Tuesday Tidbits (and no tails) - Melbourne weekend

I have just come back from freezing my a*!# off on a long weekend in Melbourne. I am from Melbourne originally, but I haven't lived there for quite a few years.  For an adopted Queenslander, it was pretty darn cold bloody freezing. I was looking forward to wearing all my winter clothes that I never get to wear here. However, the worst thing about Melbourne is having to wear layers of bulky clothing to keep warm and then every time I went inside I would have to strip off really quickly or I would die of heat exhaustion. It was very frustrating, why do all the shops have heating on so high? If I wasn't quick enough I could feel the sweat dripping down my back....eeeeeeeeeeeww
I had both my camera and phone with me at all times and managed to forget to take photos and most of the photos I did take were pretty much crap,  I still don't know how I did that........
So without further ado here are the best of a bad bunch of photos,

Some photos of the Melbourne Craft Show, these were the only pics I took!!!!!

Martinique and chenille quilt

 This quilt won lots but I don't remember who or what or why. I promise I hadn't been drinking.

Karen from Quilts on Bastings, Crop Circles quilt, absolutely beautiful close up.

 A stall full of Kaffe Fassett and yummy chenille, again, have no idea of the name of the stall.

A really bad photo taken with my phone, of a fabulous chinese restaurant in Little Bourke St, Shanghai Village, and the queue outside after we left.

Two of the dishes we ordered, only remembered to take them after we were nearly finished. The one on the left Szechuan fish, (fabulous) and beef in black bean (delicious). Much much better than they look. I highly recommend this restaurant if you want an authentic and very cheap meal. Just remember to go early or you will be like all those people in the above photo, standing in the queue for ages.

 Another superb meal of Lamb and Sumac Pie with Tzatziki at Brown Sugar a lovely little cafe/bistro in Melbourne CBD

A couple of photos showing the grey weather, and people rugged up on Saturday.

Chokolait, where we had a really nice hot chocolate.  I overdosed on hot chocolate on the weekend. We started at Max Brenner, (I've decided I don't like Max Brenner any more it's too sickly even for me, a chocaholic). We tried numerous times to go to the Lindt store, but as half of Melbourne were there too we gave it a miss, maybe I'll try next time.

I love this building it just reminded me of Paris, and was amazing to see in the middle of the CBD, so cute, even the woman who came out of the building with her dog, looked Parisienne. Look blue sky on Sunday morning!!!!!

 

Beautiful views from the hotel room on Sunday, finally some sunshine.

I can't wait to go back again, when it's a bit warmer.  I don't care if I don't get to wear my winter clothes again.

What a fabulous day.......

My day started with this, what an excellent way to start the day.

A fabulous present for an extraordinary friend, inside I found this

yummmmmmmm, I love chocolate, especially Haigh's chocolate.

and this beautiful wool,

and this. How lucky am I. Now I can use up some of my jelly roll stash.

I am very lucky to have Mrs P for a friend. Isn't she just fabulous! Thank you so much Shay, it was such a great start to the day.

Then my mum and dad gave me these, another beautiful orchid.

 A scarf

 A very nice and very handy clutch/handbag

 And best of all a voucher for a spa treatment, woo hoo, lucky me.

This was from my sis.

Now I can get into some serious Thai cooking. She also gave me some kitchen gadgets.

Then off to lunch at the Noosa Yacht Club, a lovely relaxing lunch, looking over the river, watching the yachts, with two of my friends, and a glass of wine. The weather was beautiful, sunny and a pleasant temperature, although it clouded over in the afternoon.

Sallie and moi.

Unfortunately the photo of Renata looks like she has been having too many martinis again working too hard, so I haven't posted it.  Poor Renata, she is going to get a reputation, of course I have nothing to do with that, he he.

Some more lovely presents. An absolutely stunning vase from Renata. It's actually a rich red, it looks a bit more orange in this photo.

A gorgeous bunch of flowers from Sallie.

I also had lots of phone calls, and birthday wishes on Facebook from all my gorgeous friends.

The day continues into the evening, dinner with my parents and my angel at a very nice restaurant in Hastings St, Noosa.  I am not sure how I am going to eat much tonight, but I am certainly going to enjoy the evening.

I am soooo lucky, what a fabulous day.

Tuesday tidbits (and tails)

Both my cats are indoors cats, to keep them safe from various dangers outside, like ticks, pythons,  and occasional dingoes. Also to keep the native wildlife safe from killer Lulu, who loves to chomp on any unsuspecting native mice, lizards, birds, small marsupials etc.

I'm sure she would love to have a nice juicy bush turkey, these are not the best photos as they were moving quite fast and I was having trouble getting a good shot of them. They have bright red heads and yellow wattles around the neck. They are a native bird, and can even be found wandering down Hastings St at Noosa Heads, dodging the tourists and traffic.  They build large mounds, where they bury the eggs to incubate them.  Unfortunately if they become resident in or near your garden, your mulch is usually "borrowed" to make their nests.

We also have a family of kookaburras who live in the neighbourhood. Sorry not another great photo, but if you click on it to "embiggen" you might see them a bit better.

Bailey still gets his fix of greens though, he loves chomping on my lemon grass.

Lulu doesn't eat greens, but she likes green!

I have been working away on these during the week.
I have to make 30 in total, and I am up to number 19.

Tonight we had a fabulous sunset.

Found on You Tube - Dulux Walls Ad - Director's Cut

A day of international culture, sort of

Yesterday was the French Festival in Brisbane, in honour of Bastille Day on Wednesday the 14th..  It was a beautiful day, and as neither Renata or I had anything planned  Renata came over and we drove down to Brisbane, with Renata's daughter in tow.
Unfortunately every other inhabitant of South East Queensland thought it would be a good idea too. It was busier than Disneyland.  There were so many people there. I am sure the organizers would have been amazed and very happy at how popular it was.  We arrived at about 1.30pm and it was packed. The food stalls had huge queues and it was very difficult to work your way through the crowds.

Originally we had planned to have lunch there, wander around, maybe go across to the city and have a look at the shops and then come back to Southbank for an early dinner and then drive back up to the coast.

There was no way we were going to have lunch there unless we were willing to stand in a queue for ages, so we changed our plans and went to the restaurant for lunch instead of dinner. Yumm

The restaurant is called Ahmets, a fabulous Turkish restaurant at Southbank.  

Check out the decor.

We had really lovely meals, although we ordered way too much, they were huge serves and couldn't finish them.  We also had to try  the Turkish Delight Martini, OMG, very sweet but yummmmm.

I think Renata's had plenty.

The Mezze plate that we shared, doesn't actually look at all appetising in this photo,  does it!

Pepper stuffed with lovely fragrant rice, dolmades, falafels,  salad and a mixed vegetable dish.

My dish of Lamb kebabs with rice, salad and a little bit of flat bread.

Renata's lamb and eggplant puree.

None of those dishes photographed well, but they were very very nice indeed. In fact I could say some very rude things about what they look like, but I won't. The atmosphere was great too. On Saturday night they have belly dancers as entertainment.

After lunch we tried the French Festival again, it was still very busy.  Even when we went back for the third time in the early evening there were still crowds of people.