faceless malls

We had to go out to Bondi Junction today to go to Spotlight (the fabric shop) to buy materials to cover cushions and chairs. There is a HUGE Westfield Mall at Bondi Junction, which is kind of depressing in that type of way that only malls can be. I guess it's not so bad though...it's quite clean and airy anyway.

In any case, we did discover something very good about the Bondi Junction Westfield. In the foodcourt, they have a De Costi fish stand where you can get good fish and chips for under $10. And De Costi customers have exclusive access to the food court balcony, which has this lovely view back over the city:





Mark is pleased on the balcony. All full of fish and chips.

Macaroni Cheese

*Bounces gleefully*

This was the best macaroni cheese EVER.

The only slip-up was the fact that I rather erroneously forgot to divide the amounts in the recipe and have ended up with macaroni cheese to feed 6. And the only person here is me. Oops. Oh well....I know what I'll be having for lunch tomorrow! And dinner....! (Although I draw the line at breakfast.)

Recipe

Melt 40g butter in saucepan.
Add 40g plain flour and stir obsessively.
Add approx. 400ml milk, slowly, keep stirring like life depends on it.
Bring to boil, keep stirring, no slacking. Then add a bit extra milk and leave to simmer, stirring occasionally.
Meanwhile....
Boil macaroni.
Just before pasta is done, add a load of grated cheese and french mustard to the sauce. Stir in.
Drain pasta and put into dish, and cover in sauce. Mix it up a bit. Put tomatoes on top.
Bake super-hot for 20-30 minutes.
Douse in Worcester Sauce.
CONSUME!

Furniture

Having grown tired of endless pootling around furniture stores, antique stores, junk stores looking for furniture we actually liked, we resorted to eBay last week. Which turned out surprisingly successful!



Mark got this chair. It was half way through a restoration but the guy gave up. We're gonna get the cushion covered soon. It's very comfy.



Drawers! Having gone from two huge fitted wardrobes in our Nottingham flat to...well...nothing over here, there was a clothes storage crisis. This has solved the problem AND looks amazing. I like how both things have the little tapered legs. Like elegant little gazelles. Gazelles? I clearly know nothing about furniture....

It was interesting to hear the stories of the guys who were selling the furniture when they brought it round. The guy with the chair had been planning to start up a furniture business, restoring this kind of style of stuff, but he said it just never got off the ground so he was now selling on a lot of the stock he had collected. The other guy simply collected furniture of this type, and said that obviously every now and again he ended up with way too much, and had to sell some on.


Mark is in Canberra. He left at some ungodly hour this morning (5.45am I think) and will be back on Thursday. It is odd to be all alone in the house for the first time. I'm going to make a thai yellow curry with the rest of my prawns and get early to bed I think. I was going to make macaroni cheese (Mark doesn't like it, I have to wait til he's away) but I forgot to buy Worcestershire Sauce on the way home and to have macaroni cheese without Worcester Sauce is having a car without an engine. It just won't go.

Day in the Life of Pie

It is rather unfortunate that I am not even coming close to achieving my one post a day aim for November. There just aren't enough hours in most days to do it! Here is an outline of an average weekday in my life at the moment:

Morning

6.50am: Alarm goes off. snooze for 15 minutes. If I'm lucky Mark brings me a cup of tea.
7-7.10am: Out of bed! Drink juice. Have shower, wash hair.
7.30-8.10am: Dry hair, get dressed, pack lunch and other bits for work.
8.10am: Leave for train station.
8.19am: Board train for the city. Then I chill out and listen to Bartok or Saint-Saens or Sigur Ros and read my book.
8.50: Train arrives at Town Hall station. Walk to office on George Street. I work for a Health Insurance company. Sometimes buy muffin or banana bread on route.
9am: At work! I look at claims. Lots of claims...

Afternoon
1pm approx: Have lunch. Do any errands in the city that need doing.
After lunch: Process claims and other fun work stuff.
5pm: I endeavour to leave work around 5, but often it's 5.30pm.
6-6.30pm: Arrive home.
6.30pm: Often I go for a run or a walk in the park, or I sit and have a cup of tea or tidy up some stuff.
7.15pm-ish: Start doing dinner.
8-9pm (depending on what I've cooked!): Eat dinner with Mark.
9pm-ish: Wash-up, clean kitchen.
9.30pm: Get ready for bed. Wash face, clean teeth, and I always wash my feet before bed. If there's time, watch an episode of House or another series on DVD. Or read.
10-10.30pm: Off to slumberland!

So there is unfortunately very little time for blogging :( Or any of the other things I want to do :(

Behold!

I got a certificate!



I can't remember if I ever mentioned that I got a Commendation in my GDL. Quite amazing, considering the amount of other stuff I was trying to do at the same time. But anyway, here's the proof!

pleasing items

Here are a couple of bits we've acquired from vintage fairs over the past few weeks:



Two wooden boxes, $10 each. The larger one is chinese, the smaller one is of unknown origin but is lovely and carved.



We've been trying to buy a good decanter for years! These are Edwardian, we got them for $50.



Queen Anne bone china. Tea cup and saucer, and there's also a matching plate for cake. We have four sets, which cost $50 altogether.



Mark got his new chess set recently also, via eBay! We love chess.

Manly

I've never considered myself much of a 'beach person'. Growing up in the UK means that the beach lifestyle doesn't really come naturally, and to me, a European city break is a much more enticing prospect than the prospect of a holiday spent sat in one place on a beach with nought but a book and sunburn for company.

Mark and I took a trip out to Bondi Beach shortly after our arrival on these foreign shores and to be quite honest found it a bit of a disappointment. It was much smaller than they would have you believe, and the sea front is to be frank rather tacky. Admittedly on a winter's day it perhaps didn't appear at its best, but it put me off the beach idea for a while.

A few weeks of galleries, cafes, museums, bookshops, gardening and bars later, I found myself pondering the coastline again. So on a pleasant spring Sunday, we ferried ourselves off to Manly (quite literally - we took the ferry from Meadowbank to the City then changed to the Manly ferry to complete the journey. I do enjoy spending days traveling entirely by boat!).

Manly is one of Sydney's northern suburbs, and popular by virtue of its beaches. You arrive on the harbour side, then walk through the central pedestrianised area of shops and cafes to the ocean side, where Manly beach is. It has a lovely feel, the street lined with palm trees and strung with lanterns, and lots of outdoor dining space adjoining the cafes and restaurants. There are also a large number of fish and chip shops. We picked the one with the longest queue (yes you might have to wait a while, but the queue is usually there for a reason!), which paid off when we were handed our boxes full of the tastiest, freshest battered fish and fat chips.



I was a bit hungry and scoffed my fish before I could get the camera out!

Then we hit the beach.







My bikini got its first proper outing (trips to the Macquarie Uni swimming pool don't count!) and we had a lovely relaxing couple of hours. Everyone on the beach was very young and tanned and slender, which was a bit off-putting at first but I soon stopped worrying and enjoyed some ginger beer and Jane Austen.

I think I might be a 'beach person' now!

lazy blogger

Sunset, Paramatta River at Meadowbank, Sunday 26th October 2008

It seems the sun has set on this blog recently. No entries for an entire month. This is mostly due to having:

a) No internet
b) A new very busy full-time job

Apparently November is meant to be "NaBloPoMo" - National Blog Posting Month - and the aim is an entry every day. I'm going to give this a go - it may not be every day but I'll do it as often as I can - so welcome back, readers!