Sunday Breakfast

Sundays are good days and bad days rolled into one. They are bad because it means back to work tomorrow and good because it means another day at home.

I went to the markets yesterday as I usually try to do on a Saturday. As a change though I picked two croissants. One for breakfast yesterday and one for breakfast today. A little indulgent I know but I have porridge for breakfast every other day, I’m exercising and I am the lightest I have been in I don’t know how long! Chocolate Croissants/Pain au Chocolat are one of the attractors that keep me coming back to the markets each week. When I was in Germany in 02/03, you could buy Chocolate Croissants for I think about €1.30 at the convenience store across the street. At the morning break, there would be a steady stream of teenagers coming back from the store with a Chocolate Croissant in one hand and perhaps a Kinder Surprise for later on. I can’t recall if I ever actually bought a Chocolate Croissant in Germany, I know I often bought a Kinder Surprise but I don’t remember reaching into the display case and grabbing a Chocolate Croissant.

Fast Forward four years later and on any day of the weekend around Brisbane you will find a “Farmers Market” though I say the word Farmers with caution because I have only been to one market in Brisbane that was strictly just a Farmers Market and that would be the Granite Belt wine/produce market that is held at South Bank occasionally. The Northey Street Organic Market is the second closet in terms of only having direct farm to you stalls but like the others does have a number of “market green grocers”. All the other markets appear to have perhaps between a third to a half of the fresh produce stalls are direct farmer to you and the rest will be the market green grocers who have the same variety of fresh produce that you would find at the local supermarket or green grocer. Perhaps one day the balance will swing more to direct farm to you stalls.

Back to Chocolate Croissants though, at all these markets there is often at least two, three or perhaps even four bakeries and in the last two odd years of going to the markets I have tasted I do believe all the Pain au Chocolat on offer at both markets and bakeries. My biggest complaint is that they are typically lacking in the chocolate department. If I want a Pain au Chocolat I want it to have a fair amount of chocolate in, otherwise I may as well just get a normal croissant, split it open and spread on a little Nutella. The very first Pain au Chocolat I had at a market in Brisbane was at the Mitchelton markets. I believe it was from Wild Breads and it was the closet to what I feel a Pain au Chocolat should be like. It had oozing dark chocolate in the middle and the pastry was golden and you could taste the butter. Since then I haven’t had any that have lived up to that first one. The Gympie Cultured Butter/Cheese stall does come close but isn’t what I would say perfect.

When I first started this post, I certainly hadn’t planned on writing the last three paragraphs! I had planned to show a photo and a little text.

Sunday Breakfast

A cup of tea or two (tea bag saved for that purpose) and a Pain au Chocolat which I ‘”refreshed” by running a little water over the top of it and placing it in the microwave on medium for about a minute. Worked quite well.

Now I’m off to the Art Gallery with Mum and then to The Farm to see Grandad.

Christmas Day 08

Oh what a day that was.
There was rain, sword fighting, food, laughs, food, turf adventures, swimming, french cricket, food, water fights, lots of photo taking and generally just a fun day.

Matthew and the girls came in my car for the trip to The Farm and oh what at trip that was. Seven odd weeks later, I still think of that trip with a smile on my face.

As has always been done, you take a selection of your Christmas presents to The Farm. Matthew took his gas mask and the girls took their SuperSoakers. The journey was spent with the gas mask rotating between the three of them and scaring/getting a laugh out of other cars as we drove past. It was classic.

Christmas Day 2008

The Christmas Table.
Even before I started suggesting “Christmas at The Farm 08” I had wanted to have a meal on a long table with a white table cloth out on the turf or under the pecan nut trees. This Christmas I had that long table with white tablecloths.

Christmas Day 2008

Another thing I had been thinking about for a long time was having my glass hurricane vase, filled with glass baubles filled with beads. Christmas Day, saw the girls and I sitting on the floor of the garage filling the baubles and trying not to spill too many beads on the floor! Once they were filled though they looked gorgeous!

filling baubles

Christmas Day 2008
Christmas Day 2008

One of my other ideas was a large stack of pinecones on Mum’s 21st platter. Al and Ash collected the pine cones for me a couple of days before Christmas but come Christmas Day, I left the platter at Mum’s. Instead the girls had fun wrapping the pinecones with ribbons etc
Christmas Day 2008

After morning tea, it was time for the Christmas Tree. There were a few silly gifts given between families as well as the regular gifts intra-family. One of those silly gifts was from Karl and I. When we were in K-Mart getting presents for the girls we saw these foam swords and went “sweet” We bought the four that Chermside had in stock and then when I went to Toowong, I emptied their shelves and got another eight – one for all the grandkids and two extras in case of damages or if partners/wives/the girls wanted swords as well. The foam swords ruled the day.

En Guard!

Once the sword fights waned. It was time for French Cricket. For Christmas, Matthew and I gave the girls a Kanga Cricket bat and ball as they had loved playing French Cricket with us. We only gave them the ball on Christmas Eve and had planned on putting the bat with their stockings for Christmas morning, however I forgot to put the bat out so I wrapped it and took it to The Farm. But! I left the ball at home, so we used a tennis ball. We used to play a LOT of French Cricket at The Farm when we were younger. I don’t remember Grandad playing it when we were younger but Grandmum always did.

French Cricket with eighteen odd players is one hell of a game. When one of the boys got in, they would field out so they could slog it and then get in nice and close when it was one of the girls. It was all fine till James slugged the ball into the sweet potatoes… We only had one ball. That was a good sign though that it was time to start getting lunch organised.

Christmas Day French Cricket

Christmas Day French Cricket

The table was re-set, the BBQ was lit and the snags were been turned and then it started to rain. Luckily, it comes in pretty handy to have a large shed round the corner and with plenty of people it is easy to just move the entire set-up.

Christmas Day 2008

Christmas Day 2008

Christmas Day 2008

Aunty Susan and her girls (and Ian) had made the bon-bons for Christmas Lunch. Inside each of them was a gorgeous beaded Christmas ornament, a scratchie and the other usual goodies

Bon-bon makers

After lunch we had a Turf Tour with Max
Family on the The Turf

The girls were total posers and had a great time posing for photos of each other sword fighting on the turf.

Christmas Day 2008

Christmas Day 2008

Christmas Day 2008

Christmas Day 2008

When the Turf Tour was over, we retired to the front lawn to prepare ourselves for dessert. For some this meant more sword fighting
Christmas Day 2008

comparing hair length
Christmas Day 2008

or just having their photo taken
Christmas Day 2008

Dessert was a treasure trove of yummy food.
Trifle from Erica! Plum Pudding from me! Pavlova from Lisa! mmm so much dessert.
Erica's TrifleMy Plum PuddingLisa's Pavlova

With our stomachs filled with sweet treats, a realisation came upon that the light was not going to last much longer and we had not yet taken the family photos!

All the family minus James who had gone visting
Christmas Day 2008

We know how to fight
The Palssons!

With the fall of darkness, Iceland, Mum and Pabbi returned to Brisbane. The Howie kids, Karl, Matthew and I moved onto The Block where the Williams were staying to chill out in the pool. We had a lot of fun making whirlpools (walking in single file round the edge of the pool as fast as you can) and hypothesising why it is that some people get more pruney than others in the water.

Christmas Day was the highlight of what was an incredible Christmas season and I am looking forward to the next big family Christmas when or wherever that might be.

You can see Mum’s photos from the day here – Mum’s Christmas Photos and the rest of my photos here – My Christmas Day photos

Coomera Falls

Coomera and Yarrabilgong Falls with lots of water

Friday night, after a day and a half of rain, I received a call from Mum inviting me to go waterfall hunting the next day. Most people who reads this most likely a) know Mum or are Mum or b) know enough about Mum to know that she has a thing for waterfalls. It was lightly raining when Mum picked me up from my house yesterday morning and it continued to rain all the way to Binna Burra/Lamington National Park. As we drove up the range we hit a large bank of low flying clouds which made the place look so mystical. There is not many things as beautiful as watching the sun try to shine through a cloud filled eucalypt forest. The straight, tall trunks of the eucalypt standing tall.

As we drove further up the range to Lamington we came out above the clouds. In the car park whilst we were kitting up, we met a lovely couple from Boulder, Colorado. Louisa and David came up to us in the car park and said to us, you look like experienced bush walkers, how do you remove leeches? After Mum demonstrating how to get leeches off and a little bit of a talk, we invited them along on our waterfall hunt. They were great walking partners as they are both scientists and liked stopping to look at all these strange and wonderful Australian rainforest curiosities.

The curiosities included jelly fungi, what we believe were bio-luminescent fungi (they glow in the dark), walking stick palms, little finch like birds, a Christmas Orchid in full bloom, a cluster of earth stars, a massive puff ball, trees with foam coming out the bark, a perfect land snail shell, lots and lots of strangling fig fruits on the rainforest floor and of course one of the highlights a Lamington Blue Spiny Crayfish.

Christmas Orchid
Christmas Orchid

Lichen
Lichen in the wed

Fern
Fern

Fungi
Coomera Falls Walk

The falls were incredible, there was soo much water gushing over the lip. Yarrabilgong Falls were just as spectacular, the water was actually spurting over the lip and going out a metre or two before falling. From the Coomera Falls lookout we actually continued up the track to the next creek crossing where we saw a few more waterfalls coming into the creek and the Coomera Creek was just gushing with water.

Coomera Creek

Mum had a great time exploring more with her camera (she got a Canon G10 about two weeks ago and is loving it :)) and I am looking forward to seeing some of the photos she took. We ended the day with drinks and cake in the tea house before parting and heading back to Brisbane. Louisa and David, fly home today to a very different climate from what they have had the last few weeks.

Leeches of all sizes were out in force yesterday, I lost count of how many I picked off before they started sucking my blood but I did end up with eight of the suckers going undiscovered. I now have an itchy leg that I am doing my best not to rub as I haven’t gone to the chemist yet to pick up some Telfast.

The rest of the photos are here – Coomera Falls Photos

sage advice

Sage Advice

sage advice of the day.
coloured highlighters, pretty post-it notes and cake makes the day a little bit better.

a trip to the library is always a good trip, even better when you get your groceries in the same trip.

watching Opera Australia’s La Boheme on ABC2 is a good way to spend the night.

paying off my car in just a little bit over a year feels really good.

tomorrow is Friday and that means the weekend is in reach.