mortiz044

Last night we went along to Geraghty Park Hall for the "sold out" Julatten Little Theatre Group annual Dinner Show. What a great night of laughs!  We started the night with a smorgasbord dinner that was really delicious with lots of interesting salads as well as the typical hot dishes of curry's and rice.  I stayed with the salads.  The dessert table was equally spectacular and tantalising.  I decided on a gluten free, dairy free chocolate peppermint slice. Geraghty Hall Once the 200 theatre goers were all feed and seated the show began.  We were taken inside radio station QBC where a "Dad and Dave" style show was being recorded.  It was hilarious and made even more so by the sound man/lady who had to make the sound of footsteps, drinks being poured etc etc.  Of course nothing went as planned. After the play we had a 20 minute interval to refresh our drinks and make toilet stops.  Once we were all seated again the second part of the show began. This was a series

Construction of our pool started 7 weeks ago, and judging by the speed of the team of men it will be another 7 weeks before we get to swim in it!  They drive all the way over to our place from Mareeba - 120 km round trip, and work for just a couple of hours and then they are gone.  I'm just pleased that we have a written quote otherwise it would be doing my head in.  We told them on Friday that it has to be finished in two weeks for the Labour Day weekend but we'll see.  Their work has not been amazing and we have had to make them re-do sections that were just not acceptable. On the other hand we have our builders who started this week, on Monday, just like they told us they would. They start work each day between 6.30 - 7.00 am and work through until 5.00 pm, only stopping for a half hour lunch break. They are incredibly fast and the rotunda went up in no time at all.  They will have the floor down tomorrow and the roof goes up on Tuesday.  How good is that! It has been very n

It was a bit of a rushed trip to Julia Creek this year as we have tradies working at home and it didn't feel right to not be here.  So, we left after lunch on Thursday and were home again by Monday afternoon.  We were away about 96 hours and travelled a couple of thousand kilometres. Those 96 hours, I can tell you, were jam-packed.  We got as far as the Oasis Roadhouse at the Lynd Junction on Thursday night.  This is a great place for an overnighter.  The grounds are nicely grassed, although there are a few khaki burr.  The restrooms are kept sparkling clean and there is nothing like that hot shower at the end of the day. Oasis Roadhouse Van Park The next day we arrived into Julia Creek at around about 3.00 pm.  We collected our tickets for the weekend including our life member tags and headed across to the camping grounds at the Race Course where our friends were staying. Catching up with the Mossman crowd. There was time for a couple of cool beverages before making our way back i

We finalised the purchase of the storage shed in Port Douglas this week.  For us, this is the first step towards living there. It's going to take some time.....years in fact, but we are looking forward to this next part of our retirement. The storage shed is zoned industrial and is 88 sq metres.  We will rent it for 12 months and then look at where we are at. Consequently we spent quite a bit of time in Port this week and visited one of our favourite restaurants - Cafe Fresq - twice.  This little restaurant never disappoints and is always packed with customers.....a testament to the food.  One day I had the zucchini and corn fritters and the next time I ordered the roast vegetable salad.  Both meals were outstanding and packed full of flavour.  I loved the basil oil drizzled over the roast vegetable salad and the addition of a spicy little salsa and whipped feta took the fritters to a new level.  If ever you are in Port Douglas I highly recommend this place. On the home front I had

There is something about Easter.  I love it.  As a kid growing up it was the excitement of finding easter eggs at the end of the bed in the "nest" that we had made from straw laid in cardboard shoe boxes.  Our kids followed the tradition of making nests by filling their cowboy hats with straw or torn up newspaper.  Today as I scroll through Instagram it was filled with photos of kids on an Easter Egg Hunt.  What a great tradition! We started our Easter Weekend on Good Friday with Hot Cross Buns for breakfast and a whole deep fried coral trout with a Thai Salsa for lunch.  Dinner was mud crab and beers. My first ever attempt at Hot Cross Buns. We invited friends for Sunday lunch and it was lovely to sit around for hours and just "shoot the breeze". Lunch was very laid back as I had prepared everything the day before and it was just a matter of throwing a few things in the oven and firing up the BBQ.  I love this style of preparation and it is so different to the way

Last weekend on the 25th March Philip and I celebrated 40 years of marriage.  It seems like quite a milestone these days but interestingly enough our very closest friends have all been married 40 plus years.  I guess we were all just lucky enough to find our soul mates first time around! We had decided some time ago to celebrate quietly by ourselves.  We booked into the Sheraton Mirage at Port Douglas and made dinner reservations at Harrisons Restaurant inside the Sheraton.  Harrisons is owned and operated by Spencer Patrick....the only hatted chef in Port Douglas. We woke to a very bleak rainy day on our wedding anniversary but it never crossed our mind to cancel our reservations. We left home after lunch and made our way very tenuously down the range. There were many landslides and trees across the way.  We weaved our way in and around the debris and were relieved to make it to the bottom of the range. As we continued on to Port the rain got much heavier and we were questioning wheth