Day out down south

As I mentioned yesterday, Mum and I drove down to Mittagong, Bowral and Berrima on Saturday, and had a really lovely day out.  I wasn’t going to write this post just yet, but I’m up (not bright but) early thanks to Lisa coming home inebriated in the wee small hours and spending half the night in bed listening to her throwing up in the bathroom opposite … I figured now is as good a time as any to write it up!

Anyway, we started the day off by driving to Mittagong to Victoria House so Mum could see the stitched models.  And we ended up coming out with a few charts from their bargain/sale bins … I didn’t take any photos of the stash, sorry, but basically Mum’s were all Christmas ornament charts, and I bought a couple of Hillside Sampling charts, a needleroll chart, and a wooden bellpull hanger for my Bent Creek Christmas wallhanging.  It was nice to wander around and view the stitched models – always my favourite thing to do when visiting a new (or old) needlework shop 🙂

We then drove on a few km’s up the road to Bowral where we’d heard there was a Food & Wine Festival on … if there was, we didn’t find it, so ended up having a very non-Weight Watchers snack of meat pie and pastries from Gumnut Patisserie – this patisserie has won awards 4 years in a row, and it’s easy to see why, absolutely everything we tried from there was absolutely divine!!  No piccies, unfortunately, as we scoffed them while on the road (very naughty, I know!).

From there we drove another short distance (about 8km) across country to Berrima, where I’d been recommended to visit – and we weren’t disappointed.  What a lovely quaint village atmosphere – and not touristy at all, I thought.  The buildings are just lovely, and we spent a couple of hours just wandering aimlessly in and out of all the shops … with the odd thing jumping into our bags every now and then 😉

A highlight for me was Mrs Oldbucks (they also have mail order from their website) – there is a room just filled with every sort of tea imaginable.  I bought four as my treat for the day, then Mum bought me one more with a tea filter for my mug … I came home with Wild Berry, Raspberry & Lime, Chai Herbal Blend, Summer Blend, and Marsala Chai – I should take some photos of the teas themselves … just opening the shopping bag up to read the labels my senses are filled with an amazing smell … aaarghhhh 🙂

As well as the room full of teas, there is another long room at Mrs Oldbucks which is filled with all kinds of culinary goodies – lollies (sweets), jams, chutneys, honeys, mustards, etc etc etc … an absolute treasure trove of yummy goodies.

We also spent a little bit of time wandering through the local patchwork shop, and managed to find a fat 1/4 each of fabrics we just HAD to have … plus I bought a wire hanger with 7 hooks on it to use for hanging my scissors up (I’ll try to remember and take photos later when I unpack all my scissor fobs and scissors … yep, still unpacking! haha), plus a couple of small wire hangers that I’d been hunting for for months!

There were also a couple of lovely antique shops that we found in a side street later, but it was getting too late to call in – but I loved a few of the buildings in that wee street (I’m a sucker for old buildings).

When we turned out of the street to return home, we were greeted by the magnificent sight of loads and loads of cockatoos sitting up in the trees – I’ve seen this phenomenon before but Mum hasn’t … it was hard to take a photo, but you can see all the white specks in the trees, well they’re all cockatoos!  It’s a glorious sight!! 😀

After we arrived home we decided to celebrate the end to some wonderful adventures, as we were unlikely to be tripping off again during this visit – I cooked a light chicken dinner (stir-though sauce compliments of Leggo’s haha) and we cracked open a bottle of bubbly and placed a hibiscus flower in syrup that I bought in Perth recently in the bottom of the glass (they’re so cool!! – their website has a much better photo and information if you want to check them out), and settled in for the night … a fitting end to a wonderful holiday (I’m just trying hard not to think about work tomorrow as I know I have a gruelling procedure writing session for my ‘huge project’ as soon as I walk in the door hmmm).