Pie Day

Monday was a public holiday so we went for a drive out in the Hawkesbury area. We wanted to have a pie in a place where all the bikies stop and have something to eat when they are out driving. However, it really wasn't the day for it. It poured with rain all day and you got completely soaked when you left the car. We ended up sightseeing from the car and having pie indoors. The place is aptly called 'Pie in the Sky' since you drive up a very winding mountain road to get there. It is probably fun for motorbike riders, but I got a bit carsick.

Hubby had been hankering for a pie for days. It's funny what you 'hanker' for. I guess as a Swede I would feel more like having herring or something like that.  Anyway, it was served in the traditional way with peas and mashed potatoes and gravy, a real 'stick to the ribs' meal on a rainy day.

There were some charming old advertisements on the wall, and I have to show you this one which is for mustard, but there were plenty of others equally cute.

I need to explain why I called this blog 'pie day'. Well, when the kids were little and we used to visit the grandparents in Melbourne, it was a bit of a treat to be taken to a sport event, say a cricket match for example, and have a pie.  However,  sometimes when they were out shopping, their grandpa would sometimes talk about 'pie day' and explain that it  was the reason why there were so many people in the shops etc. The confused look on their little faces was priceless. Grandpa had obviously been talking about 'pay day', the day people get paid from work but they were just thinking of pies. The reason for the confusion was that grandpa had a very strong Australian accent and pie and pay is pronounced the same way here in Australia to the untrained ear.

I have to leave you now, dear friends, and do some house cleaning, since we have some UK friends arriving this afternoon. It's a flying visit but it's always nice to catch up with old friends.

Oh, and by the way, I apologize for harping on about leaving comments here on the blog. It turns out  to be much more difficult than I thought, and I think you have to have a Google account or Wordpress or something. I am not sure at all. Let's just say I am always available on e-mail and Facebook if you want to make a comment, or correct something, or just say hi.

Australia Day

Yes, so today was Australia Day, or, as it is known by the Aborigines, Invasion Day. They have another type of festival called the Saltwater Freshwater Festival.

The Aboriginal Flag: black represents
the aboriginal people, red represents
 the red earth and yellow the
life-giving sun

Even dogs celebrate Australia Day it seems

However, every where you went today you would see people with Aussie flags, or clothes with the Aussie flag on it, or even painted on their faces. Hubby told me that this must have developed in recent years because when he was a child it was nothing like that.  Back then, it was just another day off work.

Looks and sounds like a serious
Australia Day Party

This family was happily sharing their
picnic all dressed in some sort of
Australia garment

Hubby had been given a voucher to be used on the Heritage Railway two years ago for his birthday by his sister, who knows his passion for trains, but he had not had time to use it, until today.

We used it to go from Sydney to Newcastle, and we had great seats in one of the Southern Aurora lounge coaches, which meant that we were served a morning snack, and on the way back, an afternoon snack. It went along the Hawkesbury River and sometimes being on a train enables you to see things you cannot see from the road driving a car.

We had three hours in Newcastle before the train went back and there was lots to do and see. They had the Maritime Festival on so we watched speedboats pulling water skiers.  There were airplanes flying overhead doing stuff, and there had been a harbor swim before we arrived. They also had a rough-and-ready boat building competition and many other activities. It was great fun, but not overly crowded, so it was easy to walk around and enjoy.  We also had time for lunch and a walk to the cathedral and then along the water back along the foreshore to the station.

I have more things to tell you but it is half past eleven at night and I am getting sleepy so speak again soon and remember "Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is a fast-approaching freight train!

Sydney Festival

This weekend was great fun. We went to Paramatta with hubby's second cousin and his wife and visited many of the Sydney Festival events. We mainly went to the free ones and this week I might go into Sydney and see some of the paying plays and/or concerts.  It was great fun. The boys were childishly impressed with the Pyrophone Juggernaut  and had to go back twice. It had everything, metal, music, noise, and fire.  What more could you ask for? The big fire ball at the end was actually quite scary, and I think I wasn't the only one thinking of recent fires here in Australia, but of course it was totally safe.
















Before this we saw a very funny circus act played out like a reality TV show. It sort of had two levels and sometimes I think the adults had more fun than the kids. The ladies next to me were laughing so much they were crying and it is very contagious when someone laughs like that.
We also managed to get in two restaurant visits, well, three really, because we had a little nibble when we waited for I and M since they missed the ferry and had to take the train.

We had tapas for lunch in a Cuban cafe that was really cool, with lots of old photos from Cuba on the wall and a humidor where you could buy cigars.

Then we had some seriously good Thai food for dinner before going to the concert of Rokia Traore.

I live a very sheltered life and had therefore never heard of her, but now I am a huge fan. She had such an endearing way about her, while at the same time singing in a very powerful way at times. We were standing quite far away so the photo's are not very good. I will definitely go and see here again in concert where you can sit down, on chairs and not on the grass!

All this took place on Saturday and it was a great way to stay out of the house to avoid the jackhammer. Sunday was therefor spent at home, not budging since the construction workers don't work on Sundays.

Today is Monday and the first day of the rest of your life and all that rubbish, back on the wagon, back on the diet, and back to exercise 30 minutes a day.  It better be worth it!

As usual, feel free to comment and share. I would love to hear from you! Until next time!

P...s envy

Yesterday I had a little touch of the above. I had to give a urine sample at the doctor's. You girls know how it is; they give you a very small cup and tell you to go in to a cubicle and pee in it. So you cram yourself and your shopping bags into a tiny toilet and try to do your business. You're lucky if you manage to get a couple of drops into the cup, the rest goes on your shoes and on the toilet seat, etc., so you end up having to do a big clean up afterwards. That's when it would be handy to have your own little garden hose, like this little Belgian fellow, and neatly aim into the cup, and voila, done!

Let's see now, other than that, I went into the city on Monday to get away from the noise, and as I was sitting minding my own business at Circular Quay, a young Asian girl shyly approached me and asked if she could ask me some questions for a school project. I wasn't doing anything special other than reading so I agreed to it. She sat down and said calmly that it would only take an hour!?!?! What!!! I had counted on just a couple of minutes, but hey, what the heck, time is what I have a lot of, so she started.

It was all recorded dutifully on her iPhone, and I think that somewhere in South Korea they are now sitting giggling over this. She now knows more about me than anyone, I think, including hubby. You see when people ask you short questions in the present tense you let your guard down and answer and say more that you really have to. I guess you want to compensate for the brusque questioning and make them fell better or something. The questions went like this "You old? You like animals? You children? You like national monument? Which? You hobbies?", and on and on it went until her teacher came up, filmed a bit, and said that it was enough. Since I had been such a good person to interview I was rewarded with two ginseng candies!

By this time it was getting on for lunch. Since I was close to the Museum of Contemporary Art, I decided to go there. I had never been, but friends of ours from Melbourne had told me it was really nice up in the cafe on the fourth floor.

The doors in the ladies room were so pretty.
(No p...s envy here!)

Sorry about the flash (I was told off)

First I had a quick walk through the exhibition on the first floor. It was entitled Taboo and was quite shocking in many ways. I think I'll go back because it was very crowded and I couldn't read everything. Here is a picture I saw which makes you think of the horrible things that has happened in India and which probably happen as I write.

Up in the cafe it was very sunny on the terrace but there was a table in the shade for six and you could easily take away a table for two from it. So I walked up to the guy and asked if it was okay if I sat down.  He grunted something about waiting for some people, so I sat somewhere else, in the blazing sun.  Anyway, I had my meal and did some reading, and took some photos.  I was there for about an hour and a half and his imaginary friends had still not turned up. The waitress had taken his plate away since he had finished ages ago. I couldn't help myself and I know it was childish, but as I was leaving I walked past his table and said in a sickly sweet voice:"Oh, did you get stood up by your friends? That's too bad!"

Anyway, here is the view from the cafe, and I highly recommend going there.

I was wrong ...

... to call what we saw in Windsor yesterday a sandcastle competition, because it was not. It was really about very complex and beautiful sculptures built by artists from many different countries. Not surprisingly quite a few from the Netherlands.

It was while in Holland on a short vacation with our two daughters that we suddenly saw several limos stop and out stepped these well-dressed businessmen with buckets and spades. I admit that we had a little giggle, they just looked so out of place and probably felt it too.

They were herded down to the beach and told to take their shoes and socks and jackets off and then they were divided into teams and the sandcastle/bonding session started. I guess it is as good a way as any to bring people together and teaching them coordination and team spirit and other good leadership qualities.

This year the theme was Fairty tales and Fables and one sculpture that was quite impressive was Gollum from Lord of the Rings but they were really all so beautiful.

Writing about this subject got me Googling around and I also found something about this guy, Amazing Walter  and his sandcastle activities in case you want to read more.

The temperature yesterday in the part of NSW where we were got up to +40 °C so a pub visit was called for and since it was a sports bar I got a quick cricket lesson, so that was good.

Today will probably be a stay at home Sunday since there is no jackhammering on the building site. I know I have to leave home tomorrow and stay away until 5.

Since most of this blog was about sand I will leave you with this little saying:" We all leave footprints in the sand, the question is, will we be a big heal or a great soul?".

Gentlemen, start your engines!

Well, for those of us who (sometimes against our will) follow car racing, this is what they say at the start of the race. Here in Illawong, at seven o'clock every morning, it comes true. The trucks that have been lined up all along the neighboring streets during the night now start up and so does the big jackhammer. They are excavating an area near the shopping center across the street to build apartments and right now they are digging out for underground garages, we think. If we stay home we have to walk around with ear protection, or alternatively go out for the day. Today I think I opt for going out. It is the Sydney Festival so maybe there is something fun on in the city.

Other than that life has been quiet this week, so not much to tell. We have had a few busy weeks, so it is nice with some down time.

The builders even work on Saturdays, so tomorrow we are going to see a sandcastle competition in the Hawkesbury region. Well, it is only the start of it, so they won't pronounce a winner yet but it is fun to see when they build these big sand sculptures.  Hubby won first prize and had his picture in the paper when he was 8 or so (names have been changed to protect the innocent), so we have a certain interest in this "art form", plus the region around there is very nice.

Speaking of art, here is some graffiti that I saw the other day when we went to dinner to some friends' town house in St Peter.  I have always liked graffiti and admired what some talented artists can do with a couple of spray cans, and hopefully mouth and nose protection.  Here is a link to more cool stuff.

Have a great week end and remember to tell yourself "I am a nobody, nobody is perfect. Therefore, I am perfect!"

This bus is from Nimbin, of course.

Just spoke to youngest daughter in Rio and she told me of this tragic and seemingly pointless death of a  another great street artist, Selaron artist.  Very sad.

Empty nest again

My brother and sister in law just left to go back to Melbourne. It is such a long drive, but I almost think they will be better off in an a/c car than outside today. They have forecast over 40° C in Melbourne and up to 45° in Mildura. It will probably be hot here too, but there always seem to be a bit of a breeze so even though we don't have a/c it stays relatively cool if you open the windows on both sides to let the air through.

Speaking of a/c, since we are now in January I really have to get going finding another house. We don't need a three-story house with 300 square meters to clean (or more often, not).

Tomorrow is going to be terrible in regards to  bush fires. Right now there are 95 fires burning across New South Wales. In Wagga Wagga it was +45° today. Sydney will have 40° tomorrow, and all National Parks will be closed. It is in the middle of people's vacation and many people are out and about, so I guess they have to have strict safety measures like that.

Well, have you made any New Year's resolutions then?  If not you can get some ideas here. Good luck with that!