A batch of birthdays

The end of Winter and the start of Spring heralds a batch of birthdays in our extended family. It starts with Ollie and Angus in August - and then there's Jody's on the 25th. We'd enjoyed our first family lunch at Pialligo Estate so much back in July that we decided to repeat the experience and celebrate Jody's birthday there too.

The goal in this pic was to encourage Abi to look at the camera - and she nailed it!!

No doubt she was feeling pretty stoked about her main course: SCOTCH FILLET, SMOKEHOUSE PANCETTA, ESTATE BEANS, ROASTED TOMATO, JUS. 

Abi is a confirmed carnivore and astonishes us all with the amount of red meat she can consume in one sitting. This is her idea of a perfect lunch dish.

Abi also gets sick of me taking photos - much preferring to be behind the camera herself. She took the rest of this Pialligo Estate photo collection for the blog!

And she prefers taking candid unexpected shots of us - watch out everyone!

The wait staff recognised Abi from our previous visit because of her pink patent Doc Martens. They are very distinctive.

Desserts went over well too!

The pic below, of Abi riding "Speedy", was taken a week after our lunch. This is Abi in her happy space, at Forest Park, with horses all around her, and riding one of her favourite ponies. She's been learning for about a year now and still LOVES it. We're so grateful that horseriding is relatively Covid safe, so it's had few disruptions this year.

And as for us, full of end of winter joy, Rob and I have bought a new car!! just like this one - although ours is still on the ship to Australia - due to arrive early in October?? At the start of the year we wouldn't have considered replacing our Subaru with an SUV type vehicle - but road trips around our region, state, and the rest of the country (eventually) might be the new normal for us for few years?

And back on birthdays - our friend Jennie F celebrates hers on the 11th September. This year we wanted to prepare a memorable celebratory lunch for her - especially considering all the times she cooks for us at the Murrumbateman property. Judy and Jurgen organised the lobsters and prawns from the South Coast and also prepared a delicious entree of scallops with sweet corn puree, proscuitto and lemon butter. We enjoyed our fave Majella with starters and beautiful Hunter Valley wines with each course and I made bread, salads and an orange cake for dessert.

Apart from the odd moment of turmoil in the kitchen it was a lovely relaxed and mellow afternoon, and the food was delicious - we really wanted Jennie to enjoy it!

Darling Ollie was a great lunch companion too for us oldies and very kindly offered to play his guitar for us. He is so talented; it was a very special highlight of the afternoon. Lucky us!

We were enthralled!

Our annual lobster lunches at Rosedale were very special occasions for all of us - another thing that has changed forever in 2020. There are sad moments for all of us when we get together because of this, and all the other losses we've endured in the past year, but the gift of friendship and our willingness to support each other through all this makes us feel very grateful, and brings joy and hope, especially at birthdays.