So this is Christmas?

I'm watching Dr Who Christmas special on TV, well, not watching it so much as I'm writing is post at the same time.

Just wanted to say Hi! , Merry Christmas, hope you spent the day with family and friends and had a lovely time.

I got a bit annoyed by the news tonight, the second lead story was the post Christmas sales in Sydney, I don't know about you but I feel this over consumption thing is getting really bad. Here we are the day after Christmas and people were lining up at 2-3 am (YES AM) to be the first into a department store to spend more money on things they probably don't need (I'm making a judgement call here).

What do you think? Do you think we should have at least a couple of days where we can't (or need to?)  shop?


Merry Christmas!

Trains, planes and stuff.....

Last weekend I went with my sister to Paris, as you do!

I had arrived in Amsterdam earlier that week, got myself on European time and then we were off!

And boy do they do trains in Europe well.

This is what I recorded on my app, Dashboard on  the Thalys train from Amsterdam to Paris, and I think we actually went faster than this later on!

Insert sad face here,  in Australia, we can look forward to speeds of 80kmh.


So read it and weep people, it's now 11pm in London, so I'm off to bed as I'm doing Regents Canal  tomorrow!

Choices, choices, choices,

I've really got myself in a dilemma! After attending Cordon Bleu open day last Saturday Paris, I did a personal guided tour of  cordon bleu london......



And now I'm torn!

Both have pros and cons and I'm spending a lot of brain power trying to reason which school would be the best and which City has the most to offer.

Paris has the history, the markets and of course the French!

London, which was the second cordon bleu school outside Paris has decidedly better facilities, French chefs and I can speak the language.

so, you can see my decision is not easy,

Yes it could be, I could just go to Cordon Bleu in Sydney , but what's the fun  in that?

So maybe you can help me......


If YOU had to make a decision where would you go.........

Stay tuned.....

Letter from Paris

I can't get any photos to load on via the iPad, so I am going to treat you with a letter from Paris...

Pictures will come at a letter date.

Dear Diary,

Today I arrived in Paris!  This is my about my 6th visit and still the excitement remains when I see the Tour Eiffel, symbol of Paris.

I'm here to attend an open day for

Le Cordon Bleu Paris cooking school  in preparation for my grown up gap year.

My sister is my support person, because you need someone to be your unbiased eyes and ears for things like this.

The weather is brilliant much warmer than I expected, I suppose I could blame climate change for that! :-)

We are staying at a lovely hotel on the Rive Gauche, which describes me to a tee,a bit left of centre!

We are going to do the hop on hop off bus, a comedy show and visit some sites, so,I'll close this letter now and will write another day.

Love gg

Unsubscribe me........!

If you've been wondering where I've been for the last week, I've been unsubscribing from marketing emails. You know the type, you might buy something once from somewhere, or look at a website and then you are locked in to getting all their junk email forever and a day.

Well, as I am now on my GAP YEAR and have TIME to get.stuff.done. I am trawling through all those emails and unsubscribing.

It's a demon of a job, let me tell you something for nothing....

Some are easy, you just have to click and then say "thank you" you are now unsubscribed.

BUT others want a whole song and dance about WHY you are unsubscribing!!

Let's just say that I do not need any personalised jewellery! I bought some for a Christmas present about 10 years ago and have been putting up with their junk in my in box for the remaining years.

NOW GONE!

YAY!

I don't know about you, but I don't get many personal emails anymore (insert sad face here  :-( )
most of it is junk mail, so when I finally get all my unsubscribes done,  will I be facing a lonely inbox each day?

Maybe not!!

Days of my life.....

It's now 1 month since my "grown up gap year" started and I am now starting to wonder how I managed to do anything else when I was working.  I have now got myself in a sort of routine and am finding I am  getting.stuff.done.com here at Glenquarry central.

Renovations are almost underway, builder confirmed, doors ordered and kitchen people coming on Thursday to discuss designs etc. Floor covering picked and quoted for,  and landscaping and new fencing quoted and ready to start in a couple of weeks.

Then,  there is my trip to Europe in 4 weeks time! All sorted, booked and printed out. Only thing left to arrange is shows in London and day trips, any suggestions??

Now to Fockers Lunch...

for those of you  not familiar with this scene gem here is the trailer. Anyway our Fockers lunch is an annual event where we have all the assorted in laws, boy/girl friends families and some "honorary" Fockers for a BIG lunch party. It's so BIG we even send invitations.... and a save the date 6 months before! It's a not to be missed event.

Here is a sneak peek of  this years invite..

Also a postscript to this post  today at tarts the we had a gentleman join our table, the one from the other table! I sense some this may lead to some drama as do we want to admit a Torte full time to the Tarts?  Watch this space for more

days of my life!

I just don't get it

I was driving up to Sydney today to have lunch with a lovely former work colleague, and as I am wont to do, was day dreaming and thinking....

Then I woke up in a nightmare!

A traffic jam on the M5 outside of peak hour, not unheard of,  but not a usual occurrence. Then, while  I was growing older,  sitting in the traffic queueing up,  I started to look up and saw a few signs that I thought, "why bother, or why do they have to tell us that", and I thought I would share my random musings with you, so here goes.

This sign, telling me that one day (in the future) the road will be wider! More traffic = more traffic jams.

My view on the M5, lucky I still made lunch on time!

More M5.....  INACTION!

I love this sign, IT IS ILLEGAL to use a mobile phone while driving, so please tell me, how I am supposed to look up the live traffic updates!  Maybe that sign should tell me what is happening ahead instead!!

Another thought, if I am using a tollway, and the speed is supposed to be 100 or 110 km/hour, I am assuming a contract exists between them and me, as I am paying for the privilege of driving at a faster speed with no traffic lights. So if they don't keep up their side of the bargain, (i.e. my speed ) then why should I pay for the joy of sitting in a car-park? So am I then permitted to make up my speed lost for the slow areas?

 NO, there are highways patrol all over the M5 just waiting for you to speed. I need to lawyer up, if they can take on the banks, I think someone needs to take on the RMS here in NSW.

 And the whole tricky thing here is that the so-called live traffic advisory signs ( like the one above) which should be telling me about the traffic conditions ARE TELLING ME NOTHING, AND TELLING ME TO USE MY PHONE! And then I cannot get off the tollway to use the FREE, PROBABLY,  NOT CONGESTED ROAD!
If I sound like a grumpy old lady I am starting to feel like that....

It's a bit like  Peter Finch in Network

for more grumpy old lady rants, see tomorrows post...


"The good old days"

playing in my own backyard... part 2

 Sunday was another beautiful sunny day here so we decided to go for a drive.  Do you remember Sunday drives as a kid?  Remember when there was nothing open on Sundays and so Mum and Dad would load the kids in the car, pack a picnic and the thermos and go for a "drive"?  Well apart from the fact that now we can get coffee almost anywhere and don't need the thermos, we went for an old fashioned Sunday drive.

It was actually on the same way I went the day before to the truffle farm, but it was eons since we had gone down that way, so to me it was a no brainer to go and investigate what had changed over the years.

We drove through Kangaloon into Robertson and stopped at a local cafe for coffee. Last time I was at this cafe it was quite different to how it is now.

It has had a change of owner and now is Rockabellas roadside diner. It was a lovely warm haven on a Sunday morning with the slow combustion fire going and good coffee to be had.

It is decorated in a kind of funky retro decor and they also have vintage wares for sale, that is so up my alley! I just love this antique bar, it came from a flat in London, and it looks even better in the flesh!

vintage kitchen wares for sale

I can recommend the coffee

More funky retro decor

Then we went driving to an  area called Belmore Falls, it is part of Morton National Park.  When I lived here as a teenager it was the obligitory place we took visitors to show them the sights.  And of course in the arrogance of youth I didn't see what the fuss was all about. BUT now with more mature eyes I can see how spectacular and wonderful the countryside and scenery is. Please have a wander in my backyard.....

View from Hindmarsh's Lookout

looking down from Hindmarsh's Lookout into Kangaroo Valley

View of Upper Kangaroo Valley with cows

Kangaroo Valley

That's Kangaroo Valley township in the distance

Belmore Falls 

looking across the valley to Wildes Meadow, that place has a view to die for!

I love the sandstone escarpment

I didn't expect to see much water going over the falls as we have had no rain here for months, but there was still a waterfall.

One thing that was really noticeable to me  was that when I lived here as a teenager all the farms were working potato farms with very modest homes. My,  how times have changed! Not a modest farm house or potato farm to be seen.

All fancy-ancy designer "properties" and mostly cattle and horses, and most I suspect are weekenders for the well heeled. We locals joke that Bowral is the southernmost eastern suburb of Sydney. You can get the Eastern Suburbs Wentworth Courier newspaper at our local newsagents and another giveaway  called Latte Life which is also from the Eastern Suburbs.

I guess you can take some people out of the Eastern Suburbs but you can't take the Eastern Suburbs out of the people!

For my overseas readers, here is a quick geography lesson about Sydney.....

Playing in your own backyard...

I had a great weekend, how about you?

I spent the weekend with 2 of my lovely daughters playing in my backyard that is the NSW Southern Highlands.

Let me explain.....

When we moved here we joined the local slow food group in an effort to meet like minded people and enjoy good food and conversation. Unfortunately our local group disbanded due to no-one wanting to take over the running of the group ( I expect people are too busy or too scared!)  but the couple who were the leading lights went on to start their own business...

food path, so this weekend we spent Saturday taking on 2 of their tours.

The first one was at a local truffle farm that now has the honour of growing the largest truffle ever found in Australia  Yelverton Truffles. Which is just down the road from Glenquarry Goddess.  And I might just put it down here , that a trufferie is on the cards here to!  You just might have to wait a few year for us to be productive.

Favorite youngest  daughter  with "Jet" the wonder dog

here we are a the entrance to the Trufferie 

A side note here, my husband's Irish Ancestors family pile is called Yelverton, so isn't that a bit of serendipity?

Then we went on to Bousaada winery vineyard and mead makers, check out the beautiful building, designed for sustainability and the climate, I can highly recommend Alistair and Michele,  the hosts for a very welcoming, relaxing and informative experience.

Bousaada Winery front entrance

Our final stop was at Eling Forest winery and cafe I can recommend the winery tour and our guide was Mark,one of  4 full time wine makers they have here. It is a great tour with lots of tastings, if you get my drift.... :-)

and tomorrow I'll let you know what we did today!

so come back to play in my backyard tomorrow,,,,,,, please???

It's a small world, after all....

Yesterday was Tuesday tarts day.
Today was Wednesday wenches day.

Want to know what I am talking about?

Friendship, especially womens' friendships.

Let me explain....

Tuesday Tarts,  which I have only recently become a more regular member of  is where my wonderful mother in law, sister in law and a couple of their girlfriends meet on a Tuesday morning at a local cafe for coffee and a good old chat.

I have taken the daughters ( referred to as the tartlets,  i.e. small tarts)  some times when they are in town and one of them commented that the group had the feel of a "a Liz Byrski novel".

Liz Byrski is one of my favourite authors, she writes novels about womens' friendship, lives, loves and all that stuff in-between.  Yesterday we had a wide ranging discussion from the impact things people can say to you on your life, in one tart's case, how  something said when she was a child has had an impact on her impression of her ability to do certain things most of her adult life;  to how to die with dignity. I told you it was a a diverse topic day.

In between all these life and death discussions, the tarts were chatting up a man of a certain age and invited him to join them next week! The biggest dilemma was what would he be? he couldn't be a tart, I suggested a Torte! A bit bigger than a tart, but still sweet!  Watch this space to see if he does join them next week!

Today for Wednesday wenches I met up with a woman I used to work with,  first over 20 years ago while we were both nursing in Sydney.  It really is a small world,  I have since met another woman I worked with at the same hospital too, she is also working with me at the private hospital. Anyway the first girl is friends with my very good friend and we met through her and recognised that we knew each other from before.

So now"retired" I can find time to catch up with people and expand my social network, so we had coffee and an hour went by in a flash. We talked about family, my gap year and the slog of working full time and her post graduate studies. That is one thing I admire about nurses, we are always improving our skills and knowledge and most of these studies are done in our own time and expense, and does not lead to  $$'s  reward, unlike in other careers, just better care for our patients.

So now I'm off to the big smoke with a couple of days with the  2 of the tartlets, for a bit of girl time.

What about you, have you read any Liz Byrski book?
Have you reconnected with someone from your past?
Do you have a coffee group?

Ahead of the curve... again

Those who know me well, know that I often have great ideas and then do nothing (or very little) about them and then someone else goes on with my idea and makes a great success with it.

Well, this time I am once again ahead of the curve. After announcing my gap year plans, I came across this story about taking time off to travel and experience the world.

How's the planning going I hear you ask?

Well,

Researching flights and reading lots of reviews for the lower cost carriers,  (sorry Qantas) as less money spent in the air is more for the ground, and lets face it, air travel these days is really a bus trip not much glamour left in air travel I'm afraid to say.

Spent a lot of time checking out airbnb and a site recommended by expatica.com called Paris attitude to find an apartment for our 3 months in Paris. I have 2 shortlisted, however I'm not going to book the apartment  until I have done my open day at Le Cordon Bleu

and I'm spending lots of time watching all kinds of cooking/travel shows to get ideas of where to go in Europe. I'm especially loving Shane Delia in Turkey on SBS.


And now since it's Tuesday that would be Tart's day!

You'll have to come back to see what transpires!

working 24/7, what happened to 9 to 5?

One of the reasons for taking a gap year at this stage of life was to find some time to clear  my mind, think about where I've been and what I would like the rest of my life to look like, personally, professionally etc.

Two weeks in,  and the fog is clearing from my brain. Corporate life is rapidly becoming a dim distant memory and I find that for 8 hours of my nursing shift I can be a caring sharing individual, but can leave that person at work and come home and think about things other than work.

I got to thinking the other day how pervasive technology is, and now your work day can encompass 24 hours a day.

For instance when I had a blackberry for work, it had a function where you could turn off email on the weekend so you didn't see the emails piling up on the weekends and feel tempted to read them.

Then work gave us iPhones and iPads, and although there was a lot of good about them from a work point of view, they sort of extended your working day. for example if you were using them out of work hours ( as we were permitted to), and you saw you had email, it was very hard not to click and read the email, and hey presto there you were working in your own time!

Now I know some people will say this technology makes working life more flexible, I agree but I wonder how much of our personal time is slowly being taken up by "technology creep".

On a lighter side, here is a clip I came across a few years back, its about blackberry phones but I think it could be relevant for the "screen idols" of today!

Blackberry

Friday on my mind....

So I've come to the end of my second gap year week and what did I do?

The answer is...
nothing much!

I worked at the hospital on Monday,  but the rest of the week was totally devoted to
my birthday celebrations!

I also had some more gap year planning on my to do list,

and now that's done I can reward myself with a fabulous girlfriends lunch date today in a lovely location HERE, in the southern highlands

Part of my gap year planning involves a reconnaissance trip to Europe in September to attend an open day at Le Cordon Bleu for prospective students, to check out the rental apartments in Paris and to go and see my sister who has moved to Amsterdam. I'm also doing a side trip to London to see my niece her new baby and some more family. Favourite first daughter from NYC is flying over to visit with me in London as well, and we plan to do some Westend shows, and some day trips to Bath, Oxford and Stratford Upon Avon.

Oh, and I might have done a bit of op shopping too this week, and I cannot confirm or deny that I might have purchased yet more furniture, but I'll save that reveal  for another day.

I'm out to lunch, so enjoy your Friday!

That was the week that was.. gap year week 1

Well, I've come to the end of my first full week of my grey gap year so what did I get up to you ask?

Here's all the exciting details...



Got a job,  


 and  then sacked my self!

Yes, really! I applied for a job at a local nursing home and they asked me to do a "buddy shift" where you work with another nurse  (a sort of try before you buy kind of thing), well even though I did the shift and it was not too bad, when the day came to go  back for another, I chickened out at rang them and sacked my self,  It was a kind of  "it's not you, it's me thing"  if you get my drift.  I firmly know now that my nursing interests lie in the more acute care area. So, not a lost cause, just a good learning experience.

and that was only the second day of the gap year!

So here are some highlights of my week....

2 of  my tweets got retweeted and favourited!!     YES!!
1 by by hotels.com and the other by ABC 702 Sydney!   so nearly big time social media player!

If you want to follow me ( and let's face it, there is always room for one more twitter stalker!)  my
 twitter handle is 

@kt2576

Had dinner at one of Sydney's best restaurants, Aria on Saturday night before attending The White Album Concert at the Sydney Opera House.  Had a amazing dinner (we went for the pre-theatre menu and it's amazing value with fantastic food and service) and the show at the Opera House was as equally good;  and I don't imagine there are many Operas where the audience stands up and dances in the seats and aisles, which is what we did at the show!  And now I think I have a bit of a crush  on Tim Rogers too!

In between all this excitement, I've been cooking, drinking some lovely French wine,

and scouring op shops for pre-loved things I can resurrect, like this little bedroom slipper chair I got today for the bargain price of $15!  She's going to scrub all nice and pretty when I get some new fabric on her.

and I've been catching up on essential reading....

So all in all I can say it was a pretty good week, how about you,  did you do something exciting, interesting or like me,  sack yourself from your job this week?