Making and Baking

It's been a pretty dull week for the last week of the holidays.  I would be prepared to put money on the fact that the sun will be splitting the heavens on Monday morning.

We were lucky to have a nice day for our jaunt to Sydney on Sunday, although we were indoors most of the time so it wouldn't really have mattered!  We went to see the Harry Potter Exhibition at The Powerhouse Museum as part of everybody's Christmas presents.  I have never heard Jonathan say "COOOOOL!" quite so often.  It was pretty impressive but, according to John, not as interactive as the ('obviously far superior' - in his words) Star Wars Exhibition that they visited there 3 years ago.  Unfortunately the gift shop was ridiculously over-priced so Mean Mummy said "no" to souvenirs.  I was pretty disappointed that there was nothing in the pocket money range.  Before lunch we also popped into The Wiggles Exhibition (who wouldn't after all the scandal last week?!) downstairs which suited Robert perfectly.

On the train, wearing my 'Wendy' necklace

Walking through some Chinese New Year celebrations in Belmore Park

Quick muck about in fountains at Darling Harbour

So far this week we have been mostly indoors reading lots  (favourites have been Hugo Cabret, The Famous Five, Gangsta Granny, various comics, The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The BFG) playing Robert's favourite Marvel memory game (he wipes the floor with the rest of us), playing with Lego, having friends for sleep-overs, watching Harry Potter (again) (and again), bickering, scrapping, tidying, although there has been some football, scooting, ripstiking and dog-walking thrown in for good measure.  I have even done some Making and Baking.

I've been working on another Isar scarf.  So simple but so suited to these lovely colour-change yarns.  I worked on this while chatting to Smallest and being swooped around by Miss Meg practising her RipStik moves.

Too fast!

Then I've been after more inspiration for the sewing machine.  I'm desperate to learn to sew properly before I mess up some very important project so I'm doing lots of mending (I do live with a lot of boys) and finding more things to do with all the scraps I have floating around.   I fancied trying an apron, although I never wear one.  Instead I just wander around with tea-towels slung casually over my shoulder.  I figured they should be fairly easy, no zips or buttons required, and did some googling.  I didn't find anything that appealed but did find an annoying tea-towel that never properly dries anything which got me thinking.  A quick trip to Spotlight,  $2 and 15 mins later and I had an apron that I actually like and have worn!

The next thing was inspired by tutorials found on Pinterest  (more specifically here and here).  I had a couple of zips hanging around and wanted to see how to attach them and came up with this.  I'm ridiculously pleased with it although it's not quite perfect.

 Then to the baking, there really hasn't been much of it these holidays so we decided to rectify that this morning.  Joseph wanted to help bake some bread, we mixed up some Granola and then baked some of Nigella's Flourless Chocolate Brownies.  I have just finished one with my cuppa and to call them divine would be an understatement.  Must resist the ones left on the plate...

We're off to read some Burns poetry for Burns Night, although sadly no haggis (must try and make one myself sometime), then tomorrow we'll be bbq-ing some snags for Australia Day.  Weather looking like it will be rubbish so not sure what Aussies do when they can't get to the beach?

Whatever you're celebrating I hope it's a good one!

Bondi

Today was the first day of the holidays and the first day of Husband going away for a week to the Big Smoke.  He is off to Sydney to take part in a series of lectures at New College, and rather than zip back up and down everyday they are putting him up for the week.  We decided that, since he wasn't required until dinnertime, that we would take him down and spend the day together exploring a bit more of Sydney.  New College is part of the University of New South Wales and is very close to Bondi so we thought we would head there for lunch and go from there.  My parents had been to Bondi a number of years ago, before we came here, and reported back that they had been distinctly under-whelmed by the most famous beach in Australia, so I wasn't expecting too much.  My first thought was that it was a bit like Portrush where my Mother grew up in N.Ireland!  It is much more commercial than our beaches in Newcastle and to be honest I'll take Merewether any day, but we did like it and had fun.

We had lunch in a great pizzeria "Papa Giovannis".  The owner was delighted by all the children and wanted to know were they all ours?   Were we Catholic?  If not why did we have so many?   Why didn't we stop after the girl?  Were we having more?  Were we mad? and so on!  John chatted to his son for ages about Italian football and the kids were given samples of all the different gelato that they make!  If you're ever in Bondi, tell them the crazy Irish/Scottish football-mad family with all the kids sent you!  The pizzas were great and the kids meals were fantastic.

We took our coffees and gelati to the beach and the usual running/jumping/racing competitions ensued.

It didn't take long before Smallest got soaked!  Thankfully there were spare hoodies, warm sunshine and kind Big Brothers.

I do love exploring Sydney.  While I like living in a much smaller city I get a real buzz whenever I see all the skyscrapers, I love the busy streets and all the quirky shops and the unique characters in the different suburbs.  If we had had longer I would have loved to have a walk  or visit other less well-known parts like Bronte and Coogee - another time.

Miss Meg and I will be back in Sydney on Saturday for Mary Poppins so maybe we'll try and fit in a bit more exploring without all the boys.