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!

The food – part one

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For me, travelling is all about the food and the people. And the toilets, but we won’t get into that (punny!). Back to the food. We arrived in South Africa on a Monday and on the Tuesday we set out to the local berry farm. 

You pay 30 rand (about $5) to go in to the berry farm, and you get to eat as many berries as you want!

 
You don’t need to tell us twice! I’m eating bramble berries, while below, Hubs is about to scoff down some blueberries – his favourite! 
  
After eating as many berries as you want can, you can take some home with you and you pay by the kilo. Here’s our stash:

Hubs: “Here Wifey, I found you the biggest, juiciest berry and picked it for you.”
Wifey: “Aw Hubs! You’re so lovely and kind and generous! It looks delicious!” (unlike Wifey’s facial expression!)

Wifey: “Thanks Hubs. I love youuuuuuu.”

 
Wifey: “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew! Sourest berry EVER!!!! HUBS!!!! Stop taking photos of me eating the sour berry that you picked for me! You set me up!!!!”

“I don’t know WHAT you’re talking about. Tee hee hee hee.”
Luckily, he’d also picked a super ripe, super sweet berry to make it all better. Oh, and some ice cream as well.

I have SO much more food to tell you about. Not to mention the people!
I’m baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

A weekend walk

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Hubs and I have decided to do some long walks over the weekends (by long I mean anything between 5 and 10km BTW) and last Saturday we had a great day exploring the Melbourne Botanic Gardens. The weather was sensational, and after walking into town from home, we wandered around for a few hours, enjoying the sunshine (we both got sun burnt) and each other’s company.

Matching Crumplers! (I’ve been wanting this photo taken for AGES!)

Turkish Delight! Yum!

We checked out the local flora and fauna…
And played around a bit too!
We also checked out the Shrine of Remembrance.
 

We then headed to our favourite place in Chinatown, Shanghai Dumplings, and stuffed ourselves silly for $20!

Mmmmm… dumplingicious! 
(I know I look a bit spaced out, but I was sunburnt and tired from all our walking!)
And washed them down with a couple of Tsingtaos!
We then headed off to Pellegrini’s (a “Melbourne Institution”) for a coffee
And we finished off a big day out by seeing Sherlock Holmes at the movies, which, by the way was a great movie! It’s lots of fun with a bit of mystery and mayhem. Really really enjoyed it.
All in all and amazing day with Hubs, exploring this great city we live in, and enjoying it while we can!

Dragging the chain

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I know I know I know! I haven’t blogged about much interesting lately, but we are having technical difficulties at home, uploading (downloading? crossloading???) our photos from the last 2 months (all 3500 of them! Don’t worry, I’ll be selective) so because I haven’t been able to use them, I’ve been a bit lazy. I can’t believe we’ve only been back in Melbourne for 8 days. It’s like we never left. Last week went by very slowly, but we just had a really great weekend. The weather was really great so we simply had to get out amongst it.

Hubs starts back at uni in 1 week, and is busy with his PhD at the moment, so we really have gotten straight back into it. But we have enough time to watch an episode (or 2 or 3) of Boston Legal each night. Even though the second season isn’t nearly as good as the first, I haven’t given up on it yet, and it seems to be improving as the episodes go on.

Anyway, that’s enough drivel. I PROMISE to resume my usual witty interesting posts in the next few days…

Ring ring

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Last night I used a public phone to call Hubs from the shops and it was SO exciting. I’d left my mobile at home and I was doing some shopping and I didn’t really NEED to call him but there was a public phone just sitting there, looking all lonely, so I thought I’d have some fun.

Best 50c I spent all day!

Catching up

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We just got back to Melbourne from Brisbane last night, which brings an end to our blissful 6 week holiday! And the nice thing is, I really wasn’t dreading going back to work. It’s good to be back into the swing of things, especially after the delay in getting home yesterday…

Our flight was due to leave at 1:20pm and with the hour time difference, we were due back at Avalon airport at 4:45pm Melbourne time. At 1:05pm, we were informed that the plane had been struck by lightning on the flight down from Mackay that morning, so they were just doing safety checks. As annoying as the delay was, I was okay with the safety checks being carried out. We didn’t get away til after 3pm and were informed once we left that the temp in Melbs was 37 degrees!!!!!!! Two and a half hours later (and after I had finished reading one of the crappiest books I’ve ever read), we started our descent into Melbourne and were told that the temp had dropped to 20 degrees! Aaaaaah Melbourne. How I love your temperamental ways.

So we landed without fuss, jumped on the shuttle, then a cab, and we were home around 7:30pm, just in time to watch the Australian Open Men’s Final last night.

The perfect end to an amazing holiday. I’ll fill you in on the details in the days and weeks to come! Oh, and I just opened up my Google Reader after not checking it for 6 weeks and I have 337 new items to read! It’s going to take a while…

It’s good to be back!

The heat is on

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No, I’m not referring to Glenn Frey’s awesome hit from the 80s, I’m referring to summer in Brisbane. You see, living in Melbourne, I forget what summer is like up here. When in Melbourne, I am in regular contact with a good friend of mine and she often tells me “it’s hot” and I think “it can’t be THAT bad”. And then I come to visit and remember. It so totally completely IS that bad. And this is why:

– I am a naturally sweaty person. Need I say more? 
– a cold shower still means warm water
– it’s too hot to sleep
– I sweat a lot
– parking in the shade is more important than anything else. Anything.
– I can’t wear make up (not such a bad thing)
– did I mention the sweat??

I love Brisbane. I really do. But I gotta say, I don’t miss the summers up here. I’m just going to go and stand in front of the fan for a while now…

The Big 3-0!

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At 4:04am today I turned 30. What does that feel like? Well, I had a lot of time to ponder over this question at 2 o’clock this morning, thanks to jet-lag, and I started thinking about my life so far. What I have achieved, where I’m at, and what lies before me. And here’s what I came up with:

Highs:
Getting through puberty, relatively unscathed
My developing relationships with my family and friends
Going overseas for a year and realising how capable and resilient I really am
Finding the man I want to spend the rest of my life with, and it being such an obvious decision
Moving to Melbourne and starting a new life down there
Having a relatively healthy life with only minor injuries to speak of!

Lows:
I really haven’t had that much bad stuff happen to me. Apart from the usual teenage angst, broken hearts and battle with self-esteem, most of the stress in my life is brought about by my overactive imagination and ability to worry about… well… everything!


What I’ve done so far:
I’m very proud of my achievements, and my willingness to try new things. I have enjoyed all the different hobbies I have tried, and the travelling I have done. I’m also happy that I have completed study in a couple of different areas, and that it has benefitted me in ways I didn’t expect. I love that I was introduced to church as a teenager, and that I was fortunate enough to meet Hubs at Day Camp one year, where he vowed to his friend, there and then, that one day he would marry me. That was totally awesome.

What lies ahead:
Gosh. Where do I start? There are still so many things I want to do with my life. Travel some more, add to our family of 2, live in the country, ride in a helicopter over Brisbane (happening on Thursday!! :-), learn more sign language, grow in my faith, and continue this blog!

I think that’s enough self-reflection for now. We are off to dinner tonight for my birthday, and I can’t wait to share yet another amazing milestone with my incredible family. A great start to the year that is to come!

South Africa

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Things to tell you about when I get home:

Biltong
Bakkies
Snoek
The Big 5
Savannas
Koeksisters
Potjie
Agave
Oliebolle
Sarmies
Braai
The Valley of Desolation
Game
Torrential rain
Robots
Ouma
The in-laws
The Kruger

… and lots lots more!…..