Sam's the One!

After a few months of searching, a few false starts, and some disappointments and stresses along the way, Abi now has her own horse! 

Sam the 5 year old, 14.1 hh, light bay Welsh/Anglo pony finally joined the family last Thursday - delivered to his beautiful new agistment out at Freshford Equestrian Centre near Point Hut Crossing out the back of Tuggeranong. He'll be quarantined in a special paddock there for two weeks before he's able to move into his (overnight) stable and join the other horses out in the main paddocks when he's not spending time with Abi.

We met Sam for the first time on Sunday out at Freshford, after picking up his brand new saddle from Fyshwick. It was so lovely to see him running up to meet Abi when she arrived. He was so excited to see her; no need for a lead rope here!! 

He was actually excited to meet the whole family...

.. and he had no objections to his new pink halter .....

He doesn't like the expensive horsey treats - carrots are his favourite!

He had no problems with the classy new bridle either!

What a pair of cuties!

The property is beautiful in its wild, expansive Australian bush setting, sited at the foot of a mountain range. This old wombat is obviously used to horsey people being around the paddocks here. It didn't seem to care how close I got to get this pic.

Sam using up a bit of his 5 year old energy in the lunging ring....

... and trying on the new saddle for size .... Verdict: saddle is perfect size but a smaller girth strap is needed (add that to the already pretty extensive shopping list!)

... and back to the "hospital paddock" for Sam ......

It has been so wonderful, so rewarding, to share in Abi's happiness and excitement - here's to all the Sam love and adventures ahead!!

Geelong visit

We've just returned from a four night stay in Geelong, catching up with Ros and Pete for the first time since we said our goodbyes in London back in May this year.

Its been a tough few months for Pete in particular, recovering slowly (too slowly says Pete) from knee surgery and quite a few other issues complicated by his cancer treatment over the past year or so.

On Friday night he felt well enough to enjoy dinner out with us at 1915 in North Geelong.

 

The restaurant is set in the century old boiler house that once powered the entire Geelong Federal (woollen) Mills. Serving high end food with a focus on locally sourced food and wine, 1915 is a real asset to Geelong's already well developed dining scene. It was Ros and Pete's second visit here; thank you Kay for discovering it for us!

Ros always inspires us to do a lot of walking during our Geelong stays. Walks along the Barwon River always beckon us.......

..... as does Born and Bread, Geelong's best bakery, just off Pakington Street in Newtown. Rod and Pete joined us here (by car) on Friday and Saturday morning for a coffee and ... almond croissant, cheese pretzel, blueberry Danish and olive baguette breakfast. Worth queuing for ..... yes!!!

Rob worked hard to keep up with us on the morning we walked over 11 klms.

Saturday we drove to Port Arlington - a lovely drive and a great source of fresh seafood - Tasmanian Pacific oysters, a kilo of cooked prawns and a kilo of prawn cutlets we cooked in oil garlic and chili, on the bar-b-que - a wonderful feast at home!

Sunday we drove to Ocean Grove - via Torquay .... another windy, cool day in Geelong, but at least the rain held off.

We enjoyed lunch together at the beautifully located "Dune" on the beachfront at Ocean Grove..

We didn't spend too much time outdoors at Ocean Grove admiring the view out to Bass Strait as it was blowing a gale and feeling very cool.

We said goodbye to Ros and Pete yesterday morning after another wonderful stay with them in Geelong. We've all got our fingers crossed that Pete's health continues to improve, but at a much faster rate, and he and Ros can get back to the active life they enjoyed together in this beautiful part of the world.

Coogee handover

Our Coogee window replacement and wall repaint job is now done .... at least in those rooms unaffected by planned future renovations. We packed up our Coogee place two and a half months ago, ready for the onslaught of workmen, tools and lots of dirt and dust - a false start as it eventuated as our Small Sash Window guy took a trip to Thailand for a few weeks while our place stood empty and waiting! 

He started work again at the end of July and the job was mostly done by the time we got back to Sydney after our week in Mooloolaba on the 17th  August. Joey the painter then got started on the big repair and repainting work in the last week of August and was finished in time for our handover with him last weekend. 

It took a full day of vacuuming, mopping, dusting and unpacking to get things looking this clean again after all the work that was done.

We are thrilled with our new windows and new colour scheme. The standard of workmanship is excellent and we think the apartment is looking super stylish!!

The Hammer Grey and Whisper White combination gets the big tick from us! (Lexicon White on the windows)

 

It will be lovely to get back to using our place at Coogee, especially now the weather is warming up.

Coogee construction zone

We visited Coogee twice in the last week or so .. there is so much going on .. AT LAST!

We remember how our unit looked in this pic taken at the end of July.........   

And two weeks later ... the new windows are in ... and looking beautiful!

But there was some collateral damage. The brickwork above our new living room window did not survive its first significant disturbance in almost 100 years. We'll be up for some serious repair work here and then a complete new paint job on the surrounding walls.

The bedroom wall was not nearly as damaged - and the new window there looks just great!

There was some damage to the kitchen cupboards next to the new window (small loss) but the new window is definitely worth it.

We met up with Joey our painter in Coogee last Friday and chose the final colour for our wall repaint from this short list. (We picked the lower colour of these two - Dulux Hammer Grey).

When we were in Coogee the week before, on the way back from our Q'ld stay, our Carrington Road footpath looked like this - a serious construction site!

And 6 days later it looked like this ..... very raw and very new, but transformed!

Rob and I are especially happy about this outcome as we've been pressuring Randwick Council to fix our footpath for about two years now. We took this photo (and many others) in mid March this year to show Council how bad our footpath had got.

And there's more ........

This picture was not taken in our unit but in the now demolished bathroom of our neighbours in unit 7 (awaiting a complete renovation). We're really hoping that our bathroom (a mirror image of this one) will be next on the list!

And finally back in Canberra, everything is very neat and tidy around the lake, construction sites are out of sight, behind closed doors (and fences) and Spring is definitely in the air. 

We were rewarded with this view of the Prunus grove near Blundell's Cottage on our lake walk at the weekend.

Not so sunny coast

This was the early morning view from our balcony on day 3 (Monday) of our "Sunny Coast" break this week.............

And it really didn't change all that much for the next THREE days!!

Luckily there were enough breaks between downpours that we could walk to the Velo Project on Careelo Street most days for the best cup of coffee on offer on the Sunshine Coast........

Rainwear was obligatory most days, even sitting under "cover" while enjoying our coffee (it was very windy too!).

In between coffees we did a lot of reading, relaxing, and even a bit of shopping for Rob, at the extensive (but somewhat depressing) Sunshine Plaza in Maroochydore. In fact we managed to fill in the three rainy days pretty happily - and a highlight was catching up with my friend Jane on Wednesday afternoon for a long talkative session at the W.a.T. (Whisky and Tequila) Den below our hotel in Mooloolaba.

The sun came out for our last day in Mooloolaba yesterday. Still a fair bit of unruly looking cloud cover, hazy horizons and foamy, choppy seas ....but no rain!! We were ecstatic to be out walking and feeling the intermittent sunshine on our skin. We walked for about 10 klm, right up to the end of Cotton Tree near the (depressing) Sunshine Plaza and then back to Mooloolaba, taking in all the rain soaked beaches along the way.

Views of Alexandra Headlands Beach ......

Me out walking with my winter white legs ......

and Rob .......

The long view back to Mooloolaba and the mouth of the Mooloolah River beyond.

By yesterday afternoon, just to spite us, the unruly clouds had disappeared altogether, the seas had calmed and there was a beautiful golden glow over everything....as we finished our packing for an early departure the next morning!

To celebrate our last fine weather day at the Sunny Coast we took ourselves out to Sole Restaurant at Marcooola last night. Sole is run by the same people who run the Velo Project so we knew the standard would be high. We were not disappointed: carefully prepared (mostly seafood) dishes in a refined classy environment (unlike the rustic retro style of Velo) in a very upscale part of Marcoola Beach.  It was a lovely way to mark the end of a week we had enjoyed together, despite the weather, here on the not so sunny coast!

We drove for a good eight hours today, making it as far as Karuah, a very unpretentious river front town just off the M1 at the mouth of the Karuah River where it feeds into the waters of Swan Bay and Port Stephens. We plan to make it back to Canberra tomorrow after a stop off at Coogee to check on progress with the window project at our apartment.

Late afternoon looking out to Swan Bay at Karuah.