One of my blogger friends recently asked me to tell her a little about where I live. Well this is not an easy thing to do, how much do I say, I do want to protect myself but, I also want to connect with her and others that read my blog. This is what I have decided, I don't need to give my address or tell too much about my shire, but I can tell you about my State. I live at the bottom of Australia, the only place further down and across the waters of Bass Strait is the island of Tasmania. My home is in the state of Victoria, named after Queen Victoria, we were settled by the British and most of our ancestors were criminals who were shipped from the motherland England as convicts to settle this great land, although my ancestors are mostly Irish My home town is Melbourne it has a population of about 4 million people, I live in a shire about 50 kilometres on the outskirts of Melbourne. Our shire has a population of roughly a hundred and twenty thousand people, with about a half of the community under 38 years old. This area was once farming land, the original road through the shire was the Cobb and Co., coach road used to access the gold fields of Ballarat. The Shire sprang up around the pub and coach office. The outskirts of the shire are still farming but are becoming required for housing. Victoria's weather is classified as temperate, basically meaning we have very hot summers, mostly dry heat, occasionally it will be humid but this is rare, it has been know to reach 47 degrees celcius in the middle of summer to cold and hopefully wet winters. We have experienced fifteen years of drought but this winter has been kind to us. Our winter tempretures usually vary between 1-2 degrees celcius to about 12 degrees, this of course varies, especially now we are feeling the changes due to global warming. I love my town, Melbourne has bush on one side and open beaches with cafes on the forshore where most spend their time in summer. On the other side of the city it is suburbia and housing, but then if you want to ski during the winter it is only about one hundred kilometres to the snow fields. In the summer we are not far from the world renowned surf coast of the Great Ocean Road and the beaches of Bells Beach, Lorne, and Anglesea. Melbourne is a lively young city, we have the Yarra river which winds it's way through the centre of the city, and has become the hub of many shops, cafes and water sports. The sport mostly played is Australian rules football in the winter and Cricket in the summer, and let me tell you everyone who has a club they support is very passionate about their team. Not far from where I live there are kangaroos, koalas, wombats, beautiful wild birds, parrots, galahs, cockatoos etc, and of course the dreaded snakes. If you look very carefully along creek beds you may come across a platypus or two, not as many as there used to be. Kangaroos are taking over parts of this country, they are breeding in large numbers and are now being culled for their meat, which by the way is delicious, little fat and high in protein. Snakes are some of the most dangerous in the world, and we have many.
 |
| This was taken not far from my house overlooking farmland |
The city of Melbourne has many high rise buildings, wonderful museums, art centres, theatres, hotels and of course the scorned casino. Most of us live in single story dwellings, we do not have cellars or attics, but saying that, a lot of the earlier heritage terraces around the city do. The photo on the right is not typical, most people live in suburbia, I think I am very lucky to live outside what is called the green wedge, the land between the city and my shire. This area is becoming smaller as more land is needed for housing, but I am happy as I drive home that I can enjoy the scenery around me and unwind.
My home is a single story house with a garage attached to the side, it has three bedrooms two living areas and two bathrooms, I have a small yard, just enough land to have a garden and a small vegetable plot. Diane, I hope this has given you an insight into my town and where I live. I have been told Melbourne reminds people a little of Seattle if that will help, not sure.
 |
| I took this photo from a hot air ballon eleven years ago, it is early in the morning, with the sun just rising. We were coming over the city from the east, down below is the Yarra river and the tennis stadium in the middle of the photo with the some of the city buildings beyond. |
My friend Jenni gave me a recipe for an Orange and Almond gluten free cake which she often bakes for her family. Not sure how this would taste I was nervous serving it, but as you will see by the photo I need not have had any worries, so I can recommend this if you need a moist and also delicious cake for a celebration cake.
This morning I noticed I had four apples left in the fruit bowl, tomorrow will be my shopping day and because I'll be buying fresh fruit for the coming week, I knew I would have to do something with these. I decided the easiest thing to do was to cook them with a little sugar and I would store them in the fridge, but, you know how it is, once you start to think about it all sorts of things come to mind. As I was cutting the apples I realised I still had plenty of butter, I had some dried apricots and
some dried sultanas. If I made a pastry I could make a pie, then again what about a fruit roll. With the decision made I found my pastry recipe, added the dried apricots and sultanas to the cooking apple, once they were cooked I set aside to cool and worked on the pastry. While this was cooking in the oven, I had enough pastry over to make some jam tarts, these will be good for the grandsons tomorrow after school.
Saturday was the planned and very much anticipated bus excursion for my Quilting group "The Willows" we would be travelling to the other side of our city, to explore and shop at five of the patchwork shops, that are normally too far away for us shop with. It was an early start to the day for us, we were to meet the bus at 7-30am, it was to leave at 7-45am on the dot. Well, the bus was not there when we all arrived, we waited and we waited, it seems the bus driver had been given instructions to be at our meet place at 8-30am. With everyone on board, our organiser for the day handed us a small bag of goodies, inside was a small pack of biscuits with cream cheese, small pack of crisps, a piece of fruit cake, a roll of fabric and a raffle ticket. This was going to be a good day. First shop on our trip was "Catarina's Country" where I found some beautiful Northcott fabric by Ro Gregg called bed of roses, this fabric was part of the quest for a cure, I was dissapointed to find there was only a metre left on the roll but purchased that anyway. The second shop was "Patchwork with Gail B" in Bayswater, this shop was tucked away in the back of Gails fathers tile shop and was a surprise, if I had gone on my own I don't think I would have found this shop. Our next stop would be for lunch, this is the shop I was most excited to see, "Patchwork Teahouse" in Warburton, it is situated in one of the prettiest areas of our state, lots of tree ferns and gum trees surround the shop and we could hear so many birds. Being so close to the snowfields they usually have snow in the winter, this would be very picturesque. We had pre-ordered our lunch and it was almost ready when we arrived, my lunch was homemade pastie with a side salad, my friend had quiche and salad, we both agreed it was delicious and very filling. I was amazed with this shop, there was so much to look at, their displays of fabrics and small gifts was wonderful. I bought a range of Lynette Anderson fabrics from here and could have spent more if I had not decided on a budget. Next stop was "Stitch N Patch" this was a small shop and was very crowded, not much room for the forty of us to move around the store. I did purchase the remaining two pieces of Robyn Pandolph fabrics I needed, but left the store without really have a good look. The last shop was a tiny shop, no more than a shed really which was situated in the back of private premises "A little bit of country" I had a look around but did not purchase anything. We all climbed back on the bus for the long journey home. Oh, the raffle tickets we were given, four prizes were available, but I was not one of the lucky ones. We arrived home to our little town at 6-45pm very tired but happy we had spent a wonderful day with friends, seen some amazing shops, spent our money and I cannot wait till next year for our next shopping adventure where ever that will be.
