Author: Renae

Living life as a wife, a stay at home mama of 3 kids under 5, a marriage celebrant, a craft and sewing amateur, a cooked breakfast lover, coffee enthusiast, extroverted socialite, and most recently, someone who is trying to keep a tidy house. It's tough I tell you!

How did this song get in my head?

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Here I am, sitting at my desk, minding my own business, looking at real estate in Wang, and all of a sudden I realise I have “Diamonds on the soles of her shoes” but Paul Simon in my head, and I could NOT figure out why that was??

And then it hit me.

One of the houses I was looking at was on Kanana st, which sounds like “ta na na, ta na na na, she got diamonds on the soles of her shoes (a-wa, a-wa)”

BINGO!

It’s like when I was living in Edinburgh, and every time I’d get home from doing the shopping I’d have the song “Edelweiss“, from The Sound of Music in my head and it took me weeks to realise it was because of the bread I bought. You see, the bread was “whole and white”, which leads me directly to: “clean and bright, you look happy to meeeeeeeet meeeee!”

Gosh my brain provides me with hours of entertainment! And now I have edelweiss in my head… 🙂

(And yes, I’m putting it under the “mondegreen” tag just cos I can.

Travelling Tas

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A couple of weekends ago, Hubs and I ventured over the Bass Strait to Hobart and beyond. We arrived around 9pm on the Thursday night and were picked up by the shuttle and taken straight to our B&B. Unfortunately, the room we had was right on Macquarie st – the main one-way street into the city, so from about 2am onwards, the trucks rolling in ensured that I had a poor night sleep, and in turn, so did Hubs. Oh well. We got up (grumbling) around 8:30, had some brekky, and went to pick up our hire car. We were given a map of the Huonville area, and we made our way out to the Tahune Airwalk – a must see when you visit Hobart!

The trip there was half the fun! The roads were lovely and the scenery just gorgeous. We drove along the Huon River which was certainly a sight to behold. It actually reminded me of the Hawkesbury River, but on a much smaller scale. We stopped in at Huonville for some snacks and supplies, and also in Crabtree to check out the local shops – both delightful little towns!

We arrived at the airwalk and paid for entry. The place is run by Forestry Tasmania, and is set in the Tahune Forest Reserve. Although a bit pricey, ($46 for both of us), it was a lovely way to spend a few hours and take some happy snaps! (We did the Airwalk and the Swinging Bridges Circuit.)

 Hubs on the Airwalk
Wifey throwing a coin onto the stump…
…and missing… 3 times!!!
Wifey braving the counterlever. Man than thing moves a LOT!
(my thoughts at the time: “Hurry up and take the picture before all those people come and join me!!!!!!!!!!”)
The obligatory Hubs and Wifey shot
One of the suspension bridges. Not very scary – very cool indeed!
Hubs, as usual, took some beautiful photos and is experimenting more and more with his camera, lenses, lighting and panoramas. There are too many to feature here, but I will certainly be putting more up later on. We left the airwalk around 2pm (after an iced chocolate and sausage rolls!) and headed up the very steep road to Mt Wellington. We could feel the air getting colder, but nothing, and I mean nothing could have prepared me for the icy cold wind we encountered at the top. Oh. My. Gosh. I was NOT HAPPY!
Shocking photo, but I had to show you the pain I was in!!!! What this photo doesn’t show was how much Hubs was laughing at me!! It felt like about 5 degrees! I told asked Hubs to go and take some photos while I took shelter so we could get the hell out of there! A photo of Hobart and the Derwent River.
We drove through some fog/cloud on the way down and headed back to our B&B. After dropping the car off, we walked down to Constitution Dock for some fish ‘n chips – it was Friday after all! We picked a pontoon (after too-ing and fro-ing about 5 times!), ordered our dinner, and sat on one of the piers to eat. A great end to a great first day in Tassie!

Sticky money

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I just came across a couple of students from another college, supergluing a $1 coin on to the footpath outside of their college. I remember doing that in high school, just outside the tuckshop near where we sat.

Some gags never grow old!

Farewell old friend

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*sigh*

Last night Hubs and I watched the final episode EVER of Boston Legal. And it was a goodie. We actually did quite well to make it last so long for us, considering at one stage, we would watch 3 or 4 episodes straight on a Saturday night. (Oh yeah. We party HARD!) Overall we were very satisfied with this TV series. It seemed that whenever we didn’t like a character, they just seemed to disappear! I was okay with that. But then some characters we did like, would also disappear, without explanation. That was a little annoying. There were a few loose ends that were never quite tied up, but on the whole, a very enjoyable viewing experience.

So, what next? We may give Dollhouse a go, since we have season 1 already, and we’re also keen for The Wire. Decisions decisions.

In the mean time, I think Hubs is keen for a bit more Blackadder action, so we’ll see how we go.

And yes, I know I still haven’t blogged about our Tassie trip yet, but I haven’t downloaded the photos yet! They’ll be here soon, I promise!!

The value of money

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Why is it that I’ll happily spend $7 on a pint of beer that gives me less than an hour’s pleasure (and then a bloated feeling), yet I get cranky that my favourite BONDS undies have gone up from $5 per pair to $7 per pair in the last 2 years? Surely a $7 pair of undies is going to give me more pleasure (and use) than a pint of Carlton Draft??

This battle in my head happens quite frequently, especially when it comes to food/drinks vs anything else. Do I spend $7 on a Hungry Jacks meal or $7 on a second-hand top I’ll get a few years wear out of? What about a night out on the town? Back in my young, foolish, carefree, well-paying-job days, I wouldn’t be too concerned about spending $100 on a night out including dinner and drinks. Although, back in those days, I also wouldn’t think twice about spending $100 on a new pair of shoes.

I suppose my view and value of money has changed in the last couple of years. Hubs and I have been living off only my wage (with monthly bonuses from Hubs’ tutoring), putting all of our money aside for overseas holidays, and now a house, so I’m much more aware of where all of our money goes. And this isn’t a bad thing – it’s good to know that we can budget and prioritise. But we do miss being able to go out to dinner with friends and at the end, saying “this one’s on us.” Or going to a restaurant and picking a favourite meal instead of the most economical, or going to Woollies and not having to buy home-brand cheese. Gosh my life is hard 🙂

Valkyrie

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Hubs and I had a date night last Wednesday evening and after watching an episode of The Black Adder while we ate, we settled on watching Valkyrie. I wasn’t overly keen as I didn’t really know much about it and it sounded like a movie I’d have to think about while watching it. But it turned out to be a great film.

I actually kept forgetting that I was watching Tom Cruise, (who I’m not entirely hating right now) Eddie Izzard, (I knew I knew him but didn’t recognise him without the outrageous clothes and make up!) the old drunk musician, Billy Mack, (“Don’t buy drugs kids. Become a rockstar and you get them for freeeee”) aka Bill Nighy from Love Actually, and the old, straight guy from The Full Monty. I think this suggests some kind of success and achievement in a movie – for the story to be so engaging, that you forget you’re watching one of the most highly-paid actors in Hollywood.

I got so caught up in the story and became immersed in the characters’ lives. Although I knew how it was going to end (well, how it wasn’t going to end) it kept me in suspense the whole time. And I do love a movie based on (however loosely) a true story. I was also concerned that it would focus on the grotesque nature of war, but it didn’t have to – the story was good enough on it’s own, that it didn’t need that shock value.

I’d give it 4 stars out of 5 and highly recommend it.

Winery tour – Day 2

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After a very restful night, a sleep in, bacon and eggs for brekky, and a read of the newspaper about the storm that had hit Melbourne the day before, we set off for Day 2. (I had actually received a couple of texts from friends late in the afternoon asking “are you okay??” and I was like “we’re just on a wine tour dude. We’re fine!” It wasn’t til we got to Sorrento that we heard about the storm and all the damage it did!!) Our first point of call was The Cups Estate, and what an absolute gem that was! We left the camera in the car so I don’t have any photos, but their fortified pinot was incredible. We HAD to buy a bottle (or 2!)

Next we headed towards Arthurs Seat, stopping at The Morning Sun Vinyard. This place was a bit ho-hum. The service wasn’t great and the most popular wines (the had a Pinot and Guwerzt) weren’t on tasting. So we left with a photo instead!

And then it was off to Vidoni Estate which had some rather nice wines. I think we picked a couple up there as well. Nathan was still looking for a good pinot, and it turns out the first one we’d tried at Hickinbotham had been the best by far! So we decided we had to swing by on the way home. But that was later on…

We then started to get a bit hungry so we were on the look out for some foooood. We stopped in at Myrtaceae (again, cos it was there) and they had some special wine tasting glasses:

They only put in wine to fill the neck of the glass, and tell you to give it a smell, and you can’t smell much at all. Then, you roll the glass…..

… give it another whiff, and the smells explode in your nostrils! Clearly, the same outcome can be achieved by just swishing the wine around the glass yourself, but the novelty was fun. And the wines were quite lovely! Still hungry though…

We checked our map and found a place that was recommended by another friend of ours, who used to be a winemaker in the Yarra Valley, so we made our way there. It was REALLY packed and when we asked for a seat in the restaurant, I had a look at the prices of the meals and just couldn’t do it. Meals were between $30-$40 each and wines were about $12 a glass. Nate had a look and said the only thing he’d be keen on was the duck, and the waitress had told us they’d run out of duck. I’m sure the food would have been amazing, but we just could NOT justify that sort of spending, so we made some excuse and excused ourselves, and just tried the wines instead. Which were lovely! (I can’t quite recall, but I think it was Dromana Estate.)

We were getting REALLY hungry at this stage, so we decided to pop in to a bakery and grabbed some pies. There was a duck pie on the menu so Nate settled on that, I grabbed a beef and burgundy and Hubs ordered a steak pie. Mine was really quite delicious and Hubs was raving about his. Nathan was a little disappointed though. As we were almost all finished, I had a bite of Hubs’ and told him that he got Nate’s pie as there was no WAY that was steak. Hee hee. Poor Nate didn’t get his duck after all.

We went to a couple more after this and ended at Darling Park Winery which was really sweet. It was getting late and we had to get back to Hickinbotham for the pinot so we started off home. We arrived around 6:30pm and realised how bad the previous night’s storm actually was. There was debris EVERYwhere. I’m kinda glad we weren’t around, but also a little disappointed we missed the action! Thankfull though, our roof didn’t leak, which it often does.

We headed out to watch Hurt Locker (it was the night of the Academy Awards and we had no idea of it’s success. We thought it was totally awesome) and then headed to Papa Gino’s (of course) for dinner and the Hickinbotham Pinot.

The verdict? One of the BEST wines I’ve ever had in my life. Seriously amazing. It actually didn’t taste much like a Pinot to me, but the flavours and smells hit me in the face like a Samboy Chip. I just couldn’t get enough (although I only had 1 glass) and really wish we’d bought a bottle! Oh well.

It capped off a great weekend of wine-tasting and shennanigans! Next stop? Wangaratta Wine and Jazz festival! Wanna come?

Tassie time!

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Hubs and I are flying to Tassie tonight (woo hoo!) til Tuesday morning and I’m SO excited. I told Hubs that we cannot live in Melbourne for 2 years and not visit Tasmania! We’re not, however, so excited by the weather down there. This week in Melbourne has been atypically amazing! Like today, for instance, we had an overnight low of 18 and it’s currently 28 degrees. Oh yes. A-mazing! On Sunday up here, there will be a cool change to 13-19 for the day. But in Tassie? 9-16 degrees. Yes. 16 degrees MAX!! Ha ha. Oh well. To be expected I suppose!

Regardless, we’re very excited to be going. I picked up some $49 flights (each, each way) and booked us in to a quaint little B&B in Hobart for 2 nights, then we head up the coast to Swansea to stay with family, then back for 1 more night at the B&B and home in time to be a little late to work on Tuesday. 🙂

If you have any suggestions of things we must see, leave me a comment and we’ll try and fit it in! 2 hours of work to go!

Another winery tour

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Our friend Nate came down a few weeks ago (okay, over a month ago!) and we hired a car and set off for the Mornington Peninsula wineries! We had arranged to stay with Hubs’ Dad down at Sorrento Saturday night, and we’d been recommended quite a few wineries to visit! The first one we came across was Hickinbotham of Dromana. Silly name, good wine. I was designate driver (as usual!) so I didn’t really try the wines here.

Nate really liked the Pinot Noir, but he knew he was in Pinot territory, so he didn’t want to buy the first one he tried, so we moved on, empty handed. We then popped in to Dromana Valley Wines cos, you know, it was there, and we were there, but the wines weren’t so great, BUT we bought an $8 bottle of Pinot. We’ll see how that goes (haven’t tried it yet!)

The next winery was recommended to us – Ten Minutes by Tractor. We should have known what sort of place this would be (fancy-pants) going by the person who recommended it to us (fancy-pants). We had to pay for tastings ($5 per person, taken off the total if you make a purchase) which I’m not a huge fan of, but having said that, they really did provide a great service – were very informative and helpful. Again, I just had a little sip of Hubs’ tastings. These wines were gooooood.

Look how professional they are with their tastings!
We didn’t buy anything from here, but I think Nate may have. The wines were very nice but also quite pricey, so we just enjoyed the tasting. 
Now I THINK the next place we stumbled upon was Mantons Creek Vineyard, and it was definitely one of our favourites! The place itself was absolutely gorgeous!
The service was personal and helpful and the wine? Oh my gosh. The Tempranillo was incredible. We were enjoying the tasting so much, and the gentleman who was serving us just mentioned off-hand that their duck, pear and rocket pizza goes very well with that wine. We were hungry, we loved the place so we thought “why not?” And he was right. Oh so very right.
I LOVE when they match the food with the wine and this partnership was a success. We sat ourselves down on the veranda and watched a storm roll in. So I mentioned the Tempranillo. Now let me tell you about the Gewurztraminer. I can’t recall if I’d ever had that wine before, but Nate was super excited when he saw it on the tasting list. He’s been looking for a good Gewurzt for a long time. And he found it here. It is such a beautiful, smooth white wine – I was in love. We bought a couple of those and Nathan got himself a half-case and will no doubt be ordering more! We were sad to leave this winery, but ecstatic that we’d accidentally found it in the first place!
From here, it went downhill for a little bit. We headed to Red Hill Estate and they weren’t tasting they’re own wines that day – they had a “hurry hurry hurry all stock must go prices SLASHED for this weekend only!!” day. It had started raining by this stage, and as we were given our own little plastic shot glasses to help ourselves, and a list of 50 different wines, we knew we were in dodgy territory.
The faces the boys were pulling were hilarious! They certainly didn’t hold back! There were people everywhere, and we felt like we were in a cattle shed – noisy, a bit smelly, and chaotic! We didn’t stay long. It was now pouring with rain and our next stop was the Red Hill Brewery which my brother had told us to check out. Unfortunately by this stage, every man and his dog had tried to find somewhere to take cover, so we couldn’t even do a tasting. We could, however, buy a pot, so Hubs chose a stout which was really tasty!
And Nate got all fancy with the camera!

After this, we came across Montalto Vineyard and that was actually quite nice. They had basil-infused olive oil which was SO delicious (and which I’m SO going to try and make!) and the wines were lovely too.
The last winery for the day was Tucks, and we certainly ended with a goodie! I think I bought a Shiraz Rose from here that I’m looking forward to cracking open for a special occasion. Here we are at Tucks:
We met some people here who were, you guessed it, down from Brisbane for the weekend! Crazy right? AND they lived in the AUCHENFLOWER/TOOWONG area! Of course we played “who do you know” and came up with some common acquaintances. Small small world.
After this, we headed down to Sorrento for a night of roast lamb, excellent wine, great company, and a good night sleep. Ready for the next day’s adventures! To be continued….