Greetings from beautiful Fraser Island! We’re holidaying at the lovely Grandview on Fraser at Orchid Beach. The weather has been a bit cool, but we've found some lovely little sheltered spots to hide from the wind and catch a few fish. We’ve been watching humpback whales playing from the deck of the house we're staying. Fraser is a ridiculously beautiful place. The Little Sister will be ...
Gardening
the chocolate cake that says thank you
The old idiom goes that a picture says a thousand words, well I wager that chocolate cake is also verbose. Chocolate cake can say a very many things. Chocolate cake can say Happy Birthday. Chocolate cake can say Sorry I used your toothbrush. Chocolate cake can say Congratulations on buying your property. Chocolate cake can say Great report card! and Chocolate cake can say ...
food for football fans
Bearhands comes from a fairly distinguished rugby league background. In fact, I can have a particularly ill-timed (or well-timed) case the mumps to thank for Bearhands becoming a farmer instead of a footballer. If it weren't for him being pretty crook during his trial for a major NRL team, I have no doubt he'd be married to a lovely cheerleader and delivering commentary on one of those terrible ...
family-friendly outings on the Sunshine Coast (that only the locals know about)
Every year the Sunshine Coast attracts thousands of tourists on holidays. The shiny attractions of Noosa Main Beach, Underwater World at Mooloolaba and my beloved Australia Zoo are iconic draw cards, but locals know the very best spots (and sometimes like to keep them up their sleeves). In farming terms, we’re only newcomers to the area, but after eleven years on the Coast Bearhands and I consider ...
genius ideas and double chocolate peanut butter cookies
This post is brought to you by Volvo. I dedicate this post, and these delicious biscuits, to the inventors and their eureka moments without which we’d still be ironing our clothes (and our hair for that matter) with hot rocks. The engineer who invented the self-cleaning oven? Pull up a chair mate. Josephine Cochrane, the dreamer who glanced down at her manicure and wished the dishes would wash ...
idiot
I could tell something was wrong. From the other end of the swimming pool I watched the Big Sister's face change. She set her jaw. The lesson finished, her teacher gave her a high-five. I wrapped her in a towel and she immediately started to cry. Then she said it. "I'm an idiot." I'd spent the past thirty minutes marvelling at how good her swimming has become. She'd spent the past thirty ...