I’ve no doubt that our Australian friends will be very relieved that Aubain and Ingrid have made it to Australia, because now we no longer need to drop phrases like, “When our friends Aubain and Ingrid come to visit”, and “Our friends from the UK are coming over in March”, and such and such. I hope it hasn’t been too painful for y’all.

Anyway, after what I’m sure felt like the worlds longest journey (from London, to Hong Kong, then Auckland, and finally Brisbane), Aubain and Ingrid arrived on Australian soil just after 1 PM today. We trolleyed out to a very quiet Brisbane International airport to catch them as soon as they had cleared customs!

Yes, that’s a particularly unflattering picture of the two of them, and I’m sure that as soon as they’ve recovered from jetlag and realised that we’re all in the same country, they’ll no be having a stern word with me regarding which photos are “internet appropriate” and which ones aren’t. But I figure that will take at least three or four days, and hopefully by then they’ll be having too much fun to care!

I’m jetting off with them tomorrow for a whirlwind tour of Sydney, and after that we’ll be heading up the coast for three days of beachside bliss. It’s going to be awesome!

Any hit tips from the Sydney folks out there?

There are few people in this world who are as reliably inspirational as The Durhams, and so it pleased us to no end to be invited along to Dandelion and Driftwood to help celebrate Nelly’s Birthday.

We enjoyed a four course afternoon-tea menu, consisting of two rounds of coffee (or tea, but why would you bother?), and two rounds of snacks. I opted for the pikelets with jam and cream for snack number one, and I would have it again in a heartbeat! The cream was so fresh and thick that it reminded me of clotted cream which I miss so dearly from England! Round two was something that had a very fancy name that I don’t remember; it definitely had the words “french”, “chocolate”, and “cake” in it, but in reality it was a chocolate cupcake with a malteaser on top. Also delicious, but it didn’t hold a candle (sparkler?) to the pikelets.

Being a cafe that also roasts their own coffee beans, I had very high expectations of their coffee. And, all the awards plastered on the wall suggested that I would not be disappointed, and indeed, I was not! It was excellent; I particularly enjoyed the affogato I had for coffee round number two.

It was also great to meet some of the characters from the Durham’s lives that we’ve heard so much about through the years! We were especially pleased to be seated next to Emily-Jane (Nelly’s neice, though you’d swear they were sisters) on one side, and Richard and Karen (David’s sister and her husband, who get mentioned in many a Durham tale) on the other side.

Our afternoon of dining finished with a very generous slice of the fairy-floss cake. Yes, fairy floss! Though it wasn’t made of fairy floss as I had hoped; probably a good thing, as it would have had to be pretty dense to hold all that icing up!

We hope you had an awesome birthday Nelly, and more importantly, we hope the next twenty-one (or so ) years are just as good as the first!

A few photos online in the Nelly’s Birthday photo gallery.

Sometimes, life seems to pass by so slowly and yet so quickly at the same time. It’s a condition that I like to call “The Thomas Paradox”. Generally, our weeks are pretty quiet (slow), but the weekends are a hive of activity (fast)! Make no mistake; this is in no way a complaint! We enjoy having lots of quiet nights at home through the week in order to prepare us for a busy weekend!

Anyway, the last week just gone was no exception to the rule, with scarcely anything worth a mention until we arrive at Saturday morning. We kicked of our weekend by joining The Johnsens and The Priebes for a delicious brunch at Brother Espresso. (Not so) secretly, we had arranged the brunch in order to pick everyone’s brains for some activity ideas for Aubain and Ingrid’s impending visit (less than two weeks! Eeeeeeeee!!!). And we got some winners! A&I are in for quiet the treat!

Bright and early on Sunday morning, I trolleyed out to the airport to pick up Jason and Susan. They’ve been adventuring around Singapore and Vietnam for the last 15 days or so.. Tough life for some! I don’t know what the highlight of the trip was for the two of them, but for me, it was definitely driving along the new overpass from Toombul out to airport drive. Wheeee!

So that brings us to Sunday afternoon, when Ben and I hit West End for a cocktail at The Lychee Lounge followed by dinner at Sitar. Their Tikka Masala was delicious, but it repeated on me all night.

Anyway, the main reason we were in that neck of the woods was to see Eddie Vedder play his last night in Brisbane on his solo tour around Australia. His previous two gigs had received excellent reviews so we had very high expectations, and I’m pleased to say, those expectations were met!

Eddie has such an awesome voice; this much should have been fairly obvious to even the most casual Pearl Jam fan. But as Ben put it – seeing him play solo highlights what an excellent all-round musician he is, knocking out fantastic tunes on the guitar, ukulele, and even the mandolin!

The show consisted mainly of Pearl Jam tracks, lots of tunes from the Into The Wild soundtrack, plus a few other covers that I’d never heard before. Highlights of the evening for me were Speed of Sound (sounded much more haunting when played live and acoustic), Arc (Eddie recorded all the backing tracks live, using a loop delay type of machine, and then sang over them), plus the duets he sang with Eliza Jane Barnes (she’s got a fantastic voice!).

Lowlight of the evening was the row of knobs in front of us whose behavior was so unusual it’s hard to describe. I guess you had to be there. Still, it did little to dent what was otherwise an excellent concert and evening out!

Following hot on the heels of a recent ladies night out, our ever-so-wise friend Ian sent the following mail around to us men, the “other halves”:

It’s great that the girls had a night out, get to share a few stories, have a couple of quiet drinks, de-stress and reminisce over the old times… however it won’t be long to the pangs of guilt set in… poor
guys left at home, always giving so much and receiving so little. Rather than face the tears I suggest that we have a boys night out in the not too distant future, few drinks to help balance the situation.

Yes, if Obi-wan were still alive, he would clearly seek Ian for counsel. Acting on such wisdom, a gaggle of seven lads gathered on Friday night for our evening of social discourse, starting at Hotel Bravo in Fortitude Valley. Unfortunately, health was not on the side of our wise leader, and hence Ian was not amongst us – but that sounds like a perfect excuse to arrange another such evening in the not-too-distant future.

Of all the places we went, I think The Bowery was my favourite, and I regret my decision not to indulge in a french martini with the others (Ben E gave me a sample of his though; it was delicious!). It’s clear that my knowledge of bars in Fortitude Valley is pretty poor, as each time someone named another place for us to go to, I had no idea what they were talking about. All I can say is Fortitude Valley is very cool.

With each new location we went to, everyone geekily raced to be the first to check everyone in to Facebook, so any misconception about “What happens on lads night stays on lads night” was clearly out the window. Judging by the comments on the check-ins though, we were clearly keeping a few people entertained!

At one point, Kristy reminded me to “take a photo for the blog”, and so I obliged. Here is our night summed up in a single photograph:

I know what you’re thinking, and the answer is “yes”; John did have a bat in the cave. Thank goodness for friends like Ben.

Kristy and Oscar picked me up from work on Thursday afternoon, and together, we all headed to Mom and Dad’s unit at Grand Florida for a long weekend of fun in the sun. We were lucky to have amazing weather the whole time we were there – much more like the Australian summers that we remember!

With such amazing weather, we tried to maximise our time at the beach, and even gave little Oscar his first ever play in the ocean! Unfortunately, he was not a fan – the water was a bit too chilly for his liking! Still, at least he got his feet wet (both physically and metaphorically), and I’m really looking forward to the day when he’s racing to beat me in to the waves!

We were joined by our buddies the Threebies on Saturday, and we all ventured out for a game of boules in the afternoon. Mom decided not to come, but after proving herself to be an absolutely unstoppable boules player on Friday, it was probably for the best! It was an old-fashioned showdown – Thomases vs. Priebes – and in the end… well, actually I can’t remember who won, but it was pretty close!

Kristy had the bright idea to bring along some sparklers. Originally, she had intended them to be for the kids, but of course, we had to give them a trial run first! So with the babies tucked safely in bed on Saturday night, and with Nonni and Poppi on guard duty, Kristy and I headed down to the beach with team BaM for a bit of sparker writing fun.

Ahh, the long exposure shot!

I absolutely love the weekend getaway, and I’m so pleased we got to enjoy such awesome weather with some awesome people. Even better, my skin is at least one or two shades less London after spending so much time in the sun – covered in sunscreen, of course!

Check out the other photos from the weekend in the picasa online gallery or on facebook.

Of course, by “on record” here, I mean “it’s the hottest weekend that I can remember since the last ridiculously hot weekend that we had”, which now that I think about it, I can’t really remember when it was. See, that’s what age, plus a lack of sleep do to you. Also, colours look subtly different.

Anyway, Kristy pointed out that every story on the gerrod.com front-page except for one, featured a picture of food, so be prepared for that trend to continue with this:

Kablamo! Bet you didn’t see that coming! In fact, this delightful morsel of a lamb bone is representative of the highlight of our weekend – an afternoon/evening with the Durhams. We hung out with them on Saturday at their delightful abode at Woody Point, where it must have been at least seven degrees cooler than it was in Everton Hills. I tell ya, if it wasn’t such a commute to work every day, I’d be moving there tomorrow.

Not only did our afternoon have some geocaching, some ping pong, and obviously some roast lamb, but we also watched the first episode of Survivor: Redemption Island, which featured the most amazing tribal council that I’ve ever seen. Apparently, it went for over two hours off the air! Thank goodness for editing!

Stacey recently sent me a block of Simon Coll hot chocolate – what a legend!

Shortly after Stacey commented on Facebook about drinking an awesome hot chocolate (piquing my curiosity), a beautiful package of said delicacy arrived in the mail. The chocolatier describes it as:

Rich, thick Spanish hot cocoa bar. Different from ordinary cocoa, this bar is prepared with extra cocoa solids for an extra thick consistency.

I describe it simply as “gooey goodness”. Thanks Stacey! And thanks to G-man for cooking it up for me!

Wendesday was our first Australia Day for six years where we’ve actually been in the country to celebrate – not to mention Oscar’s first ever Australia Day! Ben, Michelle and Ted have all been up at Golden Beach enjoying a week off, so we headed up at sparrow’s to join them and Team Dahl in an overnight mid-week getaway.

The Priebes were staying in a lovely three bedroom apartment at Gemini Resort, which had amazing views over Golden Beach and Caloundra on one side, and out to the Glass House Mountains on the other side.

We had a very lazy Australia Day, with some swimming at the beach and in the pool, loads of eating, and listening to the Triple J Hottest 100 – I think we were all pleased with Angus and Julia Stone taking out the number one spot. We lost count of the number of Australian flags that we saw around the place, and there were literally thousands of people out celebrating the birth of our nation.

Thursday was much quieter at the coast. Kristy decided that we should take a leisurely stroll down to Bullcock Beach, but when we got there, we decided to keep on going around to Kings Beach. That’s the first time we’ve walked along the new boardwalk that they’ve built there, and I was most impressed with it!

Boy were we exhausted when we got there – and it suddenly became clear that thongs were a poor choice for footwear! We rewarded ourselves with a well deserved coffee and cake at the little cafe under Rolling Surf resort, which may or may not be called Tanja’s Beach Pavilion. The Hummingbird Cake was delicious, but I regret not having a lamington (which I didn’t see on the menu until we were leaving!).

After a long walk back, we tidied off the afternoon with lunch with Ben’s Mum, a quick cache, and a few games of Boules. Ben was particularly on form!

We farewelled the Priebes and had a very uneventful drive home, but arrived feeling like we had been away for a lot longer than two days. What a great way to spend a Wednesday and Thursday – I wish we could do that every week!

View more photos in the Australia Day 2011 album on Picasa.

As one of my birthday presents last year, Ben, Michelle and Ted gave me a gift voucher for a class at Grass Tree Kitchen cooking school. I must admit, I had never heard of it, but I was enticed by the menu of courses available, and I eventually settling on the Seafood Delights course, as it sounded right up my ally:

We are often told Seafood is an important source of protein and should be included as part of a healthy diet. If you love eating fresh seafood but don’t know the best way to incorporate it in your everyday life and/or dinner party menus, then this is the class for you!

I don’t have the personality type to just turn up to an event like this on my own, so I convinced Kristy to come along to the course with me. To be honest, the course was quite difficult to book – it was full on the first date that I tried, and they cancelled it on the second date as the chef was sick. But finally – third time lucky – we got a booking for Saturday night, and so with Mia and Pa on babysitting duty, Kristy and I trolleyed over to the Grass Tree Kitchen!

I really had no idea what to expect, but after spending a fair chunk of the day doing yardwork, one thing was for certain – I was starving! After filling in some forms, the normal introduction pleasantries, and some beer and wine for all, it was straight on to cooking. The group was limited to seven people, which turned out to be a perfect number for the amount of food to be made. Between the three couples and the one brave girl flying solo, we cooked up four different dishes. Each of us kind-of took charge of one of the dishes – Kristy and I were in charge of the fish cakes with sweet chili sauce (all made from scratch). I would never have thought of chopping up fish in a food processor!

After all the food was prepared, we cooked the first course (our fish cakes), and then let the chefs cook the rest as we sat and enjoyed our work. It was delicious! I was so impressed with everything! And (thankfully) there was plenty of food to go around – we did not walk away hungry. We thought our chef, Chris, was wonderful, and I think everyone got a good amount of one-on-one time with him since our group was nice and small. Best of all, its given us both a bit more confidence to cook with seafood, and from now on we will try to feature it in our diet more often.

Thanks again Priebes for such a wonderful present! We had a blast!

We celebrated a quiet New Year at The Priebe house, with Team BaM (obviously!) and also Kirstin, who is back in the homeland for three weeks. As usual, the girls relaxed and talked on the couch while the boys slaved away cooking a feast for dinner.

Why is it that when you’re a kid, staying up until midnight to see in the New Year was such a privilage, and yet when you get older, it seems near impossible? By 11:30 PM, we were all flagging, and I almost fell asleep on the Priebe’s very comfortable couch more than once. But we all trooped through until midnight, when we were treated to a ridiculously amazing view of the fireworks, right from the Priebe’s lounge room! I never realised they had such good views of Sydney Harbour and the bridge!