almost to the very day...

i began writing this blog six years ago. it was all so i could tell tall tales of travelling misadventures. and yes, i realise i haven't written at all this year. well, i have been writing, just not online. i've been busy with words in another arena.

anyway, i'm back! and i'm heading off overseas again. YAH! so i'll be writing words and posting photos from the u.s. of a once more. and i guess it's appropriate i'm here today being independence day and all. yes, send up the fireworks if you must.

that's it. i just wanted to give you a heads up, i'm back on the page.

december baking

over the couple of weeks leading up to the christmas break (yah) i've tied on the apron and baked a few delights for my colleagues at work (who double as my guinea pigs).

we started off with a lemon drizzle cake...

then an orange, ginger, almond fruit cake. gluten free so it was touch and go for a minute but everyone LOVED it. hmmm.. mooshed fruit cake really.

next up was the chocolate peppermint tart. quite delicious and extremely funny trying to remove rice from blind baking the pastry. glad no one was there to see the hilarity.

then chocolate coconut macaroons, which led to a discussion between macarons and macaroons. the world is crazy at the moment for the colourful macarons, but i quite like these.

 last night's effort took a little time as there were four trays of baking different sizes of stars before the piping and the stacking....

gingerbread christmas trees. fiddly work but fun as i was playing the stardust station on the radio and singing along. good times.

 this is the christmas tree i have again for this year, and the piles of presents i have to fit into a suitcase and carry safely to the west side of the country. in TWO sleeps time... wooohoooo! so excited.

i know... i know.. it's been FOREVER

but i've got important news to tell. i have a new niece. she was born early hours of this morning, so she's a december 6 baby. not at all monkey-ish like her sister was, and she is very, very cute. not biased as i have confirmation from a non-related source. i keep on calling her a she because i don't know her name.

there's three hours difference between melbourne and perth so i can't wake up the family to see if they've named her yet. so for the time being she's the newbie niece, she and her.

this photo was taken by my mum at some ungodly hour while i was asleep. mmm... sleep. anyway, hope my sister doesn't mind too much but i'm going to brag like i had something to do with the entire event. world, this is my new niece.....

(on other news, i might be back again - we'll see).

still love this site

while trawling through folders of sites i've collected, i came across xkcd. i've been an occasional stalker for years now. always makes me laugh. and think.

a friend's short doco

it's been interesting to watch the state of my country recently - how many industries are being affected by job loss, companies closing, community services cutting back. one such story was brought to my attention through a friend who lives in the area, she's a film-maker so along with another friend put a short documentary together. save the hope street bus is a fabulous doco that tells the story of a community looking out for it's own. take a look at SAVE THE HOPE ST BUS

one man's reminisces

(image sourced from malthouse theatre)
paul capsis' autobiographical piece of theatre, angela's kitchen played at the malthouse. i love this theatre for all it's surprises and oddities and i have seen some truly moving and awe-inspiring productions since moving to melbourne. angela's kitchen was funny, thoughtful, sad and made me long for the days when i was little and surrounded by my own eccentric family, around my nan's kitchen table talking and eating for days on end. this story travelled between malta and sydney and his grandmother's stories, to where his over-lapped. it was a real treat to be invited into capsis' memories of his family.

friday at the astor

i remember watching this film with my family when it first came out. it was the weekend family experience for the five of us. my early teen years were filled with weekend family dates. i kid you not, there were even occasions when we would all go roller-skating at the local rink, those were normally sunday afternoons for a couple of hours. how strange that may seem, it was pretty awesome seeing my dad and brother on skates. ha! my mum and little sister, who would've been about 4-5, also took classes to learn to skate at the same time.

anyway, back to raiders of the lost ark. love it, own it. and have seen it so many times i've lost count. but to see it on big screen at an art deco theatre was a treat i could not pass up. and yes, it was still awesome. and i can still hear my family (yes, in my memories) laugh out loud when indiana, after fighting so many men hand to hand, denies the large man brandishing a sword, takes out his pistol and shoots him dead. what an adventure.

funnily enough i still couldn't watch the ark scene where the "rays of god" struck down all the nazis - well, not the melty blowy up face bit at least. it's still gross. yep, still love this film.