Oh my goodness, has it been almost one week already since Mum has gone home? Luckily she got her flight home just before flights were grounded due to volcanic ash cloud sent over from Chile (although I wouldn’t have complained if her stay was extended, as it was all over all too quickly as it is!). This trip has been one of the fastest ones ever, perhaps because we were “on the go” all the time without a great deal of time to just chill out and relax (although we still did do plenty of that each day).
One of the first stops on Mum’s visit was to have a lovely cooked breakfast at Omero’s on the Beach … followed by an hour just sitting on a park beach on the beach and watching the world (and the local birdlife) go by … it was a lovely start to the holidays!
It still never ceases to give me a thrill to see pelicans on the local beaches!
Mum arrived in time to celebrate her 75th birthday, and we went out to Larousse French Restaurant in Brighton-le-Sands … I’m a huge fan of French cooking, their prices are reasonable and atmosphere cosy and friendly. They also have the BEST Crème brûlée I’ve had since falling in love with it in Paris … probably not the best thing to fall in love with, but what the heck … We started the evening off well, thanks to Tannia’s visit here last year, as we had a bottle of Moet champagne to crack open prior to dinner – I’d been waiting for a special occasion to open it, so this was the perfect celebration.
The next two days I worked, but on my first day off Mum and I hit the shops, starting with a couple of places in Alexandria I’ve been wanting to go to for a while – unfortunately roadworks made one shop impossible to get to (a kitchen warehouse shop), but I did manage a brief visit into The Remnant Warehouse where I picked up a Christmas quilting fabric for both Mum and I and some chiffon fabric for a work top – I also had to make a return visit to the sales counter when I spied a lavender blue dupioni silk on the way out the door, which I’m hoping will match my Quaker Friendship Book by With My Needle (I haven’t checked yet!).
We finished up with a trip to Dan Murphy’s … every Aussie’s favourite booze shop. The first time I ever visited a Dan Murphy’s store in Melbourne I remember saying “oh my, I’ve died and gone to heaven” … to this day we still refer to it as ‘heaven’. Never in all my life have I seen such an incredible array of alcohol under one roof – aisle after aisle of imported and local wines, beers and spirits make it my absolute favourite ‘adult supermarket’ 😉
I can’t truthfully remember what we did over the next week (which has nothing to do with consuming the shopping from Dan Murphy’s!), except I remember it included some housework (always a topic I try to forget immediately after doing it!), a wee spot of cooking on my part and a fair bit of relaxing with stitching in hand (of which you’ve already seen the finishes).
The next ‘big day out’ was to spend a day at Sydney Zoo which was a first-time visit for both Mum and I … but that’ll have to be the subject of the next post! 🙂
PhotoHunt
Feather Stitching 