a drive up the west coast

i am lucky enough to have friends who live in santa barbara, marta and mark - so i thought i should give julie and family a couple of days break and headed north (sort of). it turns out it is really west in a northerly direction thanks to the coastline.

anyway, the first evening was cocktails on the beach as the sun was setting. yes, it was as good as it sounds - of course i didn't get photos, that would've made too much sense.

the next day was adventures galore with marta (poor mark had to work) and there were photos taken of said adventures. first stop was a tour of the santa barbara mission, we were there a couple of hours on a docent-led history tour.

morton bay figs made it all the way over here (as well as the bajillion gum trees).

then we took the trails over the santa ynez mountains along the old wagon train route, passing by a great bridge. i love bridges.

we stopped for lunch at the tavern where the stage coach drivers used to hang out.

then through the town of santa ynez which honestly has streets that all seem to look like the below photos.

so from the small old west community it was onto another oddity, solvang. a dutch town in california (where i happened to buy a couple of turkish dishes - odd i tells ya).

surprising to almost no one, i managed to buy another pair of shoes (my fifth for the trip so far). the drive back was along the coast - the weather has just been fabulous.

back again!

lookee here, back in the old haunt. awesome friends and fabulous weather. having a casual time at the moment, will kick it up a notch in the next week or so.

Oops!

In my eagerness to holiday I forgot to sort out a visa...til I got to the check in counter and was reminded that I needed something called an esta. An Esther, asked I? Hmm.. It could take up to 24 hours...and I was less than 2 hours away from boarding. Yah Leis. How many times have I flown to the U.S.? Anyway, thank goodness I had my phone (I panicked and couldn't remember how to hotspot my iPad) so applied via that small screen and I was automatically accepted. Argghhh... Not something you want to be dealing with at 4 in the morning... I'll breathe again when I get through immigration at the other end... Sigh!

this month 20 years ago

my dad and i were backpacking around europe. i know, twenty whole years ago and i've yet to see the photos. ridiculous but true. but i'm heading to kalgoorlie in october where i should be able to get my hands on them. i'm hoping to find one particular shot i remember taking of my dad standing in front of the venus de milo in the louvre. there were all these tourists hanging about with their cameras flashing (which annoyed me because you're NOT ALLOWED to flash) and dad said "take a photo of me in front". i had to ask him did he know what he was standing in front of, or was it just because everyone else was doing it?? hmm... caught him out as he had no idea. but that's another thing i liked about taking that trip with him, he wanted to experience everything, and learn about everything, no matter what.

holy cow, i just realised that i am the age my dad was then. could i see myself traveling around continents with a 23 year old? wow! okay, that's just odd and how did 20 years go by so damn quickly?

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).