Flying High

My husband and I must be the only two people on the planet who could win a week-long, romantic trip for two to Thailand and not be excited about it.

That's right, last December my husband won a trip but all we could think was, "What will we do about the kids?"  We had no one to look after them and we couldn't exactly leave them behind unattended.  Moreover, we have always had the view that if we travel, we want the kids to come and have the experience too.

Fortunately, the prize provider very generously agreed to exchange the Thailand trip for a family holiday to tropical north Queenland and the Great Barrier Reef.  We will have to pay for about half of the trip as travelling with four kids is very expensive, but will be able to afford a much more luxurious stay than would otherwise be possible. Given the riots in Thailand earlier this year we are very glad that we didn't arrange a Thailand holiday!

After a six month wait, today is the day and we are flying to Cairns this evening.  I think I may be even more excited than the kids.  We have plans for snorkelling and sleeping and eating and lazing by the pool.  We will be going from freezing weather to warmth and sunshine.

For those not familiar with Australian geography, the map below shows the approximate trip on a road map, right from the bottom of continental Australia to the top.You can zoom in or out if you wish for a clearer picture.

View Larger Map

I'm planning to take lots of photos and look forward to sharing them with you on my return next Saturday.

Bye for now!

Image of Port Douglas is from www.makemystay.com.au/queensland/accommodation/

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Hot Water Bottle Jumper

An Aussie joke

Question: What do you get when you cross a sheep with a kangaroo?

Answer: A woolly jumper.

Way back in 2007 one of my first ever blog posts was about this jumper that I knitted for my hot water bottle.*

It's shabbier now than it was back then but just as wonderful at warming my icy toes on these cold winter nights.  

I think my husband is also glad that I put my freezing feet on my hot water bottle and not all over him!

What do you use to keep you warm on winter nights?

*If the 2007 post doesn't show up properly in Internet Explorer, it is due to the issues described here.

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Melting Moments with Lemon Cream

You can imagine how impressed I was to arrive home this afternoon to discover that my teenage son had made Melting Moments with Lemon Cream filling.  

For a first effort with a piping bag they weren't bad at all, and they tasted heavenly.  The ones in the picture above are the last three, left for Dad when he gets home from work.

Even better is that my son cleaned up after himself.  He said it took 3 hours, but maybe it only felt that long!

This recipe comes from the Australian Women's Weekly's Big Book of Beautiful Biscuits.

Melting Moments with Lemon Cream

250g (8oz) butter

1/3 C icing (confectioner's) sugar

1 1/2 C plain flour

1/2 C cornflour

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add sifted flours, mix well.  Put mixture into piping bag fitted with fluted tube.  Pipe rosettes on to lightly greased oven trays, bake in moderate oven 10 to 12 minutes until pale golden brown.  Cool on wire rack.  Join biscuits with lemon cream.

Lemon Cream

60g (2oz) butter

1/2 C icing (confectioner's) sugar

1 tsp grated lemon rind

3tsp lemon juice

Beat butter until smooth, gradually add sifted icing sugar, beat until mixtures is light and creamy.  Beat in lemon rind and juice.

Makes about 30 complete biscuits.

 

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Outside My Kitchen Window

My kitchen window looks out on a paved area to the side of the house and a (hideous) colourbond fence.

To the left I can see an orange tree.  To the right is our struggling lemon tree.

In the spring I would like to do something to make the view prettier - some potted flowers perhaps.  It would be nice to have something attractive to look at when I am daydreaming out the window with my hands in sudsy water.

What do you see out your kitchen window?

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Huge Blog Problems

 Edvard Munch, The Scream

I've been having huge problems using Blogger's New Template Designer so I tried reverting back to Minima, only to find that I can now no longer change the header or do numerous other things I used to do - there is no Layout tab in Minima anymore.  For a while I thought I had lost my new banner and almost everything on my sidebar, with no way to get them back.  Arrrrrgggghhhh!

Please bear with me while I try to sort these issues out.

Postscript:  The issues are mostly sorted now, I think, and I am back using the new Template Designer (Watermark template).

However, in some of the older posts the pictures do not match the frames when using Internet Explorer, and when you click on the post the sidebar appears at the bottom.  I found this out yesterday when I went to link to a post from 2007, No Cook Homemade Playdough, for a blog carnival.

Does anyone know how to fix this? I've already posted the issue on a Blogger forum but no answers so far.

Why does technology so often drive me to near insanity?  It's supposed to make life easier!

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Australia's New Prime Minister

Like most Australians, I was astonished to hear on the radio yesterday morning that Australia's Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard was planning to challenge the leadership of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

Although Mr Rudd's stance on the Mining Super Tax, his backdown on the Emissions Trading Scheme, and his apparent laxity regarding asylum seekers were making him unpopular in the polls, he was, after all, the man who kept Australia out of recession during the global financial crisis of the past three years, making us unique amongst developed nations.

Despite my surprise, I was initially excited when I heard that we had our first female Prime Minister - and a red-headed woman to boot.

However, later in the day when I had the opportunity to see the news on television, I began to have some serious misgivings.

In spite of his faults, (it appears that Mr Rudd was a micromanager, and this 'centralised leadership style' alienated him from both business leaders and his Party) Mr Rudd was our elected leader.  Prime Minister Gillard's coup seems an awful lot like bullying.  And Australians don't like a bully.

While I am no particular fan of Opposition leader Tony Abbott, I am inclined to agree with him that ''a midnight knock on the door followed by an assassination is no way to treat a prime minister.''

What do you think about Australia's new Prime Minister?

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Word Snob

I am a word snob.  I like words to be used properly and I like them to be spelt correctly.

Tragically, I usually write words out in full when texting.

I don't like it when people make nouns into verbs, such as turning 'impact' into 'impacted on', rather than 'the impact on'.

I don't like the (newish) verb 'to diarise'.  It sounds too much like diarrhoea.

It's 'one fell swoop' not 'one foul sweep' (from Macbeth).

I prefer English/Australian spelling to American, although I accept that 'programme' has become 'program'.

I am amused every time I read of someone 'pouring' over a book instead of the correct 'poring'.

And why do people write 'past-time' instead of 'pastime', a hobby?

At school I learnt that sentences should not begin with 'and' or 'but'.

And I do that all the time.

But I shouldn't.

Do you have pet hates when it comes to grammar and spelling?  What are they?

Postscript: A reader reminded me of one of my biggest pet hates, the misuse of apostrophe's. (Yes, that error was intentional!)


Just for the record, simple plurals NEVER require an apostrophe.  Thus it's ponies not pony's and 1990s not 1990's (we would write nineties not ninety's).

Just had to get that off my chest.

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