Sunday, May 29, 2011

The Thirty photo challange: 1

1. A photo of you with 15 facts


1. This photo was taken while we were camping at Doorawarrah Station for mom's birthday a few years ago
2. I love trashy reality tv
3. I just made Creme Bruele
4. I am flying to Perth tomorrow for some upskilling
5. I have two cats - a white one name Juliette and and black evil one named Bronson
6. My friend Iron Chef's mum makes Pho better than any I've eaten in Vietnam
7. I am learning Vietnamese
8. I am currently reading Keith Richards's autobiography
9. I recently taught myself how to make a very nice martini
10. I love to shoot
11. I only like to use black ink!
12. Without fail, my job makes me laugh everyday
13. I love to live ten minutes walk from work
14. The best Reuben sandwich I have ever had was from Katz's Deli in New York
15. I miss the family I have that live far away.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Mud, sandflies and more mud

Yesterday we spent the day trying to clean up the pistol club.  It has been almost six months since the flood came through and damaged our club but the amount of water still around is amazing! The first most pressing thing to do is repair our fence line.  Parts of it are still underwater and other parts have had the fence completely washed away! We needed big machinery in there to remove the debris and cut a trail through. BUT working in an area that has been underwater has its downfalls......

My friend Oscar and I crawling around in the mud trying to unbog the truck
with pieces of carpet we ripped up from the damaged clubhouse 


Our grand work plans became side tracked when we all had to spend two and a half hours unbogging the crane... And then another hour unbogging the dozer!


 This is the entry gate to our club.
Me, Justin and other members digging in the mud.


 Finally!


Amazing but true - five months on and after a summer of months worth of temperatures above 38C/100F the ground is still too wet!

The dozer (successfully unbogged!) clearing parts of a damaged range wall.


A late lunch of sausages and onions on the BBQ wrapped in slices of white bread with tomato sauce cooked by mom and I and it was back to it.  This photo below is our club's kitchen (and where mom & I cooked lunch).  You can still see the water mark about a foot up the bench.



And our bar area - showing the water mark.  This is on the opposite side of our clubhouse - so the entire clubhouse was a foot under water!



Although the day was sidetracked by bogged vehicles and there were sandflies, mud and gross things to clean up, it felt good to be finally moving forward.  Here's to being a functional pistol club again in the not too distant future!

Friday, May 20, 2011

School ball stylist & make-up artist

Today I helped a good friend of mine Katelyn go to her school ball.  It was a last minute decision for her to go so with only ten days before the ball we had to find her a dress, shoes, jewelery, etc, etc, etc.  And in a small country town that's not the sort of thing you can just go shopping for! We hadn't left enough time to get something sent up from Perth but luckily there were many willing donors of dresses/shoes/jewelery around town.

That's her on the left.  What a knock-out.



I did her make-up and my good friend Ali from work (who I think may have missed her calling in the hairdressing profession!) styled her hair.  After a couple of quick lessons in walking in high heals and a late night Thursday night perfecting the manicure and pedicure she was ready to go!
She won best dressed and got a certificate and a gift voucher :)



Somehow I agreed to not only pick her up from the ball but also deliver her to and collect her from the afterball held from midnight till 2am.... so here I am blogging and drinking cups of tea to stay awake on my friday night, remembering the balls and after parties I went to and feeling a little old...... Happy, tired and old!

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Mothers Day

This post is a little late... but we had a lovely mothers day together, we had a cooked breakfast of bacon and eggs and coffee, then after a bit of shopping we moved onto lunch of oysters rockerfeller (oysters with spinach and hollandaise browned under the grill which as DElicious! Later in the afternoon we had a few beers with some bread and dukkah with some really good olive oil and some marinated octopus.  It was a great day!


Mom's flowers - actually this photo was taken (by mom) today - a week after mothers day! They were some long lasting flowers!


Dukkah, olive oil, good bread and cheese... really good eating!


Friday, May 6, 2011

Us

I haven't uploaded many photos of us to this blog, mainly because it is always one of us taking the photo so we are rarely in the same shot.  On steamboat night we looked at each other's photos from Vietnam and came across this shot.



This was at Pho Quoc Island, beachside, drinking cocktails late into the evening.....

Monday, May 2, 2011

Steamboat.......

Steamboat... or yet another chapter in what is becoming the 'good stock is essential' section in this collection of recipes and meals.  Our Vietnamese friend Iron Chef had a craving for steamboat and offered to make the stock for the dish....well that's not something you refuse!  A steamboat is traditionally a beautiful stock flavoured with in this case tamarind, lemon grass, ginger, garlic,coriander and chilli (and a few secret touches that I wasn't privy to...).  This stock is made to bubble away in the centre of the table and you dunk in any sorts of raw protein and veggies you like.  In your own bowl you pile noodles and of course by the end of the meal you have an even more beautiful soupy-stock to pour over your noodles, flavoured by all the things you have cooked in it! It usually turns into a very humorous and rowdy meal - what with the dunking, splashing and ongoing & blatant thievery of someone's well cooked little morsel, advanced chopstick skills and bowl defence tactics are required - and this one was no exception!



We had chicken, beef, prawns, scallops, squid, tofu and crayfish to dunk in along with bok choy and celery, herbs and oodles of noodles!


It was a great night!