by Wednesday we finally opened it. OOOOHHHH it was soooo goood. Home made Rocky Road and home made choccy in a solid egg (2 halves to kae is easier to eat of course - very clever...)
It was divine! We polished of the last few pieces on friday night - I can still remember the taste. Must get recipe asap!

Sorry - only got piccie of the package not the actual egg...............

Lasagna....

Last night I made this enoooormous lasagna. We had a few pieces and I still have 8 portions in the freezer now, great for when we don't want to cook (which is seldom) or for work lunches. I don't often make lasagna but every 6 months or so I get huge cravings and I have to make one. This bad boy we had just with a lovely leafy sallad and J had a wintery glass of red to it. Yum!

Easter cake

Still dreaming about the chocolate cake we ate over Easter!!!

Polite young man

Today I saw a boy getting up from his seat when other adults got on the bus and it was gettign crowded. Not elderly people, just people. This is lovely, and somethign that should be a given but more often than not noone moves from their seats for anyone. It should not be this way..... and good on this young man for doing it. Good manners!!!  I am sure I sound like a 90 year old woman now but I firmly believe we should get manners back into society!

A taste of Sweden

We had a lunch here yesterday with Paul, Clair, Sheryl and Rex and little Summer (9 months old). To do a Swedish lunch we needed fish of course and since I can't get this anywhere else we had to go to IKEA (J not delighted but I tempted him with Barbeques Galore that is next door so whilst I was quickly goign through IKEA he was buying new stuff for the smoker and the bbq! It was a quick visit as the main reason was to get the food so I only got a door mat, napkins and a couple of bits and bobs for the kitchen and LOTS of lovely food. Now we have sill galore and also lots of hard bread (Knäckebröd) etc. Very pleased!!!

Good Friday

Good Friday started with a walk with Frida then J went away to play golf for the day and I started like a maniac in the garden. I love it, gives me a lot of joy and I almost have unimaginable stamina and strength.  I can go on for a very long time and I just love to see the end result. Not this day though. I did about 4 hours of hard work (including using my water pressure machine on all the tiles at the back) then I was totally knackered. I had to sleep for 3(!) hours in the afternoon and only surfaced to cook dinner and then to be lying like a sloth on the sofa! I did however manage to make a lovely saffron and fish soup for din dins. It was Friday and according to J you have to eat fish on Good Friday. I don’t mind at all (even though I have never been stringent on this in the past) I love fish and I also think it is nice to follow J’s traditions for Easter. Anyway the recipe is below....

Very easy and yum!!  (not great for the waistline so not every day food......) I used a Swedish recipe that I translated. I also did not use all the cream and CF – I added more of the stock and wine instead just to keep it a tiny bit less fatty...

400 gr white fish (I got Perch as that is what they had that I thought would work... ) Make sure to not use a very strong tasting fish..)

300 gr salmon

150 gr prawns (fresh, then peel and set aside)

1 leek

1 clove of garlic

 3 table spoons of lobster stock (I could not find that here so I used fish stock (good quality)

 200 ml water

 250 ml white wine

 250 ml cream (use a less fatty one if you can find)

100 ml crème fraiche

2 packages of good quality saffron (if you’re not fond of saffron maybe 1 pack is enough...)

1 tspoon salt

Less than half a teasoon black pepper

1 teaspoon thyme

1 teaspoon basil

Olive oil to cook

1.      Cut the fish in 3 cm cubes.

2.      Chop leek (I cut the leek in half then chopped) and finely chop the garlic. Add oil to pan and fry gently until transparent.

3.      Add all the herbs, water, stock, wine, cream and creme fraiche and let simmer for 10 minutes)

4.      Add the fish and cook until ready (white) add the fresh prawns (peeled) \\

5.      Serve the soup with fresh bread!

House and Garden

Bliss - the monthly edition of House & Garden arrived today. I am going to tuck myself in early and have a good read.
This is porn for garden and design interested peole......

The paw

Frida's paw is not healing properly. She keeps trying to get the bandage off and it is just not looking great. We went to the vet on Saturday and got it dressed. Then we spent the weekend being with her most of the time  and she was fine, not trying to chew it off. Today between 7.30am and 12.30pm she managed  to get the the big bandage off!  Yes it's pretty big, looks like ahuge turkey leg on the foot. hehe. Seriously, looks pretty funny.
I am sure frida doesn't think this is funny at all, she hates it!! She is dying for proper walks with chasing of balls and running. We have to wait a bit longer......

Lovely Sunday lunch

Yesterday was a lovely day! lunch at Hamptons cafe in Paddington. The place is inside a converted Queenslander (all painted in white) and you enter via an beutifully presented shop that sells furniture, textiles, cousions, kitchen stuff and all sorts of other fabulous nick nacks. All in a french style, this wonderful shop (where I could do some serious damage on a credit card) is a delight......Ohohoh so crisp and fresh, fabulous colors, good quiality, could not find one thing I did not like!!!
We were not there to shop however so we had a great lunch on the balcony and talked about the future. We came to a lot of great ideas/solutions/choices. It was a great afternoon, perfect weather - not too hot, not too cold, we got a table outside and the food was delicious....
Afterwards we checked out some of the funky antique shops in the neighborhood, then we went home and I had a nap....
Great Sunday!!!