June 24: Happy Birthday Daisy!

Thankyou everyone who sent Daisy such lovely birthday wishes!  She had a wonderful day full of fun and cakes - just like a birthday should be!

June 17-19: Hunter Valley Wine Tour

Spent a long weekend in the Hunter Valley, exploring some of the best Food & wine that New South Wales has to offer.  We hired a small cottage just outside Cessnock at the Southern end of the wine making region. It was in a very quiet and sheltered spot but also very cold as the windows were all single glazed and there was no central heating!!  We did have a jacuzzi on the terrace, which helped and the wine also helped to take the chill off! We visited cellar doors (or 'wine factory outlets'), at Tallowwood, Briar Ridge, Tallvera, Brokenwood, and McWilliams. We also took a behind the scenes tour at McWilliams which we all enjoyed - even Daisy got in on the act, as she was the only one of us small enough to 'taste the terroir' in one of the old oak barrels! Had a fantastic time and will definitely go back - but maybe in the summer.

June 15: Daisy's First Visitors

June 12: Good Food, shame about the weather.

Sunday lunch Sydney style!  Found a great cafe for lunch today with Tom & Kathryn - 'Madame Char Char' on Crown Street.  We visited the museum of Sydney in the morning to see the exhibition '52 Suburbs' ( http://www.52suburbs.com/ ) and then strolled across town, dodging the raindrops, to Crown street.   It's obviously a popular little place as there were no seats available inside so we had to squash up on a table on the street (see above).  After tucking in to roast chicken & a selection of amazing salads, we weren't in any fit state to do anything much so we moved 2 doors down the street for a coffee to recover before walking home!  Bit of a rubbish day weather-wise - hope it clears up this week for our visitors!

June 9: Vivid 2

June 4 (Part 2): Ice Bear

This is a life size sculpture of a polar bear carved from ice yesterday by a British sculptor to highlight the issue of climate change and to celebrate world environment day (June 5th).  By tomorrow the ice should have all melted leaving just the bronze skeleton exposed.  Very cool.

June 4: 'Yo Gabba Gabba'

Can't believe that our first trip to the main concert hall at the opera house was to watch Yo Gabba Gabba!  Daisy was a bit over-awed at first but soon started enjoying the music and dancing. . . . AWESOME!