Nepalese dinner

I have supported the Nepal Australia Friendship Association Qld since the earthquake. It was formed in Brisbane after Expo in 1989.
We went to the Nepalese New Year Earthquake Rebuild Dinner at Lourdes Hill College in Hawthorne with Emily. It started at 5 pm with drinks on the terrace overlooking the river. The large hall/gymnasium was nicely decorated with prayer flags and they had an interesting slide show.
I have been making photobooks for our recent Japan and Indian trips and had started looking at photos for further books on our 2011 Thailand and 2010 India/Nepal trips so I really enjoyed the photos of Nepal.
We had a round table central and near the front [I must have booked early] with a couple Helen and Nikko [Austrian], and Lesley and Jane who were buddhists. We enjoyed their company and the food was very nice. It was done by Tibetan Kitchen.
There was a nice display of goods and we bought a batik [from Indonesia but it had elephants] and made an unsuccessful bid in the silent auction. It was bad luck that Dick did not wear his Modi jacket as it would have looked good with the other costumes. I wore my blue/maroon kain/kurtha which was good and Em looked glamorous in a maroon long dress [ from a shopping expedition to Smithfield many years ago].
After some presentations on their work in Nepal, there was some dancing and we headed home around 9 pm.

Cleaning day

It is now several years since Margaret Viney gave me her outdoor tables and chairs, with assurances from me that I had just the right paint to do them up.
So it was with relief that I found the paint still viable and even more when I had finished painting the first piece, the round metal table.
As a result of this achievement, I was keen to install it on the Feez patio/conservatory/outdoor area, but this was not ready to take such a smart piece, having not been cleaned by the previous owners, who had it fully furnished with plants, daybed and dogs.
We set out early with our load and the first object was the top of the airconditioning unit, which looked very rusty and in need of refurbishment. I commenced with nylon scourer and sugar soap and found over an hour or so, that this, combined with liberal elbow grease, was sufficient to remove most of the discoloration and make a coat of paint unnecessary. Some furniture polish restored the shine and we are making a cypress pine top for it, to provide a useful surface in the small area that is the above glassed in patio.
Next I took to the scourer, cloth and bucket, over several hours, removing dirt from window frames, glass and tiles. Many trips were made to the kitchen to empty and rinse, but eventually we got to a cleaned area with just the tiled floor to be done. Small areas showed that these were not cleaning up to any brightness, so we purchased some tile cleaner which promised shine and took to them with the scrubbing brush then a mop for a satisfactory conclusion to the day's effort - being seated at the table when the new owner returned from work.
The wine tasting, which had determined this visit, was then enjoyed to the full, followed by Indian takeaway from Yeronga.

out to lunch

Ann and Keith invited us out to Thai Royal at Southtown to celebrate her birthday and recovery. It was a lovely group with Barry and Donna, Adrian and Denise and Rosalie and Ian and everyone enjoyed it.

Yum Cha

We had a family lunch at Sunnybank Yum Cha which was an experience on a public holiday - very busy- but, once seated, we enjoyed the experience. Clearly there are a lot more dishes to explore sometime.

Sicilian lunch

Have I been too busy to blog or just have too much to tell?
On the first weekend in February, we went to a Sicilian harvest event at Golden Grove winery near Ballandean. We went with a couple, Angelo and Mary, that Ann and Keith met on a tour in Switzerland last August.
Our day started early, driving down with another friend of Ann's of Italian origin and having morning tea with figs and Italian biscuits at their farm at The Summit. It reminded me a lot of Gina and her home in Mareeba.

The lunch started with a wine tasting and the music was provided all afternoon by Tre Amici - Angelo and his two friends who were not actually Italian but did a great impersonation.

There were 198 people there for the lunch, on long tables. The food was very good and came out over several hours.

Before dessert, the harvest was brought in from the field by the young men, then crushed by the young women to the accompaniment of the Tarantella.
We had a great time and headed home after 5.

Coming together

We were busy on the weekend; cleaning, mowing and putting the path to the tank back together after the big slump in November. The mesh fence is now in place around the tank with tomatoes, purple king beans and native clematis attached. Hopefully it will be a green leafy fence soon. The beans below the tank were waving around looking for direction and have already started producing so I will need to walk down there each day from now on. Fortunately the grass is now growing down there after all the construction traffic from recent months. The compost bins are also busy with the third one now full of weeds, so I have emptied the first one into the other two with some compost going to the potatoes.
This activity was all prompted by lunch on Sunday to celebrate Dick's last day before turning 60. The forecast hot weather and rain did not eventuate and we had a very pleasant afternoon with friends.

Our combined culinary efforts with Jim produced an antipasto tray, crudites with basil and pistachio pesto dip, macadamias in sour cream/garlic, asparagus/veg tarte, pizzas, smoked chicken breast and salad, cheesecake with mango and fruit cake. Allan brought a sample of his first home brew which was followed by some of mine, then wine.
We were lucky to find George, our resident dragon, in the front garden as our guests were leaving.

photos taken by Allan

The beginning of the end

Tuesday walks have finished for the year. We had a nice walk on the hills at Cooby Dam last week, followed by a shared lunch at a picnic table there. It was a hot day but the breeze was good when we climbed up to the top.


The views were also good - nice and green. The area has really picked up after all the rain in November.

Once again the food was excellent and in great quantities. We really needed another walk after lunch. It is always sad to think that we will not be meeting for a few weeks. I do enjoy the company as well as the outdoor exercise and adventure.
My other activities - tennis and tai chi - are also drawing to a close for the year. We had our tennis lunch at Angelo's on Herries last Friday.

A weekend in Melbourne

We flew down to Melbourne last Friday and stayed in East Melbourne. It was wet when we arrived but Saturday turned out fine and sunny. We walked across the Fitzroy and Treasury Gardens then down Flinders Street to Federation Square where we followed the river downstream past rowers training, to Docklands. and Victoria Dock. We then caught a City Circle free tram back up Flinders Street to Parliament House and walked back past St Patrick's cathedral and the East Melbourne synagogue.
The purpose of the visit was Mary's birthday party with a nice gathering of cousins. After that we visited the Steel monument in St Kilda cemetery and had dinner at a pub in Sydney road, Brunswick.
It rained on Saturday night and Sunday was a record breaking cold day, but we headed north to fine weather at Metcalfe, passing Mt Macedon with a nice frosting of snow.
On Monday morning we had another walk across the gardens to the top of Collins Street before heading out to the airport and home. It was nice to come back to our clear blue sky.

The July Report

We have had 76 mm of rain this month so hopefully the soil profile has replenished well - it was so dry. Last year we had 0 mm in July.
This week has been frosty and clear sunny days - such a contrast to last week. It was windy and chilly on Tuesday morning but we enjoyed a walk in the rainforest at Ravensbourne National Park with lunch at Beutel's Lookout, in the sun.
Wednesday was our Franke Scrub morning and we made great progress on asparagus vine to the sounds of finches.
We celebrated 30 years with Jim on Friday night with beer, sauerkraut and bratwurst at the German Club, followed by schnapps. In the afternoon we had a nice walk along the river at Teneriffe. It has become a very smart suburb.

On mer bike

My knees are calling for more care these days and I am faced with getting out on my bike or pedalling indoors; an alternative I have already rejected, so this morning I made it with a bit of help from my friend and we rode 7.4 km to the shop for a paper at 10 degrees with some SW wind. I enjoyed it. It's about time I got over the fact that we live on a hill.
Yesterday morning was quite hot at tennis, then I went out to lunch, visited a native garden at Cotswold Hills, made a Far Breton, and we had a full moon campfire at Mt Peel. It was a lovely clear evening but quite cool away from the fire. I had chestnuts to roast but perhaps I was already full of food by then as I was not taken with them.

Relatives

I have been back into the Patterson family history and hope to finish the revised edition soon. Richard and Laraine Patterson came up from the Gold Coast with their son Brad on Saturday and we had lunch at Oxygen Cafe in town with Fran and Peter, and Alan and Julie Hohne who were up from Sydney for the day to visit their father. It is nice to have this extended family.
It was a tough tennis match on Sunday and I went down 5-6. The new bouncy tennis balls were hard to handle. It is quite a contrast playing singles on a hard court, compared with doubles on a synthetic grass on Fridays.

Nightlife

We went to our second subscription performance at the Empire Theatre on Friday night. I was surprised to find that Cabaret is a political tragedy in the form of a musical. It was produced by the theatre and was quite professional. I have not checked just how professional. We had seats in the front row of the upstairs and enjoyed it.
Saturday night was full moon and we had another campfire at Flemings. After sunset with Turkish bread and Mersey valley cheese with Governor's Choice Shiraz we had camp oven roasted vegetables by Ann, camp oven roasted Italian stuffed tomatoes by Sally and beef sate with Tyrrells red as the moon sailed among the gums trees. We then enjoyed their trip slideshow across the top and back through the centre.
On Sunday night the full moon again rose around dusk so we had another camp oven vegetable roast on our campfire. Our site is more open with a large sky but lacks the large trees, and is subject to wind from the same direction as the rising moon, both being to windward of the fire and smoke.
We did however have a nocturnal visitor, when a large owl alighted on the corner of our patio roof.

Oxygen African

As we were not camping last weekend, I emailed some friends to see if they would like to try the African dinner which is done at Oxygen cafe each month. The responses were nice and prompt and fortunately I booked just in time.
The entree was a nice lentil soup with some small bread things and meatballs. The mains were lamb, fish and vegetarian. The fish was very much cooked Nile perch with a nice sauce, on hand-rolled cous cous which was bigger balls than usual. There was a very small bit of salad on the side. I also tried the hibiscus flower drink which was like a sweet cordial.
We also tried the deserts - a sweet semolina porridge with some cooked fruit, and a sweet potato one with some fruit. They forgot to bring the coffee that we ordered.
The Somali girls did the cooking and waitressing and perhaps also the menus. It is a nice exercise by the Cafe, where at least one of the girls works regularly, and a full house. It was good to have a group of 6 of us but noisy and it gave an added appreciation of entertaining at home.