Posts filed under ‘out and about’
the breeze
Listen to the breeze
the breeze says out, lets go out
drawing us to
takeaway coffees
the weekend paper
she wants to be close, the closeness draws you in
they want to go fast, scooters can go fast
beauty collected in colours by small hands
snatched conversations
dreams and thoughts
dappled sunlight surrendering to dusk
the breeze says home, lets go home.
“We spend most of our time and energy in a kind of horizontal thinking. We move along the surface of things…but there are times when we stop. We sit still. We lose ourselves in a pile of leaves or its memory. We listen, and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper.”
James Carroll
city cygnets
City cygnets… not an ugly duckling to be seen.
(these are the ever beautiful black swans)
Grass under the toes
It’s moments like last night that I love living in Sydney. A free outdoor concert, showing three ridiculously talented Australian bands, (part of the Sydney Festival.)
Did The Monkeys want to go? You betcha.
Did Mr Chocolate want to go? Yes indeed.
Did this city hippy mama with a big tummy want to kick off her birkinstock and feel some grass beneath her toes while listening to some tunes? Damn straight she did.
It was The Monkeys first concert. A line up of Busby Marou, Kasey Chambers and Dan Sultan, all music they love. Sure they like The Wiggles too, but watching my boys rock out to Dan Sultan…well that just brings a totally different smile to my face.
*******
What have you been up to this weekend?
Any music been making your head bop and toes stomp?
sand and treasure
dinner at the beach
no plates
no washing up
no sand in your sushi please boys
treasure found at stash and treasure
hoarders unite
old things find new homes
new things find old homes
possibilities… possibilities…
now that’s the kind of shopping I like
What have you been up to this lovely weekend?
the weekend that was
weekend away
blue skies
blue water
bluebottles… ouch
family catching up
lots of lovely wonderful food
giggles from cousins
giggles from grandparents
happy farmers market visit
brimming bags of local produce
making sure that circle of happy wonderful food continues
goodbyes
exhausted Monkey naps
What have you been up to this weekend?
eating Italian style
I’m the first one to admit that I don’t utilise Sydney enough for everything it has to offer. It’s a big city, with a lot of things going on at any given time, and sometimes I just need to say, oh, yes please, lets go. I didn’t need any words of encouragement to get to this one though. I had been flicking through the Crave Sydney Food Festival guide and one thing jumped out at me… Haberfield food festival. Item circled, multiple arrows drawn pointing to it and Mr Chocolate told he was to cancel anything else going on for that day, as we were going.
Ok, he said. Thankfully he didn’t need any encouraging words to get him there either. Promises of Italian food tasting plates and pasticceria goodies was all that was needed.
Haberfield is in Sydney’s inner west and an as authentic Italian experience as you are going to get outside of the mother land itself. Leichhardt? (It’s flashy Italian cousin suburb next door) Pffft… Give me Haberfield any day.
So with a large bag to fill, dollars in my pocket and a tummy keen to try everything on offer we set forth.
The Monkeys were keen to try these ones. Gingerbread as big as your…
Well as big as a small persons head. Eaten and finished on the spot.
My new favourite butcher. A lot of butcher’s have an annoying habit of stating they carry free-range pork products, but on further questioning, don’t know where the meat is from or are using a ‘free-range’ company with (in my mind) dubious free range-ness. So our family just does without unless I’m buying from a company I know and trust. (Piggy options for a city girl post here.) I was very happy to hear that this wasn’t the case at Gojak’s. Using a company I was already familiar with brings a little sigh of relief… Ahhh, and piggy purchases then tucked away in my bottomless bag.
Back to the tasting, and there was some mozzarella, wrapped in prosciutto, drizzled with truffle oil. (Half consumed, before I remembered a picture.)
Buffalo mozzarella.
Eggplant Involtini. Melt in your mouth that one was. Stuffed with tomato, breadcrumbs, and parmesan.
One panino, two panino, three panino, four? Well actually there was seven panini eaten between the four of us. What can I say, they were delicious.
Cannoli. Now for reference reasons I needed to buy these ones. They were taken home to be eaten later, but hands down so much better than my ones were. Note to self, need to keep practising…
Also bought and not shown was…
* The most delicious biscuits I’ve tasted in….years! I can’t work out what was in them to try and replicate them, so will have to make a return trip for further investigations. It’s tough, but someone has to do it. I’m thinking almondy something or other. It’s a little Ameretto, and a little marzipan in taste.
* One recharging espresso for Mr Chocolate, (who also sometimes goes by the name of Mr Coffee.)
* One double sausage and onion roll, inhaled by Mr C and two ravenous Monkeys.
* Rosetta rolls for later.
* Chilli and Rocket Ricotta, Mozzarella, and Bocconcini from Paesanella for later.
I could have kept going, but for the sake of my now quite full stomach and empty wallet, we left it at that. Vowing to return another day, (and hopefully next weekend if I have anything to do with it.)
a fairy sunrise
There is always something magical about watching a new day start. Watching the light change, the silence…followed by the new day sounds.
The shadows shift. Every blade of grass glistens with a night time story. Webs are shown off, with gentle subtle perfection.
Surely this is where tales of fairies emerge. Dainty toes traipsing across silken lines. Single dew drops to wash clean tiny fairy faces.
Soft sunlight pushing the shadows away.
This is where it begins.
sometimes it’s hard throwing snakes out the window
A recent long road trip saw The Monkeys in the back of the car squabbling.
Not the kind of squabbling that can easily be ignored, and conversation continued on and over. No. The kind that needs a turn of an adult head, a slight narrowing of the eyes and some tough words thrown at them. Yep, tough words.
Nope. Didn’t work.
Step two. Explain to them this is how it was going to work. If things continued like this, and at that noise level of bickering, desperate measures would have to be taken… Yep, desperate measures.
Nope. That didn’t work either.
Step three. Ok, really desperate measures.
Jelly snakes.
I first read of this drastic measure on Myrtle & Eunice. I laughed so hard reading it, and vowing it was a brilliant idea and was sure to be used on our own road trips down the track. Well here we were, down the track.
Crunch time. With noisy arguing kids in the back, a long way still to drive, and a bag of jelly snakes on my side. Well it was time wasn’t it…
It was jelly snake time.
The rules were simple. Every time they yelled/ argued/ annoyed one of us. A snake would lose it’s life. Tossed out the window without a second thought. The Monkeys looked on with wide eyed horror as the rules were laid out. Surely mama wasn’t serious?….
It was quiet… for a whole two minutes, and then the inevitable had to happen. The squabbling started up again and a snake had to go. No more warnings, no more threats, no more laying down of the rules. The rules were set and they had just been broken. Quickly and painlessly the snake was thrown. There was a collective gasp from all of us. From The Monkeys realising I had actually followed through with it and from Mr Chocolate and I on the realisation that there was no way I could slip that snake from its precarious open window seat to Mr Chocolate’s willing and open mouth.
The snake was thrown and peace reigned for the next three hours.
It only took the one.
*And I am very sorry to the person driving behind us who got a surprising jelly snake splat on his windscreen.
sunshine, bare toes and biscuits
Sunshine. A whole bundle of it.
24C and it’s still another month of winter to be had. I think the winter season might have other ideas though…
That’s all people, we gave winter a red hot go. You all wore your scarves, your gumboots, your big jackets, and complained a whole lot. The other seasons and I have had a little regroup and decided that spring may as well pop on over as they wasn’t much else happening in her neck of the woods anyway. Enjoy.
Fair enough I say. Enjoy we shall. You can’t really complain about clear blue skies, and a warming sun on your back to warm some tired old bones. Tired old bones this week as the Little Monkey and I have been wallowing a little in self pity. Trying to fight off a rotten cold that just won’t seem to go away. I tried wallowing for a little, it didn’t much work for me though. Monkey Boy still needed to get to school, Mr Chocolate was busy working and dinner still needed to be on the table. Nope, wallowing had to be put aside. Besides, Little Monkey was far sicker and needed a calm hand to help him through it all, as he really was feeling miserable this week.
Biscuits helped. I thought they might. Jam ones in the middle… but they didn’t help enough, (that’s when I know the little fella is really sick.) They helped Mr Chocolate and Monkey Boy though, as they happily ate his biscuits.
Then the week came to an end and so did the cold. A lingering cough for the little fella, but he’s right back to looking for his biscuits.
So an afternoon snack, packed off to the local park for some sunshine, bare toes and biscuits.
Coconut Jam Drops
200g softened butter
1 tsp vanilla
75g raw sugar
90g desiccated coconut
150g self raising flour
75g plain flour
splash of milk- (approx 2 tbls)
jam
Soften butter, cream vanilla and sugar together. Add the other ingredients and mix well. Roll them into tight little balls and use something lying around the kitchen to make a little indentation for the jam to go in. 1/4 of a teaspoon or so of jam popped in and bake at 180C for about 20 minutes.
