Kangaroos

Riki stayed home with my husband today on one of his days off. And guess what they spotted out the back yard - some kangaroos!! I have called him the 'Kangaroo whisperer' as he always seems to see them in the reserve behind our house.

We also purchased The Hobbit on Blu-Ray today - I didn't get a chance to see it at the movies so we are watching it in our movie room tonight. Filmed in New Zealand with a New Zealand director (Peter Jackson) it had some Australian actors such as Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Barry Humphries, it also has Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman (aka Sherlock and John Watson hehe) 

Splendour In The Grass

I can't believe it - no one will understand my excitement - but Riki sat with me today whilst I waited to get some tickets for one of the biggest music festivals in Australia. And we did it :-) 25, 000 tickets sold out in under an hour and we got some!! Can't wait till the end of July for the 3 day festival - and Riki's coming too!!

Let's do this thing!!

I took one of my days off as this festival is notorious for selling out really quick. A couple of times I thought my computer had frozen it was taking so long but then finally got the purchase ticket screen - woot!

Here are some links to help show why I am so excited :-)

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/entertainment/music/splendour-in-the-grass-tickets-sell-out-in-under-an-hour/story-e6frf9hf-1226633770132 - has a cool video

http://splendourinthegrass.com/

I'm really looking forward to seeing these Australian acts

Architecture In Helsinki

Matt Corby

Sarah Blasko

Boy & Bear

Bernard Fanning

Birds Of Tokyo

Something For Kate

Chet Faker

Whitley

The Rubens

Gurrumul

And these overseas acts

Mumford and Sons

Haim

Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Cold War Kids

MS MR

Vance Joy

Jagwa Mar

Of Monsters and Men

Laura Marling

Everything Everything

Then after all that excitement Riki and I shelled some prawns for dinner (Prawn Green Curry). I am starting to think that we eat more international inspired meals than anything specifically Australian. I will need to do some research on Aussie meals to make for Riki!! They were Clarence River school prawns though :-)

Phew - now I have 2 months and 27 days to go :-)

Yamba

Mid week we drove to Yamba (about 1 1/4 hours from where we live) to visit my husband's parents. Here's a little about Yamba http://www.yambansw.com.au/main.html 

"There are two theories as to the meaning of Yamba, one being that it is the local Aboriginal word for "headland". However, J.S. Ryan, following R.L. Dawson's early 'Recollections and Records of the Clarence Aborigines', believes the most likely derivation is an Aboriginal word 'yumbah' meaning a rough edible shellfish the size of a man's hand that clings to rocks and is similar to an oyster."

Driving past the sugarcane fields

We drove through Maclean - an area that is well known for growing sugar-cane. The sugarcane fires at night can be spectacular!! 

The mighty Clarence River

We watched the Anzac Day rugby league match http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/rugby-league/league-news/roosters-vs-dragons-anzac-day-match-20130425-2ih05.html My hubby goes for the St George Dragons and was a little sad they lost :-(

Indulging in some ANZAC biscuits

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/536/giant+anzac+biscuits#  Here is the recipe for anyone interested - they are yummy!!

The war veterans parade before the match

Some St George players

The next day we drove down to Yamba Beach and had morning tea at Pippie's cafe.  

Waffles - yum!!

 Then checked out the memorial and cenotaph for local soldiers who went to war. Seeing the old men who fought in the war and what they must have gone through always brings a tear to my eye.

Overlooking the baths and beach

"Lest We Forget" memorial

Cenotaph

On our way home we stopped into a fish shop as hubby is going fishing for blackfish tomorrow in Urunga. The marina is beautiful with all the boats and we saw some egrets and pelicans. 

                                     

                                                 

I also got to purchase some craft books - sweet!!

Now Riki is helping me finish off some crafts for a swap!! Hope everyone is having a as great a weekend as we are!!

Little Bit of Live Music :-)

Friends of ours invited us to a live music concert - Grinspoon - and I got all excited when I saw who the support band was - Kingswood. Grinspoon is an Australian band who have been around for ages, here's a bit of a blurb from Wikipedia

"Grinspoon is an Australian rock band from Lismore, New South Wales formed in 1995 and fronted by Phil Jamieson on vocals and guitar with Pat Davern on guitar, Joe Hansen on bass guitar and Kristian Hopes on drums. Also in 1995, they won the Triple J-sponsored Unearthed competition for Lismore, with their post-grunge song "Sickfest". 

Grinspoon changed their sound to more mainstream rock by their 2002 album, New Detention, gaining fans and peaking at No. 2 on the ARIA Albums Charts; similarly 2007's Alibis & Other Lies also reached No. 2. Their 2004 album, Thrills, Kills & Sunday Pills, which peaked at No. 4, won the2005 'Best Rock Album Award' at the ARIA Music Awards.

The band was signed to Universal Records in United States by late 1998, they were promoted by the songs "Champion", which featured in Gran Turismo 3; "Post Enebriated Anxiety", which was on the international version of Guide to Better Living; "Chemical Heart", via the internet; and a cover of the Prong song "Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck", from Grinspoon's Pushing Buttons EP, which was included on ECW: Extreme Music."

Here's a clip

But the highlight for me was Kingswood - the lead singer does the best vocals!!

http://www.triplejunearthed.com/KINGSWOOD 

This is the link to the Triple J Unearthed website where you can download new artist music for free :-) But I also purchased their EP on iTunes this morning - sweet!!

Blurb from their website:
KINGSWOOD are a four-piece indie rock outfit from Melbourne Australia consisting of Fergus Linacre (lead vocals), Alex Laska (lead guitar & backing vocals), Jeremy Hunter (bass & vocals) and Justin Debrincat (drums & backing vocals).
After touring Australia in their own right and with such acts as The Living End, British India and The Saints, numerous festival appearances such as Splendour In The Grass, Queenscliff Music Festival and Pyramid Rock, and releasing 3 killer singles "Yeah Go Die", "Medusa" and "She's My Baby", 2012 has been a massive year for KINGSWOOD.
Don't miss your opportunity to experience one of Australia's hottest acts live.

Here's some Kingswood clips :-)

We started off by trying to find a place to eat. We tried Cafe Fiasco for pizza but they were fully booked. Walked by a whale sculpture fountain down by the Jetty on our way - we have awesome whale watching. Humpback whales cruise past Coffs Coast on their way north in early winter and, after giving birth, the whales and their calves make their way back south in spring.

We then settled on a Vietnamese restaurant - I had Xào tỏi with chicken and coriander (stir fry) and my hubby had Pork Om sữa (where ingredients are cooked in and eaten from a clay pot - it's the brown clay pot behind Riki)

Then onto Cold Rock Ice creamery - where we shared a mango sorbet with a Bounty bar (chocolate covered coconut) smashed in with it - yum!!

Then onto the gig - we'd missed the first support act - Emporers - but where there just in time for Kingswood - woot!! My favourite song's are She's My Baby, Ohio, Medusa and their cover of First Aid Kits "Wolf". Then a break and Grinspoon came on - the crowd got a bit crazy so I stood up the back with hubby and got a few awful pictures

We had left our puppies inside as it's getting cold for winter. We found they had no trouble entertaining themselves by trying to get into a peanut butter jar and a skim milk carton :-( Could of been worse!

Wasn't me?!?

Yummy breakfast of bacon, eggs, olive batard and brewed coffee!!

Hope everyone is having a great weekend :-)

All things Woolgoolga

Okay- time for a bit of catch-up :-)

Well - during the week I had 3 days of professional development for work at a lovely resort close to Coffs Harbour. Whilst we waited around for dinner one night we played some mini golf and walked along Sapphire Beach (it didn't get it's name from an over-abundance of sapphires on it's shores :-()

Then the Woolgoolga Curryfest 2013 was on (http://www.curryfest.com.au/) - Woolgoolga has a large Sikh community and in 2006 they decided to showcase this facet of our community through a festival. On Friday night a friend and I went to see an outdoor movie called 'Monsoon Wedding' (equal parts humorous and dramatic) and we're glad that it didn't rain. We bought a mixed plate of chicken and lamb curry with a samosa - yum!! Unfortunately I only had my phone which takes crappy photos so no pictures :-(

On the Saturday we took a quick trip through the Curryfest markets during our weekend trip to the butcher's. Lots of Indian clothes, jewellery and accessories. Rain was still threatening!!

My sister and her family arrived shortly after this and spent the night visiting. Today the sun came out so we decided to make the most of it - a trip into Woolgoolga again for seafood and a walk along the beach - beautiful. Coffee afterwards at the Beachhouse Cafe.

 You can't see behind the plant but the sign says White Salt - where we get yummy seafood and thick cut chips!

Phew!! Can't wait to see what we get up to this week.

Some things coming up soon are

• ANZAC Day 26th April - where we have a dawn service for all soldiers past and present who have served our country in war
• Rotary second-hand book fair - ANZAC day long weekend May 11th-18th

Here's to all the LV's out there having a fantastic time :-)

Riki's here!!!!!!

Riki arrived today safe and sound - yeahhhhhh

She was relieved to be out of her wrappings and very pleased she had resisted the urge to eat the sweets that were in with her!! She helped me out a bit for some crafting I am doing as well. Can't wait to get out and about and see some of the Australian coast with her.

The anxoius wait......

I am picturing Riki in an aeroplane jetting her way to Australia - she is a well seasoned traveller so I am sure she is having a great time.
I decided to do a test to see if I can use this blog properly to catalogue Riki's adventures when she arrives :-)  I am a blogging newbie :-) I will be hosting Riki for the next 6 months on the east coast of Australia  - a little place called Coffs Harbour!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffs_Harbour
Today daylight saving finished so we gained an hour of time (instead of 6pm its 5pm) - this is definitely a sign that winter is approaching. Here is our little piece of the coast!!

Djurgården

Djurgården is a part of Stockholm situated on an island. It's well known for all the touristy places, museums and the like. My parents visited us on the way back home after their vacation, and luckily we also had a day off. Sightseeing time! We were going to look at an exhebition at Liljevalchs that I'd heard a lot of good things about. It's all about the art of hand crafting, or "Hemslöjd" as it's called in swedish.

Here's a map of Djurgården.

A fun thing about public transportation in Stockholm is that the bus cards work on ferries too (not only for busses and trains). And since we were going to an island we decided to use the Djurgård ferry. It's a walk-on ferry and it's usually packed with people since it arrives next to the amusement park Gröna Lund. As we drew closer to the harbour we could hear the excited screams from the various rides.

On the ferry, watching Gröna Lund

Liljevalchs was every bit as fun as I hoped, especially the main part of the exhibition: thousands of leafs crafted by people all over Sweden. Any technique you can think of - I saw it. Knitting, crochet, woodworking, paper, metal, cheramics, mixed media... I even saw a leaf featuring bee wax.

All the crafts...

And also: Riki is now famous! There was a public embroidery project as part of the exhibition. A huge tablecloth anyone could help embroider. I just had to put Riki on it, and I'm pretty pleased. I'm not very used to embroidery but I managed a deacent likeness, don't you think?

Riki, meet Riki (yes, I put her name on there too)

Coast to coast

I know Riki isn't used to the ocean, so it's lucky there's a lot of coastline to visit in Sweden. For the first part of our summer vacation we went to the west coast (the only one with real ocean according to my husband). The weather was so-so, but she did see some water that didn't rain down too... She checked out a small light house near the boat club where my parents in law keep their boat. Due to the weather and hubby's tendency for seasickness, we never took the boat out. Riki did get to travel by ferry, however.

We managed to snag a cache while waiting for the ferry, but strangely enough no one but me wanted to stop and get the one on the other side...

There's the ferry! We need to get back to the car again...

Many of the pictures are from a trip to a small coastal village called Fiskebäckskil. We had a delicious meal and watched the plethora of sailboats just outside the restaurant. I usually don't take photos of food, but the dessert was very pretty so I had to ;) On the way back we took the ferry to the bigger village Lysekil and drove home that way.

Dessert!

The sailboats outside.

There are lots of fjords along the coast of Bohuslän. This is the view from a cache we searched for.

Princesstårta

Fika! And fika outside nonetheless.

Riki's travels have taken her to the west coast of Sweden. We're currently in Munkedal, far enough from the coast to escape most of the Midsummer madness. My parents in law live here and this is where we will spend the first part of our vacation.

I've told you about fika before... Here comes another very Swedish habit. Eating princess-cake for fika. Any holiday deserves a princesstårta in matching colours. The traditional one is dome shaped, covered in green marzipan and with a pink rose on top.

As you can see they also come in log shape, and in many colours. This was disappointingly enough made with sugarpaste... I'm not crazy about princesstårta, but it's tasty once in a while. One of the bakers at work told me about the cake craze this fall when they were cranking out pumpkin coloured cakes as fast as they could for halloween.

Hopefully we will not get the traditional rainy Midsummer this year, but it looks bleak... We had awesome summer weather today at least, so I'm happy.

Princess-cake behind the danish pastries.

Distracted by yarn... This is going to be a shawl once I wind it all. All 800 meters of it...

Mmmmmm... Lavender

I'm not feeling sorry about working the weekend anymore. My days off this week are monday and tuesday plus next weekend, and what a lovely monday it is! In between some much needed cleaning and tidying up I'm relaxing on the balcony. Riki is enjoying the scent of lavender. It refuses to bloom but smells lovely when you touch it.

Lavender. And some pots that might yet sprout something.

Our balcony