Autumn is

Late afternoon piles of rustling damp leaves, red berries blazing, washes of russet, gold and pink, contrast with citric mounds of lime green Diosma.

The piles of leaves invite exhilarating runs...

and jumps....

and soft landings.

and perfect for a warm drink and a chocolate brownie afterwards.

Things are OK

There seemed to be very few earthly delights for a week or two while we anxiously watched over Joshy in hospital after his accident at work on 20 April. We now know he is going to make a full recovery, after 5-6 weeks of very restricted movement and some physio, starting soon. He's gaining in strength and mobility rapidly now although he's feeling very frustrated and a bit stressed about things. But, miraculously, he is going to be OK!

I feel OK to blog again now, and refocus on the considerable delights in my life after this very stressful, anxious time.

Just before the accident we celebrated our annual South Coast seafood feast at Rosedale, generously hosted by Judy and Jurgen and the kids. In gloriously mellow early Autumn weather Chef Jane from Slick catering, and her offsider Louise served up their gorgeous versions of the region's best seafood: Clyde River oysters, lobster, calamari (for the kids) and blue eyed cod for Wayne (because of his need to avoid crustaceans).

It's always amazing to see the canapes emerging from the minimal Rosedale kitchen. This year we were served smoked salmon roulade, chorizo and roast tomato tartlets and cucumber cups with white bean pate and preserved lemon.

By now we are all in the mood to celebrate a wonderful lunch in wonderful company in this beautiful outdoor, Rosedale bush setting. The five kids in the party are old hands at feasting and are always a great help to Chef Jane and Louise and very interested in everything coming out of the kitchen.

Once the ice cold Majella Sparkling Shiraz is poured we know the party has begun.

First course is Clyde River oysters: natural, tomato and pomegranate, and bastourma and parsley salad (bastourma is a Turkish air dried beef fillet which has been rubbed with fenugreek, chilli and sugar)
.

Sitting next to Wayne I was able to find out all about the recent vintage at Murrumbateman, and the complexities of producing grapes and making high quality wines in the current economic climate. Wayne is a great story teller and I find I learn a lot while enjoying all the anecdotes in amongst more technical details. Both Jenny and Wayne ensure we enjoy and appreciate the best wines at these events.

Now the fresh half lobsters in shell with black olive cream are being served.

Louise deserves a cheer after running though the menu: chickpea and potato salad, roasted pumpkin, spinach salad with Zhoug dressing (Zhoug is a mixture of roasted spices, fresh coriander and a hint of chilli) and pickled eggplant and yoghurt and Turkish bread.

and calamari, chips and salad for the kids (their pick).

I didn't catch the dessert Bombe Alaska being flambeed this time. Chef Jane is famous for her Bombe Alaskas but this time she'd used Louise's home made fig and orange blossom ice cream as the base. It was wondrous; I had two helpings!!

We end off this amazing feast with a long beach walk at dusk and sleep deeply after all that wine and food in one of the many spare beds at Rosedale. Rob and I drove up to Sydney from Rosedale on Sunday, an easy trip along the Coast these days. We were in Sydney on the Tuesday morning when the terrible phone call about Joshy's accident came through.

Autumn afternoon

Is it the beautiful mid afternoon April light or is it the beautiful girls lighting up our April afternoon?

We ended off a day of theatre-ing, "The Little Mermaid" at the Courtyard Theatre, cafe frequenting, and avoiding the construction mayhem in the bathroom - laundry end of the house with a few hours of relaxing in our Autumn garden.

Before and after

This is the last photo I took of our late 60's vintage bathroom/toilet/laundry (with its minor 80s upgrade) before work got underway today to completely renovate it.

The plan is to remove the wall separating the bathroom and toilet and make it one, open plan room. We will have all new fittings, bigger bath, full length shower, more storage, and fully tiled etc etc.

Work started today. So far we are impressed with the communication and organisational skills of our builder and his attention to detail. The before and after pictures below show what was achieved today - day one.

The laundry is receiving a major overhaul too: new joinery, matching tile work to the bathroom, new sink & taps etc.

This is a lot of progress in just a day resulting from an army of tradesmen descending on the house. The asbestos removal crew looked like the biggest band of reprobates, but they did their job quickly and efficiently and cleaned up beautifully.

I'll keep you posted with progress over the next few weeks. I confess to being somewhat alarmed about doing without a washing machine for that time!!!

Easter Sunday

Maxie was doing a great impersonation of the Easter bunny but was totally mystified as to why Ella wouldn't accept her share of the goodies (apparently she is going through a phase of doing exactly as her Mummy says..and her Mummy said no more chocolate this morning!).


Luckily, Easter gifts of toys were OK. Miffy is a current favourite and, being very cute, is especially apt for Easter! Although Grandpa needed reminding that "her is a girl".

Although the links with Easter were fairly limited the Spider man bike and the Star Wars Lego were also considered acceptable alternatives to more chocolates.

Easter egg hunts were great fun this year as all the kids are into word games, jokes, riddles and rhymes and searching for clues. Ollie can even read clues himself now with minimal help; very advanced for a five year old.

Angus has announce this week that he no longer wishes us to call him Angie!

Easter is always another great excuse for good eating. The kids all enjoyed Granny K.'s gluten free muffins to end off our gourmet breakfast with all the trimmings, including, inevitably, way too much dark chocolate.

Easter Sunday was busy for me. Sophie and Maddy accompanied me to the Hyatt for afternoon tea to celebrate their recent respective birthdays. Rob and I joined them (and the rest of the family) for a birthday dinner later that night along with a bevy (gaggle/giggle) of teenage girls all having an enormous amount of fun experimenting with various eye liners and eating caramel mud cake. Oh to be thirteen again!

Archibald's weekend

The timing of the Archibald Prize exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in March/April is always a great excuse to take a long weekend break in Sydney with Maxie and Rod.

Because there is a fair bit to do before taking four days away we spent last Thursday quietly at home with Ella instead of our usual busy agenda of visiting playgrounds and the Fyshwick Markets and creating art. I was amazed at the length of time she is able to focus now on more complex, imaginative play. We spent over an hour creating a little home for one of her Duplo figures (unfortunately a boy Duplo figure) out of a shoe box - complete with (play doh) table, chair, TV set, strawberry cakes and apples, and rugs on the floor!

This time our four days in Sydney had a strong arts focus. We checked out the classy Sabbia Gallery http://www.sabbiagallery.com in Glenmore Road, Paddington and marvelled at the stunning ceramics on show by Gail Nichols and Debra Boyd-Goggin (from our own Queanbeyan no less).

In the process it was great fun to get a style update from window watching all the Oxford Street boutiques: Scanlon & Theodore, Willow, Sass & Bide, Incu, and my favourite, Nicola Waite http://www.nicolawaite.com.

The Paddington Markets were really humming on Saturday morning. I supported local designers by buying jewellery from Natalie Kube http://www.nataliekube.com.au and ant haus designs http://www.anthaus.com.

We waited until as late as possible Sunday afternoon to visit the AGNSW to avoid the long queues for the over hyped first weekend of the Archibald Prize exhibition http://www.thearchibaldprize.com.au.

This year I tried not to look at the exhibition as an art exhibition (usually resulting in disappointment) but just focus on the portraits and their capacity to "capture the human spirit". By doing this I could see that the Tim Minchin portrait was a pretty clear winner, with the Lord Mayor of Melbourne and Kate Ceberano also appealing to me.

We finished off our weekend on the arts trail (which also included an outing to the Randwick Ritz to see the compelling Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) with a celebratory beer or two at the gorgeous old East Sydney Hotel (previously the Shamrock Hotel, established in 1856) in Cathedral Street, Woolloomooloo, after deciding that the nearby Soho Gallery was not worthy as a possible future venue for an exhibition of Maxie's ceramic sculptures.

Bathroom dreaming

We've signed up for a bathroom and laundry renovation, so it's going to be goodbye to our 80s era pale peach tiles and late 60s tapware and porcelain, and in with the more minimalist designs of the 21st century.

I hate this stage where there are so many decisions to be made: tile size and finish, top of counter, semi recessed, drop in or under counter basins, which tapware?, BTW toilet suite or "wall faced"?, which layout works best?, vanity finishes, how to hang the mirror, lighting options. I am feeling very confused!

We have to make most of our decisions this week so our builder can get detailed planning under way and the project started in about three weeks. Rob and I have had a few shopping expeditions already and lots of time on the internet but we find it too tempting to get distracted: lunches with Jody and Ella, Saturday afternoon at the movies (A Single Man), display apartment viewing, gym sessions. We will have to really discipline ourselves this week!

Ella's shoe saga continues. Her 6 weeks old CR red leather ballet flats are totally trashed and already a bit tight. She chose these red leather Keds (at a bargain price from DFO) to replace them. They are only one day old but so far are standing up well to the challenges presented by the playgrounds at Captain Cook and Telopea Parks.