Coogee again

We've managed to squeeze in another 3 night stay in Coogee just to make sure this month finished off as busy as it started.

The weather didn't look great as we drove off the M8 on to Gardener's Road (near the airport) on Sunday ......

But it was perfect weather for getting a few DIY jobs done at the apartment - in time for more extended family visits in October.

We think our newly framed Evonne Rraraypum "Yam Dreaming" painting from Bula'bula Arts in Ramingining (Arnhem Land) looks right at home here in our Coogee kitchen .....

And our old 80s(?) era Ikea (or was it Freedom?) pine shelf unit works well for extra storage alongside the fridge.

Levelling up the shelf unit on our very uneven floor boards proved to be the biggest challenge...... but we did it!

And last job on the list, we installed a chargeable light (no cords) above the "desk" in our new tiny office ...... all in all a very good effort on a rainy afternoon we thought.

So Monday being fine (but quite cool) we had some time to enjoy ourselves. ........ We always love to start our day with a walk to the "Honeycomb" in South Coogee.

..... and this morning, with the tide quite low and very little wave action, we were able to spend some time looking back away from the ocean, towards the towering sandstone cliffs over the honeycomb rock platform - we thought it looked particularly photo worthy this morning!!

Late that afternoon we met friends in the city for a meal at Pandawa - a local Indonesian haunt, very popular with the locals. But before we made our way there Rob was able to capture this pic of the new Ai Wei Wei installation outside the Museum of Contemporary Art down near Circular Quay. Titled "Mushrooms" it comprises 500 cast iron combat helmets in ten uniform rows - Wei Wei says the idea for this work originated when Germany offered 5,000 helmets to "aid" Ukraine just before the country was attacked by Russia in early 2022.

Yesterday we took ourselves out to the end of the L1 Light Rail line - to Dulwich Hill in Sydney's Inner West.

Our Sydney explorer days always focus on lunch - and today's did not disappoint........

Proscuitto, truffle, ricotta, black olives and rocket on focaccia made fresh in store.... a very yummy lunch from the very authetically Italian Deli - Xioso on Marrickville Road.

Followed by just as yummy, and authentically Lebanese, pastries and coffee from the Dulwich Hill branch of the famous Abla's Pastries which we've visited before on Railway Parade in Granville.

We can pack a lot of fun into even a quick visit to our little place in Coogee, Sydney can't we!

A busy month

This month has been busy and fun for all of us. Abi and Sammy tried someting new at the weekend, two weeks ago - joining a "cattle working" workshop with Brett L. on a property on Windellama Road out past Tarago.

 

Both Abi & Sammy took to working with the animals - doing tricky maneouvres between the gates and yards - like they were born to it.   

This looked to be the most challenging exercise - cutting one cow from the pack and then leading it around the hats, in figure 8s, when all the cow wanted to do was get back to the pack!

It was a very enjoyable few hours for all of us watching the animals in action - and their clever riders - in this rather beautiful rural setting just an hour and half's drive from Canberra, near Lake George.

By way of contrast Canberra's Floriade is not new for us - but it's always worth a walk through especially because we live so close. This is how Floriade looked a week after its opening on the 19th September.

Visits to the National Gallery aren't new for us either but we were pretty excited to see the gallery's long awaited new cafe had opened on our visit there last Friday. It's called the Oculus Cafe for obvious reasons and will open from 8.00 every morning - a boon for us early morning lake walkers - woohoo. The cafe's beautiful timber furniture was apparently made by Rolf Barfoed, a local Canberra artisan who's done work for us here in our little apartment too, back in the day. Go Rolf!

Rolf made this small jarrah shelf unit for our apartment entry - installed late 2020 - in between the various Canberra lockdowns that year. I'm glad Rolf has gone on to much bigger and better things since he did this small scale job for us!

From Winter to Spring

Our regular visits to Freshford with Abi make us very aware of the gradual changes in the light and the temperatures as the seasons change. Abi is even more aware of it than we are with the daily decisions she has to make about how many rugs Sammy needs overnight and if his feed needs boosting because of conditions in the paddock. 

We've taken a couple of late afternoon trail rides with Abi and Sammy in the last two weeks - and we haven't been too frozen and there's been enough light to ensure we've got back to the stables before nightfall after a good long ride (and walk for us). Spring is definitely on the way! 

We looked after Sammy by ourselves last weekend while Josh, Jody and the girls were in Bowral. We managed the haltering, the mucking out of his stable, the feeding and the rugging like old hands this time. We all agree that Sammy has matured a lot over the last year and he's a much more chilled out boy than he was when he was younger. We're probably a bit more competent than we used to be at all things to do with horsey care too. We love this boy!

Our dear friends Ro and David (from Cooper Creek in the Daintree) stayed with us for a week at the start of the month too. Luckily Canberra turned on some beautiful Spring weather for them or I'm sure their FNQ temperature receptors would have quickly frozen over. They had a busy week of packing chores to do but we were able to do some lovely walks and outings and enjoy some great meals toegther while they were here.

Before returning to FNQ they took a few days break at the Burrawang property near Tomakin on the South Coast. The photos they sent me were far nicer than any I'd taken during their week in Canberra. Ro has now finished her chemo and radiation treatment and is gradually recovering her good form - it's wonderful to see!

We've just got back from 5 days in Coogee today - not great weather there - but at least we got to experience the beach like this one cool afternoon earlier in the week .........

We are waiting on the delivery of our new car from Sydney City Lexus - ordered SIX months ago. It's allegedly arriving next month and will look just like this one apparently .......  (We also agreed on a trade in price for our little 15 year old VW Golf with Sydney Lexus this week.)

We also did some DIY work in Coogee while we were there. Thor's Hammer made us a beautiful solid ash (reclaimed) timber bench top and we installled it in our sunroom to create a tiny new "office". It took Rob and me HOURS to work out the levels and the spacing for the supports, then drill the holes in these rough old brick walls, all the while hoping it would end up level. In the end we got a great result - and yes it's quite level - and we're very happy with it!

Yesterday was rainy - a good day to do some shopping in the city. We set out for the beautiful old David Jones store in Market Street which used to be renowned for its peak "shopping experience" especially at Christmas and the change of the seasons. I felt strangely moved to see the tradition is obviously continuing at this beautiful old school department store. There was a profusion of Spring flowers, the glorious old grand piano was at full volume and everything looked fabulous and opulent - just like the old days before online shopping, AI and the cost of living crisis changed everything in the retail world. So good to see!

We'd just read a great review of Mother Chu's Taiwanese Gourmet in the Sydney Morning Herald so we headed there for lunch after a successful hour or two of shopping. Among many other dishes Mother Chu's is renowned for their youtiao (fried bread sticks) - we had ours wrapped in omelette, pork floss and glutinous rice, along with steamed soup dumplings and a stir fry pork dish, all yummy. Next time we'll have to try their famous sesame crusted black pepper pork buns. 

We drove back to Canberra today on a glorious Spring day in Coogee and in Canberra too. We got back in time for a lovely late lunch with Josh, Jody and the girls at our fave The Gryphon at the Griffith shops. The Manchurian pears lining the shop froints were at their absolute Spring blossom peak - a joy to behold!

Rod's 80th birthday

We've been celebrating Rod's recent milestone birthday in true family style - an absolute milestone for him and for us, especially given Rod's accident last year. It was very hard to imagine in the early part of last year that he would be with us, eighteen months later, able to enjoy a party that achieving 80 years on this earth truly deserves....

It started with breakfast on Sunday at our fave Promenade Cafe at the Hyatt Hotel. There were 15 of us there - extended family including Ros and Pete who'd travelled up from Geelong, Ollie from Wollongong and dear friends Eric and Julie.

Afterwards we came together at our lovely St Germain Common Room for some celebratory drinks and birthday cake.

Rod truly is our Super Man ................ such a fitting theme for his birthday cake.

There were so many special moments - made all the more so by the fact that Rod is still here with us despite his terrible injuries last year - and so much of the old Rod that we know and love.......

Claire and Ollie both made beautiful, heartfelt speeches - but we were all blown away by Rod presenting a speech too - that he had written the night before ... and quite a few tears were shed ........

..... but inevitably, because it's our family, there was a lot of laughter too ........

This beautiful young man also had a birthday recently - time to bring out a favourite toy from many years ago (unpacked and freshly washed by his Mum).

...... and this pair make every party a PARTY!

We ended off that rainy cold Sunday by taking Ros out to Freshford to meet Abi's Sammy.

She quickly found his sweet spot.

Pete is dealing bravely with many health challenges these days - so it was wonderful that he could join us on a beautiful Canberra winter morning for a walk around our lake on Saturday - on a borrowed scooter .....

We headed to Coogee on Monday so Ros and Pete could check out our "new" apartment and catch up on other changes to the Sydney scene.

Pete wasn't able to join us on our first long morning walk (to Clovelly) but he was able to catch the 313 bus and join us at Tuga Bakery on Clovelly Road for a slap up breakfast at the end of our long walk around beautiful Gordon's Bay.

We only had one full day in Sydney so we packed a lot in that day. After our slap up breakfast in Clovelly we caught the 313 bus (a second time for Pete) to Bondi Junction then a train to Martin Place. From there we boarded the new Metro line to Chatswood where with minimal walking for Pete we could all experience a taste of Asia - a whole new area of Sydney that Ros and Pete hadn't experienced before - as well as a beautiful lunch at Ippudo Ramen above Chatswood's busy railway station (almost like we were back in Kyoto again).

From Chatswood we caught trains to Circular Quay before boarding the F5 Ferry to Neutral Bay - just for the fun of having a ferry ride on this most spectacular harbour on this most spectacular Sydney day, past Kirribilli and Neutral Bay, then on to Kurraba Point before looping back to Circular Quay. 

We caught the Light Rail back to Randwick from Circular Quay - meaning Ros and Pete had got to try every form of Sydney's remarkable public transport system, with so much to see and experience, and all requiring very little walking for Pete. It was just such a stunning day!

We had some fabulous meals with Ros and Pete over their stay, both in Canberra and in Sydney. Perhaps one of the most memorable was our late morning brunch at the Pool Cafe in Maroubra on Wednesday morning as we were heading back to Canberra. 

A picture is worth a thousand words!!