Sunday, December 30, 2012

hello! I'm home in wagga wagga again, I had the best holiday and was quite sad to leave my family in sydney. but as soon as we drove back into town, bumped into a few friends at the supermarket and busied ourselves in the kitchen I was really happy to be home.

on our last full day in hobart, I had the genius idea to do the 10km bike ride from town to mona. I was quite insistent and it turned out to be one of the best and worst decisions of the trip. worst because the ride was actually quite tricky, the bikes were unfamiliar and it was super windy and at times rainy along the way. tony also fell off his bike at one point! but then we saw things like the glenorchy art and sculpture park, where the photo above is from. the colours in tassie were really brilliant and living in such a flat place, I was really taken by the mountains at every turn.

we ended up at mona on three separate occasions, one day for the gallery, another for the fantastic mona market/food fair where we snacked on gingerbread and sour cherry macaroons and then at the end of our ill fated bike ride.


I have about a billion photos of tony from the trip, the only one he took of me was on the day we decided to skip showers and slather ourselves with suncream and insect repellant and go on a long walk through the national park. safe to say I won't be sharing that photo here.

it's 2013 tomorrow! I've been mistakenly referring to 2012 as last year for at least two months now.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

we made it to hobart. so far there have been two trips to mona, two matthew evans sightings and two delicious fish and chip dinners.



Wednesday, December 12, 2012


on monday afternoon I took a train to the mountains to meet the boys who'd gone ahead of me, keen to smoke some kind of meat on the bbq all afternoon. it was rainy and cold by the time I'd arrived and conveniently close to dinnertime. the rain was the misty kind that fell diagonally and I made one last stop to pick up some marshmallows before we headed to the house for the night.



the house was big and white with windows that looked out into the gardens. the loose plan was to hang out, cook and read. it was cold enough to light a fire and it felt like christmas.

I finished helen garner's the spare room on trip up. it was one of the best books I've ever read and I've since become slightly obsessed with buying copies for friends and family for christmas.




Sunday, December 9, 2012


a beautiful wedding. on saturday the lovely irini married michael. I experienced my first greek orthodox wedding and then found myself on the bridal table for the reception.

irini and I went to high school together and she is endlessly encouraging, patient, fun and optimistic. and that's as a close friend. I think she is going to make an excellent wife. weddings give me a sore throat from all of the near crying.

here's my date! he's the best at weddings, always willing to swap meals so I get the one I want. this time round there was no swapping required.

it's been a really fun trip so far, though we are a little city-shocked. even though we used to live right in the centre of town, we seem to have forgotten about the smells and traffic of sydney!

Friday, December 7, 2012


holidays! hello, I had my last day of work on thursday and now I'm on holidays for the rest of the year. I can hardly believe it. we're in sydney at the moment, staying with tony's parents in a bright apartment right by balmoral beach. our bedroom is buttercup yellow, there are bunnies in the park around the corner and there are so many nice places to eat nearby. it's really lovely to be by the water again.

funnily enough yesterday on the drive up I had no words. I slept most of the way and even when I was awake, I could barely muster more than two sentences in a row. I'm much better rested now, possibly thanks to a nice long walk by the sea, some fresh seafood and a giant slab if tiramisu.

One of my dearest friends is getting married today! And then tomorrow we're off to a picnic for my brother's birthday. I'm helping a girlfriend from Wagga celebrate her 30th on Monday and then I think we're off to the mountains for a few days. *I am pinching myself*

Happy weekend! Wishing you honey sandwiches and long cups of tea.






P.S - My brother recently launched his own online radio show, we got a sneak peak of episode 2 on our drive to Sydney and it was fantastic. I think the new episode drops soon.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

eating day. we had friends round for breakfast on sunday and managed to squeeze in the tiniest nap before we were treated to a very big lunch. early christmas celebrations have been awesome so far! this month also marks two years of living in wagga wagga, which prompts a little reflection. more than anything, both tony and I are really happy here. we had a great first year and were surprised that our second year was even better.

our friend's lunch set up looked like a magazine spread. there was a festive drink to start, followed by the plumpest most delicious scallops I've had in a very long time. lunch was a vegetarian affair and we had yummy nut loaf with homemade beetroot relish, a nigella butter themed potato, parsnip and porcini gratin and greens. the nut loaf was my favourite, it was like surprisingly like meatloaf!



the star of the show was the girdle buster - an ice cream cake of sorts with a super thick base of two kinds of biscuit, two kinds of chocolate followed by an ice cream layer and then a whisky caramel. it was so amazing. sadly we finished the leftovers we were sent home with earlier tonight.

hi tony!

party pooches. we stumbled home, watched a movie and downed some coffee and were dressed and ready for a christmas drinks later that night. so far december has been pretty good!

Monday, December 3, 2012


today at work I got a little sunburnt, sampled my first ganmain pie (it was great!), swapped some homemade banana bread for a jar of mamma made cookies and spent a lot of time waiting for cars, trucks and gusts of wind to pass.

every six weeks or so, I take a deep breath and have a go standing in front of the camera for work. it's kind of strange mainly because my work usually involves being behind the scenes. I love the unseen parts of my job, the visits to people's houses and the morning and afternoon tea spreads they put out, finding myself in scenarios that are so foreign to me like dairy farms and karate meet-ups. more often than not nothing dressier than jeans is required.

my friend suzi took these photos in ganmain this morning. sadly we had to change locations because of a very noisy tree mulcher. it was our final shoot for the year, no more lines to learn for now, just holidays to look forward to.