Painting the town red....

Today was a rest day, a day to read, nap and have a bit of a pamper with a manicure and pedicure.

After a leisurely breakfast, a long linger over the papers and a pre-afternoon nap, I ventured downstairs into the village and sat down for a 2 hour pamper session of deluxe mani/pedi at a nail spa just down the street from our digs.

I can't remember the last time I had a pedicure but I am sure going to make sure I have them more frequently when I get home, it was so wonderful to have my feet massaged, and a leg massage. I opted for some colour on the toes and a classic french polish on the fingers.

tomorrow is the big party night, so keep watching this space for the latest updates from #dirtythirty

Shop till one of us drops!

OMG, I am exhausted, we just got home from here, Woodbury Common Premium Outlet Mall, and boy did we shop until we dropped here back at our apartment. 

We left on the 10am bus from the Port Authority Terminal and 60 minutes later were transported to shopping nirvana!

Didn't make it to Prada today, maybe next time.

I have taken some photos to share with you some of my bargains, so here they are....

6 pairs of shoes, because you can never have enough shoes, or can you?

Yes, I now have a Coach bag!

A sparkly cami for that special occasion

couldn't resist this long sleeve T, can you guess why?

Or this, it does have an Eiffel Tower on it, after all!

My new summer LBD,  I like the leather detail across the top.

I also bought some other things, like underwear, (which I am not going to share with you!), some other tops and a lovely wrap dress from Banana Republic.

We got the bus back to the city, and then subway back to our apartment and we are now both sitting here with a drink, me a G&T and the junior goddess a French rose.  We are off to daughter no.1's for pizza night a little later.

So, I'm signing off for today, tomorrow we are having a ladies lunch at ABC kitchen with daughter no. 3's best friend and her mom who is in town as well, so see you later!

Another bite of the Big Apple

Well,  here I am in NYC!


after our celebratory champagne and OJ in the Qantas club ( the OJ was a concession to the early morning!)

we boarded our flight and arrived pretty much on schedule yesterday evening, and it was a great reunion, and YES she was surprised! After our limo ride back to town, we checked into our apartment in the east village. It is really convenient as it is only 1 street away from my daughter's place.

The neighbourhood is very vibrant and there are places to eat everywhere, and all types of cuisine. We spent our first night having dinner with my daughter and her husband at their local Mexican place where we downed some jugs of sangria and some great tasting Mexican food.

Today we have explored Soho and bits of East Village. I think we walked over 7 km's today and we found my all time favourite food store Dean and De Luca on the corner of Broadway and Prince St. I had to introduce the junior Goddess to it, so we ventured in and came out with...
our dinner!

Yes, she bought the bag as well!

 We also found a cute little place in SoHo where we had lunch. They had a lovely courtyard and as it was a perfect day with not a cloud in the sky we decided to sit in the sun and get our body clocks on NYC time. 

I can recommend Pera, the food  and service was really excellent and they have a roof top bar open Thursday to Sunday. 

Tonight we are eating in with our goodies picked up from Dean and De Luca, so I'm off now to enjoy them.

thanks for reading.

Secret Agent Business

By the time you read this.........







I will be here.....

now hear the story of this adventure.....

so, I'll see you on the other side of the world, stay tuned!

Chalk and Cheese

Last week I had the opportunity to spend 5 days in Singapore for work. It has been over 10 years since I was last there,  (apart from  stopovers at the airport en route to Europe) so I was interested to see how the city had changed in that time.

Boy,  was I impressed. Last time I was there (again for work) I was not that impressed with Singapore, it just seemed a crowded, hot city.  Although first impressions are usually sound, I must say on second look Singapore had a lot to recommend it ( for me at least).

My big love is architecture and Singapore does not disappoint. Unfortunately I did not get much time to take photos,  but on the way to the office each day on the bus I  got to see lots of interesting and forward thinking designs so I have put a couple up here for your consideration.

Now,  fast forward to the following weekend and we took our new kayaks out for a paddle. We are lucky that Kangaroo Valley is only 20 mins from here and we have access to a national park, Morton National Park via Tallowa Dam and into the wonderful Shoalhaven Gorge.

This time I had my camera and managed to get some pics, but what really struck me was the difference between where I had just been, Singapore  (only 36 hours before) and now.  I was in an area which looked almost untouched by humans.

My Kayak heading towards the Gorge 

Entering the Gorge

wonderful sandstone surrounds you on both sides

looking further into the gorge

Significant Other in his blue kayak

My selfie!

Our  speed, not bad!

 We paddled an hour up the gorge and then an hour or so back, just a short kayak as I was still a bit tired from the flight home.  We are planning to do a proper trip up the gorge where you can camp overnight as soon as the weather is consistently warm enough,  so stay tuned!

So,  I think that both the city and country can offer something for all our senses, which is your favourite?

Book 'em Danno!

Warning, this post contains a rant from a middle aged woman!

As you know we were on a road trip last week. Usually the Signigicant Other does most of the driving in the covertible, however for safety and comfort we try and divyy the driving up on long trips. This is the story of how I got my first speeding ticket for 9 years!

I did the drive from Albury after we stopped for a coffee and a snack. It was a wonderful day for driving, 19 degrees, warm and sunny and the road was not too busy.  (Are you getting the drift here?..)

Anyway I was rationalising with myself that the highway patrol were probably concentrated more around the Canberra exit to catch the skiiers coming home from the weekend, so I took a little liberty with my speed. I am pretty careful and usually know the sort of places they like to hide and can adjust my speed accordingly, however, on Sunday all my rationalising came to nought, when I got "pulled over".

I did not get upset or cranky,  because I did the crime so I would have to pay the fine.  But Ouch!

that's $248 big ones, and I am not sure how many points, lucky I have a full complement!

Anyway I was thinking about it while I continued to drive (at the limit this time) and the poor Significant Other was party to my ear bashing about the stupidity of some of our speed limits.

So here is my rant....

On divided motorways, highways and freeways with at least 2 lanes the maximum limit is 110km/h. On a single lane secondary road outside the metropolitan area with no divided road the maximum limit is 100km/h and I think in parts of WA it could be 110km/h as well ( based on a road trip we did to Albany in 2001).

Anyway, I got to thinking as I am wont to do and thought how do they decide what the speed limits should be. I seem to recall as a child that the speed limit in open roads may have been 60mph ( 105km) and we are talking here in the 60's and early 70's, no seat belts, no ABS, no airbags, no power steering etc etc... fast forward to today and our cars are much better built and equipped, indeed one of my very dear friends when buying her last new car said it had so many  airbags they would probably the thing that killed her!

So I want to know why our speed limits have not been adjusted to reflect the better cars and (sometimes) better roads we now have.

I find it amusing ( and annoying) that I was in Hungary a number of years ago and my friend wanted me to drive for a while, so there I was in an unfamiliar car ( nice Mercedes, thanks for asking..) driving on the unfamiliar (wrong) side of the road, in an area that I did not know and I felt quite comfortable driving at 170km/h, indeed everyone seems to drive a lot better in Europe to my mind, they come up, overtake and move over again as quick as they can ( Unlike most of the fast land hogs here!)

Even in USA I can drive faster than I can here, I did a quick check on the font of all knowledge, Wikpedia and this is what they had to say..

"The highest speed limits are generally 75 mph (121 km/h) in western states and 70 mph (113 km/h) in eastern states."

So your honour, I rest my case. 


An amusing aside to my rant, the place I got booked was

Hume HIghway, Bookham!  Poetic Justice.

What about you, do you think our speed limits need to be reviewed?

Road Trip

Last week the Significant Other and I took a "mini break" and hit the road to Ballarat. It was somewhere that we had both wanted to see for a while due to its history and buildings and after watching The Doctor Blake mysteries on the ABC earlier this year we decided to do it for our mid year break.

I love mini breaks, only a couple of days away from home but it can really revive you and I find that it just gives me a bit of a mental health break to get on with the rest of the year. Last year we did our road trip to Bendigo and saw the Grace Kelly Style Icon exhibition so this years road trip had a couple of things in common with last year. 

I planned our trip around getting to see the Hollywood Costumes in Melbourne, and having spent a lot of time in Melbourne before we felt we could get by on a day trip, so we planned to stay in Ballarat and then catch the train into Town on the day we had tickets for the exhibition.

It's great to get out and see regional Australia and see how life fares outside of the capital cities. One little town we love to stop at for morning tea is Gunning, so if you are in the vicinity I can highly recommend the Merino Cafe which also has the best caramel slice I have ever tasted!  

Meeting the locals

Selection of tasty cakes at the Merino Cafe

A couple of hours later and it was lunch time, so off the highway and into Albury we went and found this lovely art deco hotel and had an old fashioned counter lunch.

Art Deco Hotel

We arrived in Ballarat that evening, it was dark but even then we could see the magnificence of the buildings and the wide streets.

Over the next few days I can say that Ballarat did not disappoint us. We did the heritage walking tours, visited the art gallery  (which was the first regional art gallery in Australia), we drove out of town and visited little villages had wonderful meals and wine (that goes without saying!) and did the tourist thing at Sovereign Hill. They have this amazing evening show that tells the story of the Eureka Stockade and it is done with lights, pyrotechnics and was truly awe inspiring. I highly recommend that one!

One thing that I did like was the Avenue of Honour, it is 22kms long and it planted with trees all the way along which represent EVERY man from Ballarat who went to WW1.  When you just see tree after tree and know that represents a person it puts it all into a sombre perspective.

So that's holidays over and back to work for me!