mortiz044

 Michelle had mentioned over dinner last night that she had taken her mother to Finns Beach Club at Kuta on their last visit to Bali and her mum had loved it so we decided that we would go there today and check it out. We finally hailed a taxi on this busy Sunday morning and it wasn't our taxi of choice.  The best taxi to hail in Bali is the Blue Bird Taxi as they are metered whereas the others just charge what they want! It cost us approximately $20AU to get to Finns which was a bit expensive for the 6km journey but the traffic is so congested that it took us almost half an hour to get there! Finns Beach Club is very upmarket and quite a nice place to relax.  We chose the four person day bed on the oceans edge and with its large umbrella it gave shade to those of us who needed it.  We really just chilled out sipping cocktails (for the ladies) and Bintang Beer (for the boys).  When we became too hot we took a dip in the large wet edge pool, and for Philip it was...

Our red eye flight with Jetstar from Cairns arriving into Denpassar at about 2am was not the idyllic way to start our holiday in Bali but our arrival greeting at Umna Sapna Villas was warm and wonderful, so the flight was soon forgotten.  Waiting for us in our Villa was a delicious green ginger tea and fruit platter that hit the right spot after our 4½ hour flight. Here are some photos inside our private Villa called "Bunaken". We had said to our friends who are also staying at Umna Sapna, to not expect us at breakfast on our first day.  We thought we would need to catch up on sleep but alas, sleep eluded us. We wandered over to Kilo Kitchen Restaurant when we woke and it was a lovely surprise see our friends sitting there enjoying breakfast.   Over breakfast we decided that we would walk around Seminyak to get our bearings and stop for lunch when we found somewhere nice.  After about an hour walking we heard music playing down an alleyway so we followed the sound an...

It is a glorious morning here today with a feeling of Spring in the air.  The garden doesn't quite know what to make of this weather and I have plants flowering earlier than normal. The passionfruit vine has had fruit for many months and is still flowering. The navel orange really doesn't know what to do with itself and has new fruit and more flowers! The mango tree looks hopeful, with many blossoms, but a drenching of unseasonal rain will see the end to them, as it did last year. The Star Apple Tree that we planted from seed about seven years ago is laden with it's very delicious fruit.  It must have known that it was heading for the mulch pile if it didn't fruit this year. And can we talk about the Jade Vine!  It is not even twelve months old and the beautiful metre long flowers are putting on a beautiful display. In the paddock, our calving is two thirds of the way through and I love watching the calves play.  What a wonderful life they have here at Julatten!

My birthday week has officially started with one of the loveliest surprises......ever!  Would you look at this cake! My gorgeous and very talented friend made it for me.  It is a "Tree of Life" cake and it is truly one of the loveliest cakes I have ever seen let alone been presented with! I told Kate afterwards that I don't remember the last time I had a birthday cake because, as everyone knows, I don't "do" birthdays. I really dislike being the centre of attention. We went to Kate's place for a bbq lunch to celebrate Kate's birthday with her lovely family and not for a moment did I expect to also be part of the celebration.  I was very overwhelmed by the whole thing.   If I didn't say it to you Kate, thank you very much for being such a kind, thoughtful and generous friend.  I love you heaps. xx

Taste Port Douglas  is a celebration of food and the idea is to bring some of Australia's top chefs to the north to prepare and cook five star meals in various venues in the Port Douglas/Cairns region.  This year those restaurants included Salsa, Bistro H, Harrisons, Tamarind and Nu Nu. As I looked over the programme for the weekend, some months ago, I decided that "Porkstar", to be held on the beautiful and iconic Sugar Wharf in Port Douglas, might be the dinner of choice.  After all, who could go wrong with chefs Colin Fassnidge, Paul Baker, Spencer Patrick and Mitch Edwards, and who doesn't like a feed of pork. We (five in our party) arrived nice and early to watch the sunset over Dickson Inlet and also to have a photo shoot with Colin Fassnidge who was taking care of his contribution to the nights dinner - main course. As we entered the lovely venue with all the gorgeous chinese lanterns, we were handed a glass of champagne and we made our way to the end of the wh...

Sorry folks, it's been awhile since my last post.  Has it really been a month?  I thought that once we were retired that I would have more time to update my blog.  It was my goal to write a least once a week but sadly that has not happened, but I do intend trying a bit harder. July was "Dry July" for me and I did not ask for donations from friends and family - god knows everyone is doing it tough, so what I did was donate what I thought I had saved by not having any alcoholic beverages for the month.  The dry July campaign raised over $4 million for cancer so I'm very happy to be part of that. Dry July was relatively easy, apart from the State of Origin finals when I really  felt like a glass of champers to celebrate the series win.  Wasn't that a great game!  We get together with a few friends from Julatten to watch the finals.  We all bring a plate of food to eat at the communal table.  I took along a plateful of Spanakopita and Meatballs. ...