Last Friday night we headed up to Sydney, staying at Mum's.

Saturday morning Mum and I went to have a look at my flat.  It'd been six and a half years since I had last seen it.  Sadly tenants just don't take care of things.  

Like the vanity - which had had so much water left on it over the years that it had gotten into the chipboard and swelled it all up and made it look disgusting, and the door was missing off it too.  

Or the light fitting in the second bedroom.  Who the hell loses light fittings?  And lots of stuff stuck to walls - I thought that was pretty much forbidden for tenants everywhere??

Or the vertical blinds, which I had in the two bedrooms and the lounge room.  But they're a crappy design and have a really thin bit of plastic holding them on, so if people let them swing about in the breeze from an open window or door, which tenants seem to do because they don't care, they break.  So now there's dodgy curtains in all three rooms.  *sigh*

Not to mention holes in doors, smashed tiles etc.  It was all a bit upsetting.

For the rest of the day Mum and I decluttered drawers and a shelf in the study - chucking out lots of stuff, reorganising things, and trying to sort out the hundreds of dvds Dad had made from shows he'd taped off tv.  Also David came over and we had another go a fixing the letterbox light, but something very weird is going on so he couldn't fully fix it.  At least now the light will come on when there's mail, but Mum has to go to the workshop to reset the light.

In the evening we headed to the other side of the world (ok the other side of Sydney) for George's 40th birthday party.  There was heaps of food and it was great to see lots of people I knew again, some of whom I hadn't seen since leaving Sydney (or even longer).

 

Rob and Alison had these super cool lenses for iPhones (although designed for iPhone 4s, so I had to hold them in place on my 5).  I liked the fish eye and macro lenses.  Might have to get me some :)

Then there was cake cutting

And Pippi Longstocking impersonations.

We stayed til near the end, which meant we got coopted into helping clean up.  A good fun night.

Then Sunday morning we came home.

16.3.14

And because we hadn't seen enough of F&C the night before, we met up with them at Gundaroo for lunch at Grazing.

The food was delicious, and we want to go back and try some of the other things on the menu!

"Duck"

"Pie"

"Ox Cheek"

"Risotto"

Went to Samiuz Belconnen for lunch today with the intent of using an Entertainment Book voucher to "buy one get one free".  Except that they don't take them for the lunch menu, because they claim the lunch menu is already a "special" and the vouchers can't be used with any other offer.

Even though the lunch menu is for a smaller amount of food, so it's not really a special - just spending less and getting less.

The whole thing made me furious, and not wanting to fork out extra money for food I didn't want to eat (I had no intention of eating two lamb shanks at lunch today) I left.

Never to return.

So last weekend (well really the weekend before.. sorry, I've been a slacker) we went down to Bermagui for the weekend.  We had a slow start and left Saturday morning and didn't arrive till nearly 4pm.

Cheese!!  I wanted to stop here and try cheese .. maybe next time..

A crappy photo of the Wallaga Lake bridge, which was recently used as a film set for Angelina Jolie's upcoming movie "Unbroken".  The bridge is meant to be in Japan!

When we arrived at Bellbird Cottage B&B we got out of the car and it was all BELLBIRDS!  They were peeping all around the bush and it was a lovely welcome!

The B&B is delightful.  They only rent out one (very large) room and it's downstairs and has its own entrance, so it's very private and has a wonderful bush outlook.  

I was sitting on the toilet for this photo..  :)

On the first evening they bring down a cheese platter as a welcome, so it was lovely to sit and nibble cheese and look at the bush and listen to the bellbirds.

We chillaxed for a while before heading out.  Unfortunately we were a little too late for the seaside fair, so we had a wander around Sculpture on the Edge.

This was probably my favourite - it's made with the tops of milk bottles and old bicycle tyres and has solar powered strings of led lights mingled through.  I would love to have seen these at night.

Wandered down to the wharf to find some dinner.  The cafe was booked out, so we got some fish and chips from the outside servery.

It was about 7:45 at this point, and there were fireworks scheduled for 8:45.  It was threatening to storm on us, so we went and found somewhere that we could park with a view of the fireworks.  This is the spot we found.

The fireworks were actually really good for a small country town

Had a pretty good night's sleep.

In the morning they brought down a fabulous breakfast with a yummy variety of food.  In fact there was so much food we couldn't finish it all, and I packaged up the leftovers for our lunch!

Then it was off to meet up with some people at the beach.  It had been raining in the morning and it did look a little miserable to start with, but the weather cleared into quite a nice day.

Came back to Bellbird Cottage and chillaxed and listened to the birds and sipped some wine.  Lovely!

Then we met up with J&H and D at Il Passagio down at the wharf for dinner.

A very nice salt and pepper squid

Polenta chips - crispy and yummy

Quite a nice steak

Good panna cotta

The next morning was another amazing breakfast

Saying goodbye to Bellbird Cottage - we hope to be back one day!

Went via the foreshore to hack some portals

Stopped by some cliffs and took photos of birds

Scratching himself on the wing?

Stopped at the rather green Blue Pool.

And headed home via Cooma.

Stu fell in love with this place overlooking a beautiful valley and across to Brown Mountain.

Fred Piper Memorial Lookout.  On a clear day you can see the ocean.

Glider south of Canberra

Hume Solar Farm

And then we were home.  A bit tired from what seemed like two days of travelling, but it was lovely weekend nonetheless.

What's been happening.

At work I've been fighting a really weird network problem trying to figure out what the heck is going on and not getting anywhere.

Thursday night I watched Grease on tv.  On Friday night we went to the Dumpling Inn for dinner then did our food shopping.  Watched Se7en with the sweetie, although I was getting really tired by the end of it and was struggling to stay awake.

Saturday morning we went to Ellacure for breakfast.  I had eggs benedict.  Sadly the bacon was over cooked (is that even possible??) and the eggs a tad overdone too.  Definitely not the best eggs benedict I've ever had.  The waitresses were lovely and service was prompt, however the place was packed so it was forty minutes from arriving to getting our food.

Saturday night after dinner I went over to Kit's for drinks as she had a friend over.  Stayed up a bit too late.

Today Potty and family came and picked me up and we all went out to the Hall Markets, which I'd never actually been to before.

Other than that, mostly jigsawing.  Barely did any housework this weekend, although Stu achieved lots, so at least one of us had a productive weekend heh.

Last Sunday morning we headed home from Sydney with a car load of crap in tow.  Caught up on housework/washing etc in the afternoon.

On Monday I finished packing up and inventoring Jake's Lego.  

On Tuesday I suffered from major lack of sleep.  We went to the Dumpling Inn for dinner (mixed chow mein and shredded beef peking style) then did our food shopping.  Came home and dismantled most of the Star Destroyer (that had also been constructed at Christmas 2009) while watching TV.

On Tuesday night I still couldn't get to sleep, so Wednesday was more misery.  Watched some pretty cool rainstorms out the window at work.  When I got home however, there was a small stream of water going across the garage floor.  Which would have been fine, except it intersected with my old desk that I've had for thirty five or so years, and the chipboard at the bottom all swelled up :(:(:(  So that was pretty annoying.  My parents still have the matching beds, and I still use the matching set of drawers.  I was hoping to sell/give away the things as a set one day so that's a bit of a poo.  In the evening it poured with rain again, so I collected a whole heap of it and put it in the pool.

Wednesday night I finished dismantling the Star Destroyer, and started the remaining section of my Life jigsaw. 

Thursday night we got pizza and watched The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which I hadn't seen since I saw it at the movies in 2005.

On Friday a bunch of us got pork knuckles from Zierholz.  Omigosh they were *huge*.  I got through all the meat/crackling on mine (but only just) but didn't quite finish the sides.  Pretty much everyone said the experience of it was good, but noone would really be interested in having it again - simply too much food.  I reckon it'd go well shared between two people.  I didn't have any dinner that night.

Friday night was more jigsawing while watching Angels and Demons, which I hadn't seen.  

Saturday morning I cleaned the gutters and flushed the downpipes which were all completely clogged.  Then we headed out to the club, but I'll leave that for another post.

Today was catching up on housework as well as doing more jigsaw and tv show catching up.

Tonight after work I went hunting the Baxter Inn on Clarence St.

You'd only know it was there if someone told you about it.  

And warned you about dark alleys.

 And unmarked doors.

But it was totally worth it!  The bar tender I talked to was super helpful and I ended up sitting at the bar.

What a bar!

I ended up trying two scotches - a Longrow CV ($11) and a Caol Ila Distiller's Edition ($17).

Will have to drag the sweetie along some time :)

After that went to Luc and Lizzi's for dinner so could take a donut photo of Ryan.

Three months ago today we took a tram from Central to Victoria Park then did a Central and Sheung Wan foodie tour.

So last night F&C came over for dinner.  We had a swim first up, accompanied by wine and nibbles from the Spa Bar.  Then the sweetie did some very nice marinated salmon.  Somehow it came up that we should watch Meaning of Life, so we did, while sampling some very nice single malt whiskeys.  Then another dip in the pool because it was still super hot.

Today I did housework and Lego dismantling and then our food shopping.  This evening Fiona and Bruce came over and we had more wine and cheese in the pool followed by pizza for dinner and The Big Lebowski.

It's too danged hot.

Three months ago yesterday we walked the Avenue of Stars in Hong Kong and went up to The Peak and I explored the ladies markets.  Three months ago today we took a ferry to Lantau Island and visited Tai O and Ngong Ping, and watched the Symphony of Lights.

Had a mini whiskey night last night.  Three whiskeys.  The Hazelburn was probably my favourite, and the Balblair was very easy to drink.

Then met up with Gaelian at the Wig & Pen.  Then to the Dumpling Inn for dinner, but I forgot it was Chinese New Years Eve, and the place was *packed*.  Oops.  Did some food shopping afterwards, then came home.  The house was super hot, but I think it was hotter outside than in :(  So jumped in the pool to cool off.

Went to Jake's today and basically took the rest of his Lego away.  So I have pretty much all of it except for what he got for Christmas.  Found a bunch of missing things which was useful, and matched up some of the pieces I had here with the sets he had mostly complete.  Only a couple more sets to check over now.

Had lunch in Gungahlin and did a bit of food shopping.

Otherwise the day was pretty much just housework, paint-by-numbers, Lego and watching telly with the sweetie.