Bateman's Bay

Here we are at Bateman's bay, wondering where we might have dinner

The light made for surreal photographs of the boats and the water

Milton Park

At work we decided to have a team building exercise and we were bussed off to the Southern Highlands to Milton Park in Bowral. We left Tuesday morning and returned Wednesday evening. Milton Park is an amazing place, with a miriad of gardens, paths, additional buildings (such as the conference centre and spa).

spa entrance

side of conference centre

The house is built at the time of federation, and is beautiful with high ceilings and lots of space.
entrance to the Hotel from the garden
I had a room on the ground floor that opened up to the courtyard. I have never had so many pillows on my bed as I did on Tuesday night.

The food was spectactular, for instance the evening meal for me was venison followed by milk fed lamb from WA, a chocolate mud desert finished the meal.

The gardens are extensive, lots of paths winding around. Of course it is spring in the highlands and lots of the flowers and trees are bursting with new life.

Fairy walk

Helicopter pad

Lily pads

Another walk through the gardens

Beautiful bulbs down a meadow - very English

At the end of Tuesday we had some free time. Three of us went to an art gallery in Bowral, we also visited a cheese shop and a dress shop and Bed and Bath. Nothing like retail therapy, JR will be happy to know that the only thing I bought was coffee - although I was sorely tempted by lots of things.

When you really want to celebrate something special, a trip to Milton Park could be the place to go.

Mondo

Birthday boy

AJR is a teenager, it is scary but true!!

He celebrated the actual day at Wombeyan Caves, near Goulburn on a year 7 school camp. He did not enjoy camp at all. They were in teams of four and sleeping in tents, which they had chosen as a team over cabins. Each member of the team had to contribute to the cooking, one person had to bring pots and pans and cutlery and crockery. In AJR's team, the guy bringing the pots and pans ended up being too sick to come, so they had to join another group for meals. The teachers cooked a meal on the second night for everyone, apart from that they cooked for themselves. From my point of view the whole camp was badly managed.

Lots of cooking happened on Friday night and Saturday, before the mob from Wentworth Falls arrived at 3pm on Saturday afternoon to celebrate AJR's birthday. In the evening Auntie J and Uncle P arrived for dinner.

Then on Sunday we were joined by G'ma and G'pa.

And we all had lunch together.

Bill Bailey

On Saturday 13 September four of us went to see Tinselworm - Bill Bailey's one man show. JR and I met K and T at Dylan Moran's show a year ago - I remember seeing them in the distance at interval. We caught up with them to discover that we were all Black Books fans. In May this year, T rang me at 6pm one night to tell me that Bill was touring and how with a special code I could get advance tickets - after much discussion and hilarity, I managed to book us tickets, which I kept secret from JR until a couple of weeks before the show.

We went to an Indian restaurant in town for dinner before the show, and then walked back to the Royal Theatre for a drink before the show started.

Bill is a classically trained musician and was able to combine comedy with a range of music and musical instuments all of which he played well.

I have not belly laughed so much in a long time. If you get an opportunity to see him then, grab it with both hands.

Mondo

Velib's

When next in Paris be sure to check out the Velibs (not just the girl)

Photograph courtesy of A Photographer in Paris

Article on Velibs

Wall-e and Friend

Just to the left there is another person hiding behind the manga

Coffee anyone?

Here is the cup of coffee I had at Freedom Home in Woden on Sunday. It was slow in coming and not nearly as good at the coffee I had at APK also in Woden earlier in the day.

Another Saturday in Sydney

Last Saturday saw the family Rutherford in Sydney - in two different places.

We travelled together towards Sydney from Heathcote at about 9am to Erskinville an inner south suburb and the girls were dropped at the railway station. There is a coffee culture around the rail station and shops and it all looked very cosmopolitan. Meanwhile the boys - aided and abetted by their GPS - travelled on to the old train repair sheds at Enfield to the Australian Technology Centre. A two day Animania Festival (manga) convention was being held, and AJR was determined to see everything he could in one day. We could not attend on Sunday as JSR had an important engagement with his clubs at 1.00pm on Sunday.

Mushroom Heartless

(left to right:)
Toshiro Hitsugaya and Soi Fon, Alphonse Elric, Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha
Photographs by AJR

The girls went to Powerhouse Museum for a little culture. We had a talk on the Strasburg clock, which was built by Bartholomew Smith. The clock is based on on a model in Strasburg, France. Smith built it based on a postcard of the original. One part of the clock gives the times for each of the state capitals, I was surprised to find that Brisbane was 10 minutes ahead of Sydney, which was 10 minutes ahead of Melbourne!!!

Around lunchtime the girls met up with Unce R and Aunty T, plus girl child and boy child and had a lovely yum cha in China town followed by an exploration of Paddy's markets. Once our legs got tired enough we moved upstairs for a coffee. The boys picked the girls up about 4pm as they had seen enough at the Convention. As the GPS seemed to be blocked by all the tall buildings (a condition of most cities) we drove over to Bondi Junction on blind faith, a wish and luck. Once at Bondi Junction we checked out the Westfield shopping centre. Most shops did not close before 6pm, which we appreciated.



After Bondi Junction we drove to Sutherland and had a happy birthday dinner for G'ma with G'pa at a Thai restaurant.

All in all it was a lovely day.

Unusual Fruit

While in Belconen the other day visiting my friend KR for lunch, I noticed a tree in her carpark with unusual fruit.

Bro assures me that it is a take on an episode of "My name is Earl", where similar fruit appear on the ariel of the building after successful conquests of the fairer sex - I tried to find this episode, however I failed!!!!

The tree

and on a lighter note you can see that spring is sprung (buds - the alternate fruit)

Indigenous Literacy Day

Ok guys, mark your calendars for the 3 September and make sure you buy a book at one of the participating bookstores to support the work of the Fred Hollows foundation and the Booksellers of Australia.

10% of each book purchased goes to provide books and information to isolated Indigenous communities across Australia.

For more info, see below.
Indigenous Literacy Day

Terrible Tuesday

Well it is official, I think Tuesdays are the worst day of the week.





Yesterday it went like this:

• Drop off ironing early - good


• Breakfast out with friends - good


• In to work after 9am - bad


• Off to speech therapy at 12.30 - drive to Kambah, then Holder, back to Kambah and back to work at 2.30pm - total kilometers = 58 - bad


• Work is hectic - bad


• Leave work just before 5pm - drive to Monash pick up dog and kids and then drive to Forrest to visit dog sitter, back to Monash drop off kids and dog, out of the drive to collect ironing - an additional 41.4 kilometers -


• Home for the evening at 7pm


• Tea (cooked by JSR) at 8pm

This is how I felt all day!

photo by Li Gao for more of these go here

An alternative to death by powerpoint...

For a fast paced approach to information exchange, you might want to try this approach at your next presentation

Pecha Kucha

Japanese for "chatter"

And the winner is...

Yes I asked a question the other day - where am I having coffee and I thought I should supply the regular readers with the answer which is "in a mug". Ok also having coffee at the Coffee Club. Please note that I would never be seen in a Starbucks, as I have issues with Starbucks.

Thank you to all those who gave an answer - next time I see you, I owe you a coffee.

Mondo.

Wordle

I did threaten some of you with the arrival of my first wordle and here it is

This is a wordle of my blog. If you want to try it out, then go to this site

Wordle



Enjoy,

Mondo