floating world

some very good things from the weekend

• Dinner at Tabou (probably my favourite restaurant in Sydney) with my husband, for no reason at all
• Two Lovers at the Verona and girlie chat (Isabella - yay! Gwyneth - boo!)
• Cooking comfort food for a dinner party on a cold night
• Lily Allen. Love love love her latest album and am driving the rest of the household bonkers by playing it non stop.
• Craft Day. 18 women armed with sewing machines descend on a community centre to gossip and eat chocolate tart. Oh, and do a bit of knitting and sewing too. Lots of fun. 
• Organic grapes. Yum.

watch out, purple wall

Your days are numbered.

excursion

Today the rain stopped for the first time all week. There were mountains of laundry to be done but the sunshine was too hard to resist, so Ali and I went to the botanical gardens instead.

There were bats to see, ibises (ibi?) to chase, puddles to jump in, an ikebana display, a fabulous and previously undiscovered succulent garden, and the sparkling, sparkling harbour. It made me think that Sydney is a pretty good place to live.

raspberry slice

It has been raining all week. And cold, too. I dragged out my northern-hemisphere coats and scarves, and made soup. And I bought the Family Circle Winter Special, after Corrie wrote about it. It's full of recipes for casseroles, and treacle pudding, and other cosy-making food. Like raspberry coconut slice.

It's meant to be strawberry coconut slice, but we never have strawberry jam in the house. I don't even know why they sell strawberry jam, why would you buy strawberry when you can have raspberry? (Homemade is, of course, a different matter).

Anyway, I am not a regular slice-maker, muffins being my quick bake of choice, but this one is easy and delicious. Of course, it contains so much butter and sugar it will probably kill you, but in grim cold weather Death By Slice is not such a bad option.

The same issue has lots of knitting patterns and craft ideas, including the republished pattern for this rib baby jacket. Well worth a look.

little golden books

What is it about Little Golden Books? I love them so much. I had quite a few of them when I was little, and now I have Ali it is a wonderful excuse to start a new collection for him.

Most of these have been picked up at Vinnies, but a couple were bought new.

It's extra exciting when I find the same ones that I had when I was little.

The illustrations are just so beautiful and intricate. Ali loves books and is happy to sit for ages talking about the different things in the pictures.

(The Bunny Book, illustrated by Richard Scarry)

(I Can Fly)

(The Large and Growly Bear)

The current favourites are Firemen and The Little Red Caboose.

We read the Little Red Caboose (or " 'boose" as it is known around here) soooo many times on the plane to Perth. Luckily there is enough detail in the illustrations that there is always something new to discover.

I remember my mum buying me a Little Golden Book in Jewel if I was good during the grocery shop, and loved lining all my books up so the spines were matching and shiny. I'm hoping that Ali will have happy memories of reading Golden Books as part of his childhood too.

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(More info on the history of Little Golden Books here and here)

organic delivery in sydney

Can anyone recommend an organic fruit / veg delivery service in Sydney? I would like to start ordering a weekly mixed box, but there are so many companies out there and I have no idea where to start. Any ideas?

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Update - I haven't received any recommendations, so I'm going to try a different service each week for the next few weeks, and then I'll report back on how they were. 

I have heard a lot about CSA deliveries from people in the US, but sadly the CSA model doesn't seem to exist in Australia yet. I like the idea of being sent different vegetables depending on the time of year - I think it would force me to try new recipes and cook more seasonally.

I've just placed my first mixed box order and am looking forward to seeing what turns up on Monday!

toothless knitting

As of yesterday morning I am minus my two left wisdom teeth, and sporting a lopsided swollen jaw. I am confined to the house, to avoid upsetting small children in the street, and have been making the most of the time to knit and read (and eat custard). The February Lady Sweater is coming on... at this rate I may actually finish before spring. And I'm reading The Hundred Secret Senses, which is great. I first read Amy Tan when I picked up The Bonesetters Daughter from the hotel library on my honeymoon in 2004, and loved her style of writing straight away. She and Anne Tyler are my two favourite holiday authors - I finally read The Accidental Tourist in WA last week. So toothless convalescence is not so bad at all. 

back from the wild west

Mark, Ali and I just got home from a week in Western Australia. It was so good to spend time together, have a break from the usual routine, and see a different part of the country.

We started off with a few days in Perth, staying at Cottesloe Beach and exploring Kings Park and Freemantle. We visited the markets and the prison, and I ate chili mussels for dinner, under constant threat of seagull attack. It was wonderful to be able to walk by the beach and take Ali to the playground first thing in the morning (Perth is 2 hours behind Sydney, so he woke up even earlier than usual).

Then we headed down to the Margaret River region for a couple of nights. We stayed in a converted train carriage on a farm, and Ali loved feeding the animals and collecting eggs in the mornings. The coast was so beautiful, and even though it's not the most toddler friendly activity we managed to squeeze in visits to a couple of wineries.

Then it was back to Perth so we could catch the train to Kalgoorlie, where my sister and brother-in-law are living. Kalgoorlie is a gold town, and it's dominated by historic buildings and wide streets from the gold rush era, and traces of the modern mining industry. It feels so remote, and the landscape is beautiful.

One day we did a road trip out to Lake Ballard, to see an installation, "Inside Australia" by Antony Gormley. Metal figures are dotted around the lake in the red mud. There's nothing around for miles, so the whole thing is very surreal and beautiful.





Now we're back home, and getting on top of the washing. This trip was the furthest we've gone with Ali and the first time we've taken him on a plane. He was an absolute trooper on the flights and train (no nap, but very cheerful), so it's good to know that parenthood doesn't spell the end of travelling. It is very different - 5pm dinners, and having to pack nappies and toys etc. But we did lots of things that we wouldn't have done without Ali, like the farmstay and lots of trips to parks and the beach - which Mark and I loved too. In many ways it's good to be forced to slow down, accept that you can't see everything, and have a more relaxing holiday than one jammed with sightseeing and late nights. And good practice for our trip to the US later this year!