Mini breaks

We have had a very busy couple of weekends lately, in fact I have not been at home for a whole weekend for the whole month of July. I feel a bit like that song...I've been everywhere man

Been to Adelaide for a food and wine weekend , Gold Coast for my companies sale conference, Victoria to attend a truffle farming workshop  and  to round it off Noumea for a birthday mini break.

Now I need a holiday to get over my mini breaks!

In fact mini breaks are our speciality, we have been doing them since our children were young. My mother gave me some very good advice when I got married to make sure that we made time for ourselves away from the kids and I am pleased to say this is one piece of advice from my mother that I have taken!

Here is the great  air bnb place we stayed at when we went to Victoria, it is in Olinda in the Dandenongs about 50km outside Melbourne. I love air bnb, Every place we have stayed in has been great and it's nice to have a bit more space and a kitchen etc when your travelling.


I managed to tick something off my bucket list while in Adelaide....We went to Penfold"s Magill Estate (home of the famous Grange Hermitage) and had lunch at the cellar door cafe. So when at Penfolds what must you do? Have a glass of Grange. But Oh la la, its $1 a millilitre (probably worth more than gold). But we did it the cheap arse way ( well relatively if you think $150 for a glass of wine is being a cheap arse) but we shared it! So we can say we have tried Grange. Frankly I don't see what all the hype is about, it is a good drop sure, but to my not sophisticated palate it was no better than say a good $30-40 bottle of red.

At $1 a ml, best to share!

It's so valuable its under lock and key!

Here's a little gem from our road trip to Victoria, if you have seen the movie "The Castle" you'll get the reference.... I was surprised to find out it really exists!

So that's it for today.. off to Gibraltar Hotel Bowral for Geoff Harvey's 80th Birthday party!

ciao!

Due to unprecedented demand....

I'm back!

After a self imposed exile, due to the fact that I thought blogs ( mine and others ) were getting too self indulgent, I had many of my deeply disturbed readers DEMAND that I get back on the keys and talk turkey, or rather food, travel, fashion and anything else that takes my fancy.

So Here I am!

So I know that you are all asking what has the Glenquarry Goddess been up to?

Well, too much to put it in one post, Im just going to use bullet points and there will be blog posts on each bullet point, I promise no powerpoint!

- Been to Europe, yes again!

- started a new job

- decorated my house ( after a major renovation)

- been on holidays!

- had a lot of mini breaks!

- got chooks!

- bought lots of lovely kitchen gadgets

- been to Europe ( I know it's getting boring)

- found out I am going to be a glam-ma!

- started my cooking school

- avoiding Kardashian anything!

so its all systems go here at GG central, so please stayed tuned and tell all friends to read ( I need all the readers I can get!)

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!!