#Wedding daze

We had a wedding in the family the other week.

In fact it was The Son and Heir who got hitched.

It was a wonderful way to start the year with a wonderful family celebration.

Some background,

the couple in question met in high school, but did not get together "officially" until at Schoolies, and have been together ever since, apart from a mutual break when the bride went overseas for her final semester of uni.

The engagement took place news year eve 2011 while we were in New York on holidays so for the past year our whole family has been working towards "The Wedding Day".

I got all carried away in the moment and new media etc etc , (as you do) and started the twitter hashtag #blakewedding and posted little pictures and stuff on it, my goal was to get it trending on twitter, (not sure it made it very high on the list, but I could search for it and find it, so in my mind mission accomplished)

So I am going to try and cheat with this blog post and just copy and paste all my twitter posts for the day, so hold on and see how we go......

  

Phew it took a bit of work but I did it! (insert congratulatory pause here)

the best way to read them is actullay from the end up. That is the order in which they were originally tweeted.

 

	Katie Blake @kt2576	13 Jan
	Last minute change of venue #damn rain! #blakewedding

	Katie Blake @kt2576	13 Jan
	Waiting for the bride #blakewedding

	Katie Blake @kt2576	13 Jan
	Oh no rain, hope it clears by 4. #blakewedding

	Katie Blake @kt2576	13 Jan
	Grooms mommy & daddy on way to the wedding #blakewedding

	Katie Blake @kt2576	12 Jan
	Hairdo from the back #blakewedding

	Katie Blake @kt2576	12 Jan
	Hairdresser time #blakewedding

	Katie Blake @kt2576	12 Jan
	My son the groom with his mommy! #blakewedding

	Katie Blake @kt2576	11 Jan
	Working on the button hole flowers #blakewedding

So that's another one wed off, only 2 more to go! :-)

here a a couple of other pics I didn't tweet.

The bride's Father handing her over !

Take 2, the ceremony moved mid-stream and we started again.

The Grooms Car, it just seemed the right thing to do, note the sunshine, taken the next day, and please note:
Not a hair out of place on Ken!

Paddle your own canoe

I'm on a bit of a high at present, not due to the amount of Christmas season beverages consumed here, but from a little trip we did the other day. The significant other and son and heir joined me on a kayaking safari with an overnight camp stay. Now you know that I am now a big fan of the 5 million stars rather than the more mundane 5 star hotel so this was a trip I was really looking forward to.

We have been thinking about buying our own kayaks for a little while now and thought this was a good chance to "try before we buy" to see if it suited us, and the verdict is.....

checking out the size of the hatches for our gear

I'm all for it, in fact as soon as we got back I was on the net looking for kayaks for sale and checking out other potential kayaking and camping venues, I think I can confidently say I'm hooked!

GG herself having a swim at our camp-spot

 We rented our kayaks from Kangaroo Valley Canoes who are located in,  funny enough,  Kangaroo Valley,  the service was great. You leave your car there on their property and the bus takes you to your departure point. We did the Bendeela to Tallowa Dam after advice that our first choice the Shoalhaven Gorge would be very crowded, so we took the advice and saved the Gorge for another visit.

We were not disappointed, we saw Kangaroos, Wombats, Possums and even a large goanna who was care-taking our camp site. The National Park people have even put in pit toilets so that you don't have to "rough" it too much.

son and heir showing off his fire lighting skills

getting the fire set, note our tents in the background

the view along the way, nothing except the birds and you on the kayak

"Shall I pitch the tent here?"

we went about half way and then pitched out tents and set up home for the night. We had a lovely campfire and cooked our steaks on it. Bedtime was early as we were all pretty tired.  A few nocturnal visitors woke us up during the night, but that is par for the course when you are camping in a national park.

The next day after breakfast we continued, going to a spooky area which had been flooded for the Shoalhaven Dam scheme in the 1970's and all the trees are poking up from the water, quite eerie.

We arrived at our pickup point ahead of schedule and felt very pleased with ourselves ( especially me) that we did the trip.

Next time I want to do the Shoalhaven Gorge, maybe Australia Day, what do you think?

Starting how you mean to finish

Have you made your news years resolutions? I have, usually I don't share them ( so that no one can scold me when I don't live up to them) but I have heard that you are more likely to be successful if you hold yourself accountable by telling someone, so I am handing this grave responsibility over to you, dear readers to hold me to count if I don't keep my resolutions.

insert drum roll here...

so here they are:

One for the Mind:

Blog at least once a week, I need to be more disciplined in this matter, and hopefully I will make time to blog more than once a week, but this is now going to be my absolute minimum.

One for the Physical:

I am going to enter the City to Surf in August, not as a runner that would be too much but to walk it, I think that is a very achievable goal, so hopefully some you may even be there to wave me as I cross the finish line ( hope you have plenty of time to wait! :-)  )

http://www.city2surf.com.au

One for Personal Improvement:

I will not put things down I will put them away, straight away. This one has been a recurring theme over the years, and I think I have improved quite a bit on what I used to be like, but there is always the opportunity to be better, so in the interests of tidy house and tidy mind I aim to put things away in the proper place each time.

Pack away the camping gear

Put washing away as soon as it comes off the line

My dressing table, needs a little bit of organisation!

Ok, I'll start right now, see you all later.

Washing Day

Traditionally Monday was washing day, this was the day that housewives spent boiling the copper and hand washing and wringing the laundry in those long gone days before washing machines.

Well, since today is Monday I thought I would  air some of my dirty laundry secrets with you,
are you ready?

I wash and recycle my zip lock bags!

There it is out for all to see.

I think it is a waste to use them only once. Obviously I have standards on which ones I reuse. Not any that have had meat in them, or been used for frozen food, but if it has been just for dry goods and there are no holes and the zip lock works, why not re-use I say. I was doing my pre-Christmas pantry clean up and managed to find 12 bags of various sizes that were worthy of reuse so here they are drying on the line.

and here is one of the nicely rearranged pantry, ( note the use of the labeller for the canisters, very classy me thinks!)

I did a straw poll with some girlfriends the other day at lunch and it was 50-50 on whether this was a tight arse thing to do or not, have you got an opinion?  Have you any dirty little secrets you would like to confess to me, remember confession is good for the soul.

Me, I'm off now to clean up the saucepan cupboard, I wonder what  I will find to blog about from that adventure!



50 is not 50 anymore!

Warning, this post is about people over 50, it may cause some readers offence!




I don't know about you but I am getting a bit peeved by all these ads lately for the "over 50's" for example

# have you got your funeral plan insurance sorted?

# now you're over 50 and no longer working full time you qualify for Australian Pensioners Insurance!

# radio discussions on "old" ( i.e over 50 years ) workers



What the %$#@ is this all about??

Don't they know that 50 is now the new 35, give or take a couple of years :-)

I wish I could retire or not work full time but with the size of my mortgage I'll probably be in the workforce until my 80's ( what a prospect!)

I don't plan to drop off the perch anytime soon ( see above, re: mortgage) and if I do, I don't think my family will be left destitute for my environmentally friendly burial.

Why are companies so keen to make us feel "old"?

Isn't it bizarre that when you are young you want to be seen and look older, then when you are older, you want to be young ( or some of us just want to be who we are, not seniors at the age of 50!)

It is well known that we are healthier than even before, more of us are still working and engaged in society, so why are some companies using age as their marketing strategy?  Is it the fear factor of growing old, I am not sure but it sure doesn't work for me, and a lot of people I know.

Remember the old phrase  " an oldie but  a goodie" is not a reference to people!


Less ageism please.

Cows are mothers too....

I have a beef,

no, not a piece of meat, but a BEEF, in case you are not aware, it has more than one meaning,
thanks to Wikipedia for this :

Noun:

The flesh of a cow, bull, or ox, used as food.

Verb:

Complain.

Synonyms:

complain - grumble - repine - grouse - moan

and that is what I am about to do, but for  a good reason.

One of the joys of living in the country is the sound of the night. Not traffic, but animal noises, here we have frogs mostly due to the spring just across the road, but a couple of times a year we get the cows mooing, or as I like to say having a beef (verb).

I didn't know until I moved here that when the calves are taken from their mummies the poor mummy cows moo and moo looking for their baby!  It breaks my heart!

They are mothers too, and they are missing their offspring!  Last night it went on and on and on and on ( get my drift?) and I am there lying awake and feeling their pain!

Imagine if your baby was just taken away from you with no explanation  ( oh sorry it was done, talking about forced adoptions ) but in this case you can probably guess where the calf went. To the next paddock I hope for a long and happy life!

 But I jest,  the issue for me is living so close to where your food comes from. I find it hard to associate the lovely cow and calves in the paddocks all around me with the piece of disassembled protein wrapped in plastic in my supermarket. Dare I say I almost become a vegetarian at these times of the year as I feel the mothers pain?

Anyway for you city dwellers I just wanted to share with you one of the (few) tribulations of living in the country and a couple of pictures of my favourite cows, Belted Galloways. Gotta love their Chanel Style, a little black dress with a bit of a white belt to accentuate  their waist!

Enjoy!

A chip off the old block!

Mum, its cold outside!

See, cows love their children too!

hard day at the office??

Smokin...!

Last Saturday we had our local farmers markets in Bowral.  Now I confess I am not a regular attender (never out of bed and ready in time!) but this weekend I wanted to go and have a look see what was on offer.

We became Weber BBQ owners about a month ago and been keenly testing it out, with our rotisserie, the pizza stone and this Saturday it was time for us to smoke!  (But we did not inhale, :-)  )

I went a bit crazy on the meat side, and bought a standing rib roast, a wonderful piece of free range pork, a free range chook and the piece de resistance was a Thirlmere Duck breast. For those of you who do not know about these, check it out  Thirlmere Duck  is featured in some of the best restaurants in Australia, indeed I remember a wonderful dinner with had a few years ago with my sister  in law and brother in law at Grossi Florenti in Melbourne  see here  where I if I recall correctly everyone had Thirlemere Duck except me!  And the man selling it at the farmers market told me that if I was flying Qantas First Class I would have Thirlmere Duck on the menu ( a bargain at $16,000 a ticket!) I settled on the $17 double breast alternative.

 Anyway I digress. I though it would be good to try smoking the duck breast and doing the chicken as well on the rotisserie.

So here's what I did to make Kate's Smoked Thirlmere Duck Breast with truffled honey and orange.

I patted the duck breast dry with some kitchen paper towel, and then put some truffle salt on the skin side.

Thirlmere Duck Breast

One of my goodies from the Truffle hunt, I just sprinkled it over the duck breast

Duck Breast with truffle salt on the skin side

Another one of the goodies I bought home! It is also wonderful served over goats cheese.

mixed the truffle honey, about 2 teaspoons  with the juice of 1/2 an orange

I marinated the duck breast for about 1 hour, but you could do it overnight if you had time,  Then placed it on the Weber with the hickory wood smoking and this is my final result, a lovely smokey flavour, with sweetness from the honey truffle and  still pink on the inside. Overall cooking time in the Weber was about 90min, but I was watching it like a mother hen ( forgive the pun!)

The final result!

The chook was great as well, but I didn't do anything special with that, but it makes a great cold meat for salad or as I did today a toasted sandwich.

I felt quite proud of myself, as I have never been a "duck" person, but really feel that going out of my comfort level ( food wise that is!) was worth the effort, and I am planning to offer this dish to my friends in the future.

Have you ever challenged yourself in the food arena, either by trying something new or cooking something out of your comfort zone?