Never was there a tale of more woe, than Stacey and her frisbee-"O"

I'm sure Stacey will in the fullness of time give a detailed account of our trip down the great ocean road over Easter. The summary in case you can't wait is "fantastic". But I thought I'd recount a tale of great sadness, a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions if you will, that befell us on the trip. Just so you don't think that everything is sweetness and light down under.

Our tale begins with a birthday. A young lady who wanted for much, but got little. And whilst some of the birthday presents were tasty (chocolate), some were functional (a toothbrush to clean away the chocolate) just one present would be considered fun. A brightly coloured frisbee in the shape of a disc. You can just make out the excitable girl with her new toy in this picture. Given how few presents she received the Frisbee was a very important present.

The young lady was so excited about her present. But she knew she had to find the right place to use her new toy.  So imagine the joy when a young gentleman she knew found a wide expanse of flat, sandy beach, under a glorious blue sky and warm sun to test out her frisbee for the very first time. The picture shows an artists (very) accurate rendition of what the beach could have looked like.



At first, all went well. The frisbee was thrown. It wasn't caught, but that was because it flew so well. It whistled through the air and the young girl beamed from ear to ear. She truly loved that Frisbee.

Then  DISASTER STRIKES!

The third throw started like the first two. Arm back, frisbee gripped in sweaty fingers, arm jerked forward and release! We'll never know what really caused it, perhaps a freak gust of wind, perhaps a twinge in the back that caused the arm to twist slightly as the frisbee was let go, or perhaps a butterfly flapped its wings in China causing some sort of quantum fluctuation. All we do know is the frisbee's trajectory deviated from the straight and true and curved right towards the water. Higher and higher it went, out of the reach of the young gentleman acquaintance, who ran and ran and ran and ran but it was no use. The frisbee sailed off the edge of the beach and into a small inlet from the sea.

If your eyes are good enough you might spot it in the picture above.

Now the girl was most upset - her wonderful present only 5 throws old was floating out to sea, and she had no bathing costume to hand to rescue it and on closer inspection the small inlet was a deep channel of the sea that precluded wading out to get it. The good news however, was that the frisbee was light, and so it floated. And the tide was coming in so the young lady waited on the shore for the sea to deliver her most precious present back to her.

But would you believe it,   DISASTER STRUCK AGAIN!

Once again, defying the laws of physics and explanation the frisbee started moving out to sea, against both the waves and the tide. One can only assume that there was a whole kaleidoscope of butterflies (NB - that is one of four appropriate collectives for the butterfly, along with 'flight', 'rabble' and 'swarm) flapping their wings all over Asia to create such an unexpected event. 


The frisbee continued to move out to sea, somehow navigating it's way out of the channel, around a set of rocks and into the Bass Strait (which separates mainland Australia from Tasmania). 

Again - the frisbee is there if you look hard enough (like a very niche version of Where's Wally really). 














To this day, we don't know what happened to that frisbee. Perhaps a school of fish passed by it and now use it to perform Sea World type tricks for the amusement of fisherman (NB - only a school of fish if it applies to a butterfly fish or cod, for example it is a troop of dogfish, or a flotilla of swordfish). Perhaps some child on a beach in Tasmania has a wet, and slightly fishy smelling frisbee now?  
All we do know is that it is a cautionary tale for all of us. Donations are welcome to the frisbee replacement fund. Cash/cheques/gold bullion only please.

NB - if you have been interested by the clever use of collectives in this blog you can find out more about them here.

Planes, Germans and Automobiles - a day at the Grand Prix

Some of us clearly have more to do than teachers (see previous entry). Hence why it's taken nearly a month for me to blog about this. At least that's what I keep telling myself. Don't tell Stacey I said that though. It'll be our little secret.

Anyway - the Grand Prix. My first one, although I've been an avid fan for 15 years much to Stacey's disappointment.  She hates it, and so this was my 'treat'.

For the princely sum of $99 (about £65 in Northern Hemisphere money) you get general admission. Which means you can sit/stand anywhere that a) isn't in a grandstand and b) doesn't have such a good view of the track as a grandstand. However, you can get up good and close to the track and you've got the freedom to walk around the circuit as much as you want. I'd been recommended a good hill at turn 2 where you could see a big screen and get close to the track so that's where I based myself for most of the day. Fans of maps get a load of this:

I arrived after a brisk 30 minute walk from our house at about 11.30am. Albert Park is a park (obviously) with a road running round it that is closed and turned into the race track for the weekend.

Turn 2 is a good spot for those of us too cheap to pay the $299 for a proper seat and so it gets busy early - the race started at 5pm. It only seemed fair that if you want to sit at a popular spot then you should get there early and sit it out whilst waiting for the race. A couple of Germans who turned up early afternoon took the alternative "sun lounger" approach by spreading out their towel on the ground and then leaving. They were most upset when they came back 4 hours later to find their towel had been neatly folded to about A4 size by all the other people who arrived after!

The day starts with support races - we had the Porsche Supercup first with the only really exciting action of the day at my turn as this guy managed to spin and only just managed to avoid collecting the rest of the field as they streamed by. Made me grateful early on for the concrete bollards and steel fences that stopped debris coming our way.

Next up are the V8 supercars - one of my favourites as they tend to race pretty closely with one another as they're all evenly matched.

The drivers parade provided another Kodak moment. Apparently the guy waving in this photo didn't actually know Lewis Hamilton - he was coincidentally waving at his mate on the other side of the track.I'd met a few people from work who shared my blanket and bought me beers during the day so I had no need to wave.

Then we had a fly over from a 747 (Qantas sponsor the event). From the number of people taking photos in this shot you'd think Australians had never seen a real airplane before. Although it was an incredibly slow fly over - not sure how it didn't just fall out of the air! You'll also notice that the grey start to the day cleared and it got pretty hot sitting in the sun all afternoon.




This is a shot from the start of the race, that I decided to share with everyone else in my section. F1 is the pinnacle of motorsport so it's not a surprise that the cars are fast - far too fast for me to be able to get a decent photo as they zoomed by at 140mph. However, I hadn't really appreciated how loud they were going to be. Stacey could hear the racing in the flat some 3 miles away from the circuit, and even wearing a set of noise cancelling headphones 1 1/2 hours of Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeomph was still a lot for the ears to take. Although I was better prepared than two Brazilian guys who were standing next to me who made do with putting their fingers in their ears every time a car passed.

To get a feel for the noise and speed I've uploaded a short video of some cars passing - to get the full effect please turn the volume on your speakers to maximum and even then it's likely to be much quieter than the real thing.

Overall a fantastic day and well worth the entry money. The race itself wasn't the most exciting, but as long as you can see a screen and listen to the commentary you can get some sort of idea what is going on. But mostly, because the beer was very reasonably priced as well....

Waiting...

I know, I know, it's been a while. But I have been waiting for Andy to add his one and only blog - it is supposed to be about his visit to the Grand Prix, and I was waiting so that the happenings would stay in order, however a girl can only wait so long before the blogging withdrawal symptoms start showing (forgetting what you did and when you did it).
This blog is going to be a short catch up blog in preparation for the Easter weekend blogging. Andy will just have to fit around us!

So there has been some eating, drinking and laughing on the weekends and during the week.

Little creatures dining hall, found in Fitzroy, they have a brewery and sell their many beers (and some cider) at this venue along with food. Burgers were a little bland, I had a lovely feta and cherry tomato tart with chips (the largest bowl ever).
They also serve many delicious looking pizzas but we had only just made our own the night before!

Beer. A taste for this was developed (not by me) and it was decided we would search out a brewery on another weekend.

We headed out towards the wineries down in the Mornington Peninsula, where we stumbled across the Redhill Brewery, Andy tried out their beer tasting platter and I was lucky enough to have a lovely apple juice (seriously, it was made from local Redhill apples).
Lunch was also on the menu (I have a problem taking pictures of food, I only ever think of it after I have eaten) and involved a tapas style mix of pub lunch bits, including welsh rarebit!














We have also enjoyed several of the opportunities offered by the Melbourne Comedy Festival, including the Opening Night Gala, Mark Butler, Mark Watson and Rich Hall.

Naughty... 2 weekends have passed

and no new blog.

Andy's chosen title for this blog is: Wine by the bottle, by the case and by the strawberry!

He was over-ruled, as is my prerogative and I am the one typing. However it would help to explain what happened last weekend nicely, so I will leave it there as a sub-heading.
So since last week I have joined the world of the employed again, this may mean blogs start slowing down, or it may mean that blogs become more often as it becomes my displacement activity, we shall see.

So last weekend was the start of the Food and Wine Festival in Melbourne where many restaurants, food providers, drink providers and chefs show their wares and talents (at a reasonable price).

We decided to check out one of the many events taking place that weekend - Farm gate to Cellar door. This event was held along the Yarra River next to the Exhibition centre. There were many little white stalls set up and for $35 you were given a wristband and a plastic wine glass (with a black line marked on it) and set free amongst the stands.

There were over 60 wineries at the event and each stand had several wines to try (as this was not a challenge to taste them all, we selectively chose our wines, I stuck to the whites).

One winery made all their wines from strawberries - Mmmmmmmmmmm, they also dabbled in ciders too, so a purchase was made. The day was warm and sunny and if they had provided sun loungers I would have been fast asleep, as this wasn't an option we kept on tasting the wines until it closed.



The weekend continued nicely with a barbecue on Sunday, to expand our bbqing repetoire we took a wander to South Melbourne market, we finally ended up with the traditional burgers, sausages and corn on the cob, but also prawns, salmon, mushrooms and several marinades to experiment with.




What is wrong with this picture?









Is it just me (because Andy didn't see any problem with this) or aren't the prawns supposed to lay flat?

The weekend we have just had, has been a looooong weekend (not due to boredom or the fact that I now have work to do) we had a public holiday on monday. To fill the weekend, there has been shopping of both clothes and food, tidying (of the flat) and work :(
However, there has also been a little time for fun (mostly eating and drinking in the sun fun). Saturday lunch was DUMPLINGS, we went to a lovely restaurant in chinatown and the dumplings were delicious (according to Andy), they restaurant is famous for them and even has instructions on the table on how to eat them for maximum enjoyment (Andy strictly followed these guidelines). The meal continued with various bits and pieces including some spicy prawns (heads and all!) which were covered in chillies (HOT, HOT).

The remainder of the day was spent in a variety of places including:
A rooftop bar









A bar with pool tables









and beside the river









I will include one other activity that has kept Andy very busy - PS3 Gran turismo 5 (I won't mention the pile of ironing which is sat next to the table as yet untouched).









There is also my crochet (the brown thing is a Sackboy from PS3 little big planet, the things on the left are meant to be cupcakes, I think you can guess the rest).

Mmmmm... Wine!

There are several areas around Melbourne that are havens for wine. The areas are perfect for the vines and therefore there are plenty of wineries (as they are called here, not vineyards).
We headed to one particularly dense population of wineries - the Mornington Peninsula.
No packed lunch or picnic was prepared, we had already discovered that most wineries come with some sort of restaurant, so we decided to risk it and go for lunch at one of them.
The prediction for the day was grey skies and possible showers in the morning, however the weather is unpredictable, so with both umbrella and suntan lotion packed, we headed out in the car.
We stopped off in Mornington (presumably the town for which the peninsula was named) and took a stroll down the main street towards the beach (the drive had been along the coast so we had seen plenty of it already, but there's nothing like getting up close and personal). The town was full of shops and cafes. I was very lucky and Andy purchased me a bento box, it is super cute, with a little sauce pot and knorf (a fork/knife). I shall be searching the internet for bento box lunch recipes over the next few days - yum, yum.
So it was nearly lunch and we headed further down the peninsula to Redhill and our first winery - which also did woodfired pizza (lunch) and a sculpture trail. The wines were fine and we purchased a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.
The next winery was named 10 minutes by tractor, although we didn't ride in a tractor at all and wandered into the cellar door (not because we were drunk but rather this is the name for the area were you can taste the wines). The wine tasting was $4 each but the people were very knowledgable and there were at least 7 wines to taste - you could also waive the cost if you bought a bottle of wine, which we did (well 2 bottles, a sauv blanc and a chardonnay).
We were then going to head home but there was time for one more, so I choose Darling winery (really, that was it's name) which was on the route back. This winery was fabulous, mostly due to the 2 wonderful women hosting the cellar door, they were so friendly and funny and gave a laypersons explanation of their wines. So we ended up with 7 bottles (buy 6 get one free, can't resist a deal) these were a mixture of pinot, rose, sparkling, viognier (pronounced vee-on-yay) and sauv blanc.
So plenty to drink at ours at the moment. Bottoms up!

We also went the Palais theatre in St Kilda to see Tim Minchin vs the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, both Andy and I had a fantastic time, it was comedy and music in one, very funny and very entertaining. There will be photos if I can get them off of the mobile phone!
All round a 5 Stacey star weekend.

It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to...

Not really, no tears here. Had a very relaxed birthday which centred mostly on food.

I spent my friday roaming the streets of Fitzroy looking for something lovely to treat myself. It wasn’t hard to find lovely things as there were many but it very hard to choose, I stumbled into a fabric shop which will have to be revisited once I need some fabric, several gift shops with cute stuff and home wares, I returned home with some decorative papers which will be used at some point in a crafty way.

In the evening we had dinner at The Graham, I enjoyed a sesame spinach and enoki mushroom rice noodle roll with a hot broth to start, while Andy had a pork ballontine with a shallot puree. For main, I had Pan fried herb gnocchi with green veg and a cheesy sauce, while Andy enjoyed a chicken kiev with braised leeks, all very yum. We shared a chocolate mud cake with red fruit for pudding, along with a couple of delicious glasses of wine.

I had been waiting for the Gasworks Farmers Market for quite a while, after having read about it in a foodie book and missing the market last time it was on I was keen to make sure we went. It happens once a month on a Saturday, opening at 8am until 1pm, so we woke early (for a weekend) packed our bags (although we should have taken more or a trolley) and headed out. The market takes place in a park, stalls are all around the space many filled with fruit and vegetables, and the food is fantastic, next time I would get breakfast there as there are several cooked food options to enjoy.

We decided to buy anything we liked and then put together meals afterwards ‘ready steady cook’ style. Purchases included potatoes (from the potato stall), mushrooms (from the mushroom stall), parsnips, leeks, corn, peppers, rhubarb, apples (from many different fruit and veg stalls), watercress (from the herb stall), sausages (from the meat stall), etc... We decided we would have a roast, mushroom risotto and a BBQ from our harvest, along with apple and rhubarb crumble and a cake.

So there was some cooking (and eating) in the afternoon!

The market is a must, 5 Stacey stars (take a trolley).

Twist and Shout!

St. Kilda Festival continued for a week, culminating in the big day on Sunday. There were several stages for different music (pop, hip hop, indie, etc...) we listened to a little of each, we didn’t know any of the bands so if nothing else we got an insight into Australian music.

There was more than just music; there were many stands, some selling clothes, food and general stuff. Some were selling a very special foodstuff, Da-dada-da-dada-da THE TWISTY POTATO (on a stick) I have mentioned it before, but this time I had room enough (in my tummy) to eat one. Andy wants to bring them over to the UK and make a fortune, they were $5 each and to make them they spiral a potato, dip the potato in a batter mixture and deep fry then you could have any flavouring added to it. We had a plain salt and a hot n’ spicy, but you could have had cheese, vinegar, vanilla sugar, even chocolate (you know I am a chocoholic but I couldn’t quite get my head around a chocolate flavoured potato)!

Bikes featured heavily at the festival, with pro riders, BMX riders and some quite impressive motorbike stunts which we enjoyed watching whilst sat on a hill.

Unlike the last weekend, we were not fooled by the cloudy grey sky and slopped on the suntan lotion, which was good because like last weekend the sun and the wind came out in the afternoon.

It was a nice afternoon, even if I had the sniffles (aww...) which was rounded off by a hotdog BBQ, and an evening spent trying to fix the mouse on the computer as it had stopped moving only to realise half an hour later that actually the whole computer had crashed and the screen was frozen (noticed only because the clock on the screen had not changed).