Second attempt

Don't you just hate it when you have written a long story or e-mail or paragraph and you feel quite happy with it and then, bam!, your computer crashes and all is lost. I know, I know, I should have saved and saved and saved but sometimes you get carried away with your writing and forget, ok!
So last week-end when we came home from our visit to Blacktown Medieval Fayre I went almost straight to the computer and wrote a blog about it, while it was fresh in my memory.That blog entry is now gone somewhere into the unknown  and this will be a pale second go, with probably not as many details.

So this medieval festival that we went to was held in Nurrangingy reserve in Blacktown. It is a beautiful park with lots of space for such an event. There were ladies and knights and witches and monks and many buxom wenches as well as jesters and of course Robin Hood and Friar Tuck and many others. They also had stands demonstrating wood carving, blacksmithing, crafts and cooking.

The most exciting of all in my opinion was the jousting with a participant all the way from France. The knights jousted for a lady to whom they gave a ribbon, and Sir Michael from France was particularly gallant and kissed the hand of the lady he had chosen in the audience. It was very romantic!

This is the youngest participant, she is only eight years old. She
did very well even thought her mother has to run next to her.

This is the Best Dressed competition that took place just before
the jousting.The young man second on the left won the Best-
Dressed Women's category. I think the lady next to him should
have won, and I think so did she.It actually looks like he just
borrowed some of his mother's old hippy clothes.

Lady Catherine in all her splendor

I'll say goodbye for now and go and do some gardening. Right now in Sydney we have glorious sunny days but very cold nights and mornings, the coldest was 8 °C and let me remind you that many houses in Sydney have no heating so it is quite nippy.

However don't let that put you off coming to visit since it perfect for sightseeing.
See ya!

Call centers

Younger daughter and I have recently spent hours on the phone with different Indian gentlemen trying to explain that our Internet connection doesn't work. It's exhausting and oh, so time consuming, plus when it comes to spelling my name in that special code that they have adopted I am at loss. What's wrong with A like in armpit,  N like in news, D like in dishwasher,  E like in eggs, and R like in roses, and S like in sandpit, and O like in orange, and finally again N like in news, instead of all that military stuff, Alpha , Bravo, Delta, whatever.  By the way this would then spell Anderson which is a relatively common name but not my name.  For goodness sake, this is not the second World War and we don't have to speak in code anymore ( or do we?)

This leads me to an incident that our daughter in Senegal told me about recently. She was on the bus and this elegant Senegalese lady was engrossed in a book. Our daughter just glanced at it and saw that it was in Swedish, her mother's native tongue and also a language that she is fluent in. She couldn't help herself but had to ask the lady "Are you Swedish?" in Swedish.  The lady said "No I am not" in a very distinct and particular Swedish accent from the south of Sweden. She asked her if she had lived in Sweden and the lady said no. She then asked her if she had ever been there and the lady said no. She clearly wanted to get on with reading her book.

She did say just as she was getting off the bus,  that she worked in that green building that they could see, in a call center and that their teacher was Swedish,  from the south of Sweden, from Ystad (of Wallander fame) so that all the people in the call center had that accent and she had only been learning Swedish for 7 months. I guess it goes to show you that you can learn fast if the motivation is there. And also that the call centers are everywhere where cheap labour is to be had. Apparently in Chile where our youngest daughter lived previously,  their call centers were all in Columbia.

Let's see, what else has happened since last we spoke... well, we have had Mother's Day here in Australia and we all went to a lovely restaurant in Cronulla  called Alphabet Street where they served a sort of Thai Fusion Menu. It was fabulous, every dish was a piece of art.

Other than that, we are already preparing for our trip to Europe in June.  I can't believe that it is already a year since last time This time it is nice to leave someone behind to look after the house. I am talking about younger daughter and boyfriend who have been with us for a while.

Last but not least I wanted to tell you that we went to an opening at Hazelhurst Art Gallery where my art teacher had a painting exhibited. During the somewhat drawn out speeches I went outside to sit in the park. I was surrounded by birds and all of a sudden one of them let go of his (or her) load right on my hand. Trying to wash it off in the bathroom was almost impossible. I think they should adapt this glue to the industry somehow. It just stuck right away.

This was almost impossible to wash off.

Time to say goodbye and go and prepare
Sunday lunch.

Dearest mormor

Swedish is great in that you can immediately understand that mormor means grandmother on your mother's side and morfar means grandfather on your mother's side. The same goes for uncle and aunt on the mother's side which would be moster (aunt) and morbror (uncle). Then it is the same on your father's side with farmor and farfar and faster and farbror. End of your weekly Swedish lesson. It was just so I could explain what the title meant.

The reason I was thinking of my dear mormor the other day was that my neighbour said that "It will soon be the time when your tree changes colour and the leaves fall. My grandkids love collecting the leaves and jumping in the pile." My thoughts immediately went to mormor who always saw great danger in very ordinary things. So if you jumped into a pile of autumn leaves you could get polio, it was very dangerous and deprived us of that little pleasure. Another thing, maybe less dangerous but still unpleasant was that if you were making horrible faces and the wind changed you would stay that way, for ever and ever. Needless to say, we could never go swimming after having eaten, we had  to wait for hours.

My mormor was looking after my sister and me after my parents split up and our mother went back to work. Mormor obviously had to retort to some weird threats. When it got really desperate she would make pretend phone calls to a special school for unruly kids and explain that we had been very bad and then she would ask if they could take us on. We would be ready to do anything to get out of that and she would forgive us and all was well, for a while.

Please don't worry, I think no harm was done and it was just her way to deal with difficult situations.

This is taken just about the time when mormor started looking
after us full time.

This is taken at mormor's confirmation when
she was fifteen years old.

The last thing before I leave the subject of mormor is that,  especially in the winter, my sister and me would sit on each side of my mormor's arm chair and she would sing for us. It was not very happy songs but something that was called  "Skilling tryck" in Swedish. It was mainly sad songs about people suffering terrible hardship, famine and death. The mother often died and the father was often a drinker. Another theme was unhappy love, where one or the other died tragically.  The result was that when my mother came home from work she would find me and my sister crying our hearts out.

On to another subject, we have had visitors from Melbourne, which was very nice. We drank a bottle of wine that they bought in France when they came to visit us there from 1989. I will not make any comments here on that since I am not a great wine connoisseur, but it was very dark. There was also an Australian wine from 1974. Don't get me wrong, I like wine but I can't get all the little nuances, like banana skin, vanilla, berry, licorice, or sunlight through a stained glass window. I am a little simple when it comes to this, it is either red or white and sometimes rosé.

It is a sad day today because one of my favorite singers died unexpectantly at the age of 57.
I saw a weather report from Newtown that said that today would be cloudy and grey with Purple Rain. RIP Prince!

Great week-end

It started with Friday when I lost my handbag in our local shopping center. 'How is that great?', you may ask yourself.  Well, I didn't realize it until I got home and unloaded the groceries in front of the door and when I went to get my bag from its usual spot in the car, the handbag wasn't there. So back to the shopping centre, running around to the different possible places where someone might have handed it in, while getting more and more panicky. I have everything in my handbag, passport, ticket back to Europe, all my cards, driver's license etc, so losing it would be a real problem.

I figured out that it must have happened when I was just leaving and putting my trolley away, since I did have the car keys in my hand and had been able to load in the groceries and drive home. So I had probably left the bag in the trolley. Someone wanted my parking spot so I was trying to be quick and efficient and that's probably how it happened.

Anyhow, to make a long story short, while I was in the bank cancelling my card, the bank teller asked if I wanted to call someone and I rang hubby. He was unusually chirpy and started making a joke which I had to interrupt since I was struggling to hold back tears. Finally when I actually listened to what he was saying he told me that a colleague had rang up and said that his brother had rung him to say that is wife, i.e. his sister-in-law, had found a handbag in a trolley and it had a card in the wallet for hubby at his workplace. So he met up with his colleague's brother and picked up the bag. As simple as that! Meanwhile younger daughter had rang hubby about something and he asked her if she could come and pick up the bag and take it to me. I was sitting outside the bank waiting, and she and her boyfriend turned up with my bag and all was finally well. So, back to the house to get the food into the fridge. Fortunately it was a cool day so I don't think anything had gone off.

Well, that was Friday, then on Saturday morning we flew down to Melbourne to surprise hubby's brother and sister-in-law who both had turned 60 recently. It was planned for Sunday, so Saturday we got picked up at our hotel by hubby's old friend Peter and taken to their house for drinks and to see their twin girls whom we haven't seen since they came to visit in France when they were young.
We had a great meal in a Sri Lankan restaurant with some other old friends as well. It was great catching up, and a great meal. Then back to Peter and Libby's place for more drinks and cheese.

 

Sunday was a very long day, since we changed the time here in Australia, which means you can fit in a lot. We started with the craft market in St Kilda and a walk along on what I call the cake street - Acland Street. They sell other things too but is most famous for their cake shops, very Olde Worlde, and people come from far away to see and taste. We managed to hold back since we still had not digested the food from the night before and also knew we were going to an Italian place for lunch.

Selfie outside one of the cake shops
in Acland Street

Outside the famous Luna Park in St
Kilda

Anyway, back on one of Melbourne's famous trams again and off to the Art Centre where we were supposed to sit and wait in the restaurant and surprise hubby's brother and sister-in-law when they arrived. All this was booked and organized by hubby's sister and would have been perfect except we met them outside on the bridge by accident. This didn't make the surprise any less surprising, though. Hubby's brother did not recognise him at first.

After a delicious meal we separated and the three boys went to see a football game (Aussie Rules, of course) at the famous MCG, and we girls went to see an exhibition called 200 years of Australian Fashion

We girls had the time to do several things. We visited St Paul's Cathedral and a market, and we also went to Hosier Lane to check out the graffiti artists at work, great stuff!

Eat your heart out Sydney, here is the Yarra River!

Graffiti artist at work.

Lunch at Tutto Bene, Southbank.

The three siblings having drinks at Young and Jackson's.

I used to think that Melbourne was a bit grey and boring, but after this visit I have completely changed my tune. It was helped by the glorious weather of course, but also the vibrant and accessible art scene with so much going on. I really recommend a visit!

Long absence

Forgive my long absence, it must be life that has caught up with me. I have to start from the more recent event and work myself back in time.

Our younger daughter arrived a little over a month ago to look for work and settle down here in Australia. Her boyfriend arrived two weeks ago. He only has a tourist visa so he can't work to begin with, but his paperwork for residency is being processed, and we are hoping that it will be quick. So they are doing all the stuff you have to do when you settle in a new country.

For example,  she is trying to pass  her driving test. She has lived in Chile and they do not have an agreement with Australia simply to change over driver's licences. She has had to do it all from scratch, which is a bit silly when you have been driving for over 10 years. Had she still had her French license, it would have been simple, like it was for me, but it had been stolen when her handbag was stolen.

This is the first part of the"Renaissance Meal". It had to be oysters of course.

Hubby turned 65 and we had the kids and some friends over. Our son cooked us a "Renaissance Meal" for hubby's birthday. It wasn't what I feared from the beginning. I was imagining a big swan in the middle of the table, or a wild boar or something, but in fact it was quail wrapped in bacon and with a blue cheese sauce. It was presented with very fresh carrots and a puree of turnips and pears. Delicious!

Hubby has already spent  months collecting his pay slips and other paperwork from the different countries that he has lived in, trying to figure out what his pension will amount to. It is very difficult. Luckily he is not retiring yet so he still has some time to work on it.
 
Hubby also got to take over the downstairs dining area and run the model railway that he bought from an elderly gentleman. They were downsizing in preparation of moving into a unit for elderly. We should really be doing the same thing but sadly we are not, rather the opposite. However, I blame the children. Our garage is a beautiful mix of their different things. Maybe there are readers out there who have the same problem?

You can look through the things and remember different periods in the children's lives. One thing I regret is not having kept a diary when the children grew up. To remember all the funny episodes and things they said. Now I mix them all up and can't remember who said what, if I remember it at all. It's tragic! Young parents today are lso ucky with Fb, Instagram, Twitter  etc where they seem to record every move they and their offspring make and every morsel they eat. I am not being facetious here. I would use Instagram and Twitter too if I only knew how. I have enough with managing my Fb account and not always very successfully

This was by far hubby's favorite
present, a Panama hat that actually
fits, unlike the pose!

We have had very hot weather lately and it has also been very humid, but right now I am sitting here listening to thunder rolling in the distance. I hope we get a good soak, we really need it.

Easter has come, ... and gone in fact. We just all of a sudden realized that had some days free. Well, nothing happened, in the sense we didn't go away, we have just been here doing fun things around the house.

Have to leave you now and make lunch. Take care, until next time! 

On the road again

In fact, not anymore, we got back late last night from our 3,500 km trip in time to see the beautiful fireworks in Sydney on TV for the New Year 2016. As usual it was gorgeous and very festive. There were some very scary booms around here too but we never saw any real fireworks.

Anyway, we left Sydney on the 25th after having had a nice meal with our son the day before. Of course it finished in the pool.

Yes, they are wearing cossies (Aussie for swimming trunks)

We had wanted to get back to the area in the north of NSW where they have hot springs, and where we had been once before.  This time we went to a place called Moree. A little snippet of information about Moree is that 1700 trucks pass through the town every day with  produce or cattle or whatever else.

The town was really concentrated around the hot bore. Our hotel didn't have a hot pool but some  hotels did, I think. We had to go to the bath house and get a day ticket. They have pools there ranging from 37+C to 40+C and it is heavenly to lower yourself into the water. There was also a normal pool where you could do laps and go down a big water slide.
Needless to say hubby had a few goes there but every time when I was preparing,  to take a photo when he came out, he came out like a cannonball. Impossible to try to catch that with a normal telephone camera.

It might look like a smile but is actually a grimace of pain. The water came out of the nozzle really hard and very hot and it was all I could do to stay under it for the photo. It was supposed to be good for injuries!?

Our next motel booking was in Nambour where we stayed for three nights. The main purpose was to be near the Glasshouse Mountains. There are lots of great walks to do there, and small arty-farty towns, like Maleny and Montville for example, with nice restaurants and shops and art galleries.....and there is also the Big Pineapple! A little word of warning though! Everything closes very early. Art galleries at four o'clock in the afternoon and shops at five maybe.

The pineapples were out of season so
there was nothing pineapple oriented
to eat or drink which was a shame.
Hubby had so looked forward to a
nice pineapple fritter.

The Glasshouse Mountains, so named by Captain Cook because of their resemblance to kilns for firing glass.

There is lots more to show and tell but my sister in law arrived yesterday so now I have a full week of doing fun things with her. We started off doing the Art Trail in Bundeena right after we picked her up at the airport. Some of the artists are absolutely great.

I love these flowering gums, we saw loads of them in Queensland but we don't see so many of them around here.

Leaving you now with lots of good wishes for 2016.  I won't bother about about resolutions this time. It seems to have an opposite effect for me somehow, I don't know about you.

Update from Down Under

Time for a little update from us Down Under. It's Monday morning and a little bit grey as opposed to the weekend which was gorgeous.

Hubby was designated Santa at his company's Christmas party. He was very well disguised with fake white hair (not that he needed that!), and long white beard, and a moustache. The only thing  that made him into an Aussie Santa was that he wore flip-flops rather than big snow boots. And don't you know it, that that is what gave him away!

Later on when he was back in normal clothes and some people were leaving, this little five-,year old Chinese girl came up and said, very politely, to hubby "Bye, Santa, thank you!". When we asked her, why she thought hubby was Santa, she said she could tell by his feet.

We have also been away on a four-day week end with hubby's friends from university, since last I wrote here. We go somewhere different every year. It is important that it includes wine-tasting, cheese and chocolate tasting, and that there are some interesting things to visit. I think I have commented on this before, but when I say "interesting things to visit", it can be a gorgeous beach or a local art gallery or an old gold-mining town or why not a very, very small church.

It is hard to deny that beaches like this are gorgeous!

Like a Mini, it is bigger inside
than it looks.

It is a different type of sight-seeing from Europe where there is so much history. Everywhere you go in Europe there are churches and museums and castles dating way back in time. Here it goes back to the first settlers maybe and the mining period. Some of the little towns have been very nicely restored though and it is very nice to stroll leisurely through them, maybe buying some cute candles or jewelery or other knick knacks.

Our younger daughter, who presently lives in Chile, has decided to come to Australia, and look for work. We are very much looking forward to that. Her boyfriend will come later when his visa has come through.

Jacarandas are in bloom at the moment, and not always alone.

Time to go and do chores. Lots of good thoughts coming your way now!!!!