BACK HOME!

The brief sojourn to Burleigh Heads is over and it is back home for another week before I head back to the office to terrorise the staff. It was tough to leave the coast. However, one of the benefits of living where we do is that Burleigh Heads is only an hour away. (photos are taken from Burleigh looking up to Surfers Paradise and towards the heads)

The weather was fantastic!! I lived in shorts and a short sleeved shirt and slept the same way without any covers – not bad for the first few days of winter, huh? The water was around 22C - 23C and therefore still fine to go swimming in.

The kids had a wonderful time too! We took them fishing and caught a couple of winter whiting and a bream, although they were all on the small side and we threw them all back. We also took them to the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary on our annual pilgrimage to see, amongst other things, the wombats, kangaroos, koalas, dingoes, emus and crocodiles.

The photos are of (1) above left- a koala (aboriginal word meaning 'no water' as the koala rarely drinks water getting its fluids from the eucalyptus leaves); (2) above right - southern hairy nosed wombat (which looks like a few politicians I know!); (3) left - is the cute (ie ugly but attractive) Tasmanian devil;(4) below right - is our youngest boy (we call him B2, the oldest is B1) patting a very young kangaroo; and (5) below left - is an emu (pronounced "e-mew" - a large, flightless bird, but fast runner - an old Aussie song has it that an old man emu can 'run the pants off a kangaroo')

We took a dozen bottles of wine to cover the week and we came back with two which were promptly drunk on Saturday and Sunday – we must be slipping! There will be more on the wines in later blogs. Since we have been back (and I still have another week of vacation) it seems I have been busier than ever and have found it hard to find time to finish my blogs.

We arrived home on Saturday and went out for dinner to Rob's place in the evening. On Sunday we caught up with a few things around the house in the morning and then I spent all afternoon in the kitchen again (you will have to wait for the next blog to find out what I cooked).

Monday, a doctor's appointment, sneaking into the office for a few hours and looking after the boys took up the day.

Tuesday, I started to re-catalogue all my wines and start moving the best ones into my new wine cabinet. This is turning into a bigger job than I thought - more about this in later posts. Tuesday evening (last night) the better-half and I went to the first night of our Wine Basics Course run by Tony Harper from the Wine Emporium - what a great night. More on this and next week's course in posts to follow. We tasted quite a few wines and covered a fair bit of territory. I have a lot to share with you all and it will take quite a while to catch up.

This morning (Wednesday) I spent all morning as the roster-parent at B1's pre-school. I spent my time playing with the 4 and 5 year olds - what a blast!! Tonight, as I am still on vacation I will be attempting a new dish (ie new for me) - Chicken Kievs in filo pastry not in bread crumbs. Till next post - Drink well and live well!

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