Not at Fashion Week…

Just a quickie tonight. I’m in a hotel room in Sydney where I’m ensconsed for the next couple of days for a conference… no not anything to do with fashion week. I know you are shocked that I would not automatically be invited given what a fashionista I am… oh what? You’re not shocked?

We had dinner at Yai this evening, a trendy Thai eatery in Surry Hills. Very nice food but don’t get the banquet - far too much food! Most interesting dish a papaya salad - spicy HOT! Quite citrusy flavours.

It was not the smoothest of trips, we waited 2 and a half hours in Perth airport for the plane to depart - in the end they had to get another plane - but I sat next to a young fellow from the department of defence who’d lost his licence (for 3 years) for drink driving. Yes we had an interesting chat.

Unfortunately this trip is very work focussed and I won’t get the chance to check out fashion week or go shopping or catch up with anyone other than my colleagues but it’s lovely to be back in Sydney. I do like a harbour town. :)

You really don’t think I’m a fashion plate?

:)

Sleeping bag cover up!

Dippity is going camping. Her first camp with her new school. She’s pretty excited but a little worried that she won’t be able to get her sleeping bag into its bag. And I don’t blame her.

What is it with sleeping bag makers!

Why can’t they design a bag that makes it easy for a kid use?

Now sure, I could have TMATP* and bought a down filled stuff-in sleeping bag. I have one of those myself and they are great. Warm, compact and best of all easy to store in its little bag. Instead I decided to cut the price tag by more than half and buy a very warm, good quality bag that you need to roll up and put in its bag. IMPOSSIBLE.

It’s hard enough for me, let alone a 11 year old.

Am I alone?

Tell me about your sleeping bag woes…

*TMATP = Thrown Money At The Problem

Big Brother 08

I’ve been debating with myself as to whether I’ll post about BB08. At first I thought I’d be a bit Rodney Olsen and do the “I don’t think so” deal… but then I thought well, I’ll watch the freak show for the first night and just see…

Well I saw.

The short, the old, the fat and the ugly. The Barbie doll, the boobs, the surfie and the fireman.

And now they have to sacrifice one of their own on first impressions.

Interesting.

What would you reveal - or not reveal - about yourself if you were trying to convince someone you’ve only just met to let you stay?

Will Rebecca talk about her hygiene paranoia for example?

Will Rory mention his anti-religion status - or David his strong faith?

Travis might not want to openly reveal he’s in it for the money… and he’s a church regular too. Hmmm maybe Rory had better keep quiet.

Chosen for their opposing views and likelihood to clash with each other, they are walking a minefield.

And if they say nothing? They might just be kicked out just for being boring.

Hmmm I might not mention my…

PS: If you missed it, Jen Live Blogged it.

Rice cooker Organic Beef Dark Ale Casserole

Let me share with you Groover’s delicious recipe for beef casserole that he made up himself taking inspiration from several recipes.

It is perfect for a wet wintry day and very rich.

The idea is to get it started in the morning and then go away and leave it. Come back for an evening meal and in the meantime enjoy the beautiful aromas of comfort food.

Rice cooker organic beef and dark ale casserole.

Ingredients:
1 kg of oyster blade beef (or any cheap cut of organic beef)
100g pancetta cut into cm cubes
250 mL of beef stock
1 bottle (330mL) dark ale or stout (eg Guinness)
1 can of crushed tomatoes
500g small brown onions
one bunch of baby carrots
300g mushrooms
2 cloves garlic
handful fresh rosemary, finely chopped
50g plain flour
2 anchovies (the secret ingredient)
2 tablespoons of Worcester Sauce
1 teaspoon Marmite (the other secret ingredient)
handful of flat leaf Italian parsley, chopped
zest of one lemon
splash of sherry
1 tablespoon Olive Oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:
Put olive oil in pan and fry off the pancetta. Remove pancetta and place in bottom of rice (or slow) cooker. Mix the flour salt and pepper and chopped rosemary and cut the beef into three or four centimetre chunks and coat liberally in the seasoned flour.

Brown the beef in the pan to seal and caramelise the beef quickly - you don’t want to cook it through - feel free to do this in batches. Place beef on top of the pancetta in the rice cooker.

Finally, peel the onions and garlic and quickly pan fry in the remaining oil and throw on top of beef.

The onions are meant to be whole and not cooked, just lightly glazed with the oil. Deglaze the pan with the sherry and pour juice over the ingredients in the rice cooker.

Add the stout and stock, chopped mushrooms, anchovies, tomatoes, marmite and Worcester Sauce and close the rice cooker. Put the cooker on cook and then let it simmer on “warm” for the next 6-7 hours (the rest of the day).

The house will fill with delicious comfort foody smells.

About two hours before serving throw in the washed baby carrots.

Just prior to serving add the chopped parsley and zest of a lemon.

Serve with mashed potato and green salad.

Yummy.

Seagulls steal chips… from a shop

I seem to be collecting youtube videos on seagulls.

First there was my little video of the seagulls looking at themselves in a shiny sculpture… and now there’s this one (discovered on Steven Humour) of seagulls stealing chips.

They are cheeky little buggers aren’t they. I can remember Groover’s angst as he left the bakery at Rottnest Island (mmmmm) with a pie and before he had taken one bite having it snatched from his grip by a marauding seagull.

We rescued a seagull once.

We were staying on Rottnest… we went every year for a week’s holiday growing up… and it was raining. A seagull chick had fallen from it’s nest and was being pecked and attacked by some adults. Mum rescued it and put it in the oven… to keep it warm! The door was open. She wrapped it up and fed it milk I think… or something.

We brought it home with us on the ferry in an icecream container cradled in tissues and when we got home Mum made it a little home out of a cardboard box. She cut slats in one site - like a jail - and the little seagull grew.

It was pretty intelligent actually. And toilet trained. Well, sort of. It used to squirt its business through the slats onto the kitchen dining floor. Luckily we had tiles. You had to watch where you stepped coming home.

Eventually it grew too big for the cardboard box and Dad built it an aviary along the backfence. For some reason he’d built the side wall with foot wide partitions extending out which worked really well with some chicken wire.

We called our seagull - Rasputin.

He was a fine guard-dog er… seagull. Every time anyone walked past he’d do that seagull screech. Could wake the dead.

We’d let him out to practice flying and one day took him down to the beach and set him free among his seagully friends. Maybe he came back and visited us. It’s a bit hard to tell.

They all look the same to me.

Upgraded to 2.5.1

I really thought I’d wait to see if they had all the bugs ironed out - there were 70 fixed in this upgrade - but then I thought what the hey and upgraded anyway. I’m like that.

I had a hairy moment when all I was getting was a white screen… but then I remembered to overwrite the new default theme and all was well.

Thank goodness.

Although… and this is a bugger… photodropper doesn’t seem to work anymore. :(

Which is why I’ve added this random scene… it makes me feel better.  (And now I can centre photos without mucking around with the code. )

My youngest child is 11

There have been a couple of things lately that have made me feel old. Trying to buy something hip hap’nin and groovy today… sigh. Being asked if my 18 year old daughter also had her hair done at my salon (I look old enough to have an 18 year old daughter now?!!!) and now little Dippity - The Pigeon - turning 11.

But it’s not about me. Here are seven photographs of my girl.

Yeah. That’s my baby.

Happy Birthday gorgeous one.

Journey to the Mid-West

Last weekend I drove up to Geraldton with my dad and two small people, Hugamuga and Dippity. Dad wanted to visit his step-mother, the kids were on holidays, and it was a good chance for me to visit our Geraldton office as well as seeing my step-Grandmother. Now 86.

I thought I’d tell this story in pictures.

We drove up on Saturday. First stop was lunch at a little picnic spot just north of Badgingarra.

We stopped at the old convict bridge, washed away in a recentish flood. I lost my akubra (well Groover’s hat) but luckily had written our name and phone number inside it and the lovely gentleman at the Hampton Arms Inn rescued it for me.

After rescuing my hat, the kids and I decided to visit Greenough’s historic village which was quite well preserved, if a bit dusty. The new cafe is very swish. This is the jail.

A classic Greenough tree. A river gum bent double by the strong winds off the coast.

It is still very dry at Greenough.

My step-grandmother and father in her crowded kitchen. She has two stoves and four fridges, although she only uses two at the moment. I’m making a video of her house - it has to be seen to be believed - so if I get permission - stand by. And yes, you picked it, she is Japanese.

Hers is an interesting story which I will tell when I show you her house.

A sunset view from the house.

The next day the kids discovered the Merry-Go-Round by the Sea, inspired by Randolph Stow’s famous autobiographical novel.

And we visited the memorial to the crew of HMAS Sydney, especially poignant since the discovery of the wrecks and the fact today is after all, ANZAC Day. Now they can, rest in peace.

Ever wondered who lived at the end of the rainbow?

Yes it rained. But the earth seemed so dry as to reject the water. We were a little worried about our night camping but the weather bureau’s radar looked promising so we headed to Cliff Head, via Dongara.

We had to go to Dongara because that’s where my dad built his first solo construction. Aged 13.

Dad went on to become Engineer of the Year and was involved in a great many projects. My favourite is still The Stirling Bridge in Fremantle which was his first project as project manager. I remember going to the opening… ah but that’s yet another story.

So we made it to Cliff Head. Camping to my kids means marshmellows:

And to my dad, means fishing:

He used to fish here with his mum and dad.

We slept on the beach which wasn’t as successful as we hoped given the bright moonlight and my Dippity falling ill and the next day mooched our way home, stopping on the way at the Pinnacles Desert near Cervantes.

It was my dad’s first ever visit to this famous West Australian tourist destination.

And it was my first visit too. I’m not sure why they are such a popular tourist destination…

PS: I didn’t break a nail til I came home and did the washing. Meh.

PPS: Here’s where all the photos live.

Nothing like a biosolid necklace to make you feel better

I’ve been feeling poorly over the last 24 hours. Vomiting. And I never vomit. In fact I reckon you can divide the world into vomiters and non-vomiters. Vomiting is much more stressful for a non-vomiter. Such a shock to the system.

Anyway, it’s all been a bit bleah.

Luckily I live with Groover who cheered me up with a little article from “Flowing Forward” produced by the Water Corporation’s Communication Division.

Margaret Domurad (pictured) is wearing shit. Yes. Literally.

She collected some “biosolids” - that’s Water Corp speak for poo - and crystalised them at about 1400 degrees centigrade. She then asked a friend to make them into a necklace. Apparently it doesn’t smell.

I can’t see it taking off though. Not in a big way.

Another candidate for the Darwin Awards

Not heard of the Darwin Awards? These are for people who remove themselves from the gene pool voluntarily by accidentally killing themselves in stupid ways.

Now Father Carli has not been declared dead yet and as a Roman Catholic Priest you would have to say that he’s already voluntarily removed himself from the gene pool…

The last time he was spotted he was floating south east over the Atlantic… he did have a satellite phone and GPS with him. Unfortunately the batteries died as he admitted to potential rescuers that ah… he was having difficulty using his GPS. Problemo.

They have found some of the balloons.

Watch a video.

Lets hope he’s okay.

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