Day 17 - Wordless Wednesday

I'm speechless...

Images from here

Day 16 - Dinner With Friends

This evening hubby & I had a wonderful time having drinkies followed by dinner at a good (but not quite to my taste) Chinese restaurant in, suprise suprise, Chinatown. You know, one of those ones down a dark alley off Little Bourke Street that is so typical of Melbourne? Good food, good friends and a whole lot of chillis. And when I say a whole lot I mean A WHOLE LOT. You could hardly see the food for the chillis! It was more like "I'll have chillis with a dash of chicken thanks" rather than "I'll have chicken in chilli sauce thanks." Unbelievable! And what a mess we made... After the dishes were cleared, our messiness became all to apparent...

Guess I can now see why they have butcher's paper for table cloths! Don't the Chinese say that a messy table shows you really enjoyed your meal (or something to that effect?)

x

Day 15 - Home Sweet Home

My little "time out" at Castlemaine has come to an end and I'm back home, back to reality. I picked the girls up from their grandparents on the way home - they had a wonderful time there and want to go back! They just adore monkeying around on the monkey bars & swing set!

Have a wonderful week!

x

Day 14 - Maldon & Mulled Cider

Today was the "Maldon & Beyond Food and Wine Festival" and since we are still up at Castlemaine (which is only about 15mins from Maldon) we thought that sounded fun! We woke to rain. Not a good start to a day we were planning to go to an outdoor festival... But we braved the elements and went anyway. I must say it was a huge disappointment. We weren't even tempted to taste any of the tiny range of wine, and found it pretty much a yawn the first time around, so we went to a local cafe and had a scrumtious Devonshire Tea. We did one more lap of the little festival before we headed off and actually were suprised to find some interesting produce! We got a couple of vegetarian tarts for dinner (that were very yummy!), some relish and other bits and pieces... So it wasn't a loss after all.

On the way back to Castlemaine we went via Harcourt, which isn't actually on the way to Castlemaine from Maldon, but let's not get into a geography lesson... Anyway, we went via Harcourt because we wanted some more wine and produce from the fabulous Bress, and some of Henry fof Harcourt's Perry (aka pear cider - but I wouldn't dare say that to Henry's wife!) and premium apple cider so I could make some mulled cider, which I did as soon as we got back to my folks.

I took Henry's premium apple cider...

And Henry's Mulled Cider recipe...

And some spices...

And bunged it all in a pot (in the proportions and methods as described by the recipe)...

Trust me - it tasted WAY better than it looks!!!

After about 10mins or so it was ready to drink. Yummy! A nice, warm mulled cider to take the chill off a cold winter's day :-) The bottle of cider was 750mls, and when you mull a bottle of cider (or wine or whatever you can mull) you do the lot... So everyone had a little try, said their niceties and then left the rest to me... Hmmm... 650mls of lovely warm mulled cider went down very nicely, but I must admit I felt a bit sickly after the last glass!

All in all, a wonderful, relaxing Sunday with hubby topped by dinner with my parents. Back to the "real world" tomorrow...

Hope you all had a great weekend!

x

Day 13 - I'm Grateful For ...

... the simple things in life. Just like this evening, in fact. Good food, good wine and good company - a lovely dinner with my husband and my parents up in Castlemaine. Great conversation followed by a relax and then a yummy supper of soggy toast with butter & vegemite and a hot cuppa.

Oh, and a good book - as you can see in the background!

Pop over to Maxabella Loves to see what others are grateful for this week!

Day 12 - Cider Heaven!

Being near Harcourt (famous for apples) cider is pretty popular up here in Castlemaine... But I was shocked (and thrilled!) when I went to the local Cellarbrations. There were not the usual choice of two or three (if you're lucky) apple ciders that I'm used to finding in your standard local liquor store - there were 3 FRIDGES full of different ciders! THREE FRIDGES!!! Well, that stopped me in my tracks - instead of having to make a quick "which one?" decision, I was faced with a "Wow! I love that, and that, and that... What do I really feel like?" decision!

There was all my favourites (and comments regarding the term "pear cider" will [probably] be ignored!) - Strongbow, a whole range from Rekordering, Henry of Harcourt's Perry, Bress, Kopparberg, Bulmers, Sail & Anchor, Monteiths, and the list goes on! Henry's, Bress & Rekordering top my list, but I came back with a 6-pack of Strongbow Summer Pear because it was (a) mostly cheaper and (b) the others were by the bottle and not in a convenient pack, and (c) in the case of Henry's and Bress, I want to pop in to their cellar doors tomorrow anyway.

I'm going to go have some happy, slightly intoxicated discussions with my father regarding systems security now *hiccup* lol!

x

Another Challenge!

Check out my bear-blog, Julius King Designs, to see the details of my newest challenge! Feel free to join in - it's not a bear challenge & should be great fun!

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