Dunsborough in South West WA is the perfect place for a family holiday. I have just returned from a five day break with the whole family, dear husband, our two children and partners and two grandchildren.
I searched very hard for the best house, it wasn’t easy, as it had to accommodate six adults and two children, be close to the beach and not too far from town! I finally found a four bedroom house just 30 seconds from the beach and a short drive into town. It was called Quindalup Boat House.
We took three cars and many bags and suitcases with us.
The view from the house
Walking to the beach
Inside the house
Happy hour on the verandah
My Iron Chef
Lachie found a very good use for the wine rack
Quindalup Beach
The coast goes on for miles here and is very sheltered making it the ideal place for small children. Lachie and Rosie loved every minute on the beach. It’s great for running and walking.
Searching for treasures
The Old Man and the Sea
From bed to beach
Oops forgot to put bathers on
Over the next few days we visited farms, playgrounds, breweries, pubs and of course the beach everyday. We didn’t always do everything together and gave each other enough space to enjoy our own individual outings.
I think it’s been the one good thing about Covid that Laurence and Maddy were able to join us, having arrived from Melbourne before the borders closed.
Everyone agreed that it was one of the best holidays we’ve ever taken! Over the next few posts I will be writing about some of the places we visited.
This week for me has been exceptionally busy with all kinds of things. I haven’t had much time at all to sit and blog, although I’ve been reading a few. My posts all seem to stay in my head and when I do get to sit at the computer, they’ve disappeared!
I’ll start with Friday. A friend from my Zumba class was hosting an Abba Party at her house on Friday evening. It was such a fun evening, everyone dressed up and danced for hours. I danced like a teenager but forgot to tell my body. Aches and pains followed the next day.
Most Mondays are now spent looking after my two precious grandchildren while my daughter works. It’s hard work for sure but such a privilege to be with them. This week I had Maddy’s help and we were able to go to Lake Claremont for a little walk and play.
Of course we had to stop in the cafe for a treat on the way back, Rosie mesmerised by herself!
Monday evening we met up with some very dear friends from South Australia on their last night in WA. We have been playing catch up for years and this is the first time in 17 years that we’ve been able to see them.
Tuesday and Friday are Bridge playing days. Tuesday was good, Friday bad! The mornings playing Bridge go so quickly and this is one of the things that I can completely focus on. Wednesday I was also at the Bridge Club having lessons! The weather on Tuesday and Wednesday was atrocious, high speed winds and heavy slanting rain. Such a difference to Monday.
I walked to the Bridge Club on Friday, a drastic improvement in the weather.
Wednesday night was also out for dinner with Laurence and Maddy. I must say that is the only good thing to come out of Covid that they have managed to get back from Melbourne to stay with us for a couple of months.
At our favourite restaurant – Bellisimo
We are having a bathroom renovated and also some trees cut down in the garden, so people have been coming and going all week with trucks and vans. Scaffolding has been put up so Laurence could get to the trees easier! Well he has to earn his keep somehow.
Happy places for me are anywhere my family are and my happy spaces are on a dance floor or at a Bridge table!
Another month of books reviews from Deb at Debs-World. A challenge Deb and some others are hosting called What’s on your Bookshelf
My bookclub this month chose Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell. It’s all about William and Anne Shakespeare and their children, mainly about the death of one of them. Sadly this was a DNF for me. It was just too “purple”, using ten words where one would do. It does have some great reviews, but in amongst all those five stars I spotted a few that thought along the same lines as me!
I have read another book by this author – The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox – which I really enjoyed – 4* from me.
I finished The Rose Code by Kate Quinn, recommended by Deb last month, I can’t say it was a favourite of mine – 3*. I recommended it to a friend and she loved it and has gone onto read the others in the series.
I read another of one of my favourite authors – Allie Cresswell, Relative Strangers. A book about a very dysfunctional family who get together one week in a stately manor for a celebratory anniversary. It ends in carnage and mayhem with some falling out and some getting closer. I enjoyed this book although not as much as her others – 4*.
On my shelf for this month are:
The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde – Eve Chase In the Dark – Deborah Moggach Treasure and Dirt – Chris Hammer
An A to Z of my favourite authors
I thought I would select a few each month of favourite authors to share.
Isabel Allende – Daughter of Fortune and Portrait in Sepia Kate Atkinson – Jackson Brodie series
When I first arrived in Perth, WA in 2004 and had reason to visit the Claremont Showgrounds, I was amazed at the size of this small enclave of buildings. It seemed like a well kept ghost village. There was a ferris wheel and a chairlift that goes all around the huge perimeter of the showgrounds, mostly unused for 90% of the year, I thought what a colossal waste. Sitting on 32 acres of prime land and home to The Royal Show for a week in October. Since then I believe it has opened up much more to concerts, events and markets. Also it is now home to the Covid Vaccination Clinic.
On the last day of The Royal Show the whole family visited. For me it was only the second time I had been to a show and for Lachie and Rosie their very first.
It wasn’t as busy and crowded as I thought it would be, although there were still small queues for the mini rides for Lachie. It was quite funny really, five adults all standing around waiting for Lachie to hop on a ride and shout and cheer him on while he passed slowly by. After lining up for one ride and getting to the front, he declined to board a truck wanting to wait for the black truck to become vacant, it was worth the wait just to see his face.
Soaking up the atmosphere and enjoying the view
I ended up buying far too many tokens thinking Lachie would want to go on all the rides but he was more interested in the animals.
Peregrine Falcon
At first I thought most of the owls on display were stuffed! They never moved a muscle or blinked an eye.
A wonderful array of animals
With so many animals to see it was hard to choose a favourite. There was baby chick holding, kitten cuddling, pig patting and goat stroking. The queues for the kittens and baby chicks were far too long for a three year old to wait his turn so we had to miss those out.
We walked down side show alley and purchased a show bag for Lachie, Laurence tried his hand at shooting hoops and managed to win a prize for Lachie on the rifle range, what a great shot.
After a few hours of walking around we were all in need of a stiff drink and food. We found a bench outside and enjoyed cocktails, wine, beer and a few tacos. Rosie was getting fractious by now and it was time to leave. The noise levels were well beyond my capacity by now and I needed to get back also for a lie down. But it was a great day out, to be repeated again in another ten years – maybe!
This week for CFFC Cee has chosen the song The Greatest Love of All. Immortalised by George Benson and then again by Whitney Houston, two fantastic singers.
I have seen many wonderful posts linked back to Cee and look forward to reading a few. I chose to create a Canva video.
What a fun day today was going to be, a mystery tour had been planned for a coachful of women! Reminiscent of a school outing with our names being ticked off by Vicki as we boarded. It was non-stop chatter from the moment we sat down and Laura our lovely instructor had to whistle very loudly to get our attention. We boarded at 10.30 am and would be back at 4pm, no-one had a clue about where we would be going.
Our first stop was a winery for a quick tour and of course the requisite wine tasting. The winery was Aravina Winery, a 180 acre property with a surfing museum attached in Yallingup. The owners were very accommodating and explained each wine as it was tasted.
👰 A great place to get married 🤵
Just a taste
A step back in time
After sampling many wines we were back on the bus and onto our next mystery destination. This time also stopping for lunch. With much guessing going on we finally arrived at Black Brewing Company. Two large tables had been reserved for us and the staff did an excellent job of serving so many ladies! I was one of the lucky ones who was served very quickly, some were not so fortunate and waited for a while.
A few of the ladies that were still sitting by the time I got around to taking a photo
This place had the most amazing grounds, so after lunch I had a walk around to snap a few more shots. There was intermittent rain so it was a case of dodging it while walking.
A small island sat on the opposite side of the bridge with a stunning gazebo.
Each of the glass windows had a story of winemaking written on them with wonderful artwork. The photos didn’t quite come out the way I wanted.
Back on the bus and our next two stops were more about shopping. The first one was Vasse Virgin Olive Oil. All products were natural, made with olive oil, plant extracts and essential oils. We had a great time here sampling all the products and getting hand scrubs.
What finishes off a day nicely, a trip to a chocolate factory goes down very well with anyone, and that’s where our last stop was, The Margaret River Chocolate Factory.
I bought a few gifts to take home and all the ladies were given a bar by the lovely Laura.
So this was a no dancing day as everyone was pretty tired after a hard day’s touring. A very quiet pizza party was planned for the evening with cupcake decorating for dessert.
Day Four
More eating today with morning tea at Cape Lavender Teahouse. Devonshire Cream teas with lavender scones, cream and jam, just the best start to the day.
I was so happy that they did gluten free also, enjoyed every bite. There was also a gift shop, so did the obligatory shop and came away with even more gifts.
Yallingup Maze was next and then lunch at another brewery. Lisa and I opted instead for more shopping and a walk along the beach before a zumba class at 4.15.
Geographe Bay
Our last night’s party had a Bollywood theme with everyone invited to dress up and bring a curry. The outfits were amazing and everyone made such a great effort and the food was gourmet standard.
And so ends a fantastic five nights of dancing, eating, drinking, making new friends and catching up with old ones. A magnificent achievement by our zumba instructors – maybe next year back to Bali!
This is a new challenge for me and it’s hosted by Deb over at Deb’s World with a few other bloggers. It’s called What’s on your Book Shelf.
I love reading and have always done so, ever since I could read. I enjoy a good crime novel and I think the earliest ones I ever read were the Enid Blyton Famous Five books and Secret Seven. I really wanted to be in those gangs and they fired up my imagination to search for more of the same. Then came Agatha Christie and I don’t think I ever guessed who did it.
These days I read all types of fiction books which is my preference, rather than an autobiography or non-fiction.
I’ve just read the following three books.
They are about three different women, Jocelyn, Georgina and Evelyn.
This is the first in the trilogy. It’s mainly about Jocelyn who is banished to Tall Chimneys. We don’t find out the reason until later on in the story. She is humiliated and dishonoured and sent to live with just a few staff in the North of England. It is set in the Regency period where appearances matter above all else.
I loved this book and was transported back to a time when women were just puppets made to do as they were told by the men in their lives.
This is the second one and it does say it’s a stand alone but it would definitely make more sense to read the first. In this book we also don’t find out until later on why Georgina insists on wearing a veil. It is set in the year 1835 and not much has changed for women who still continue to do as their male relatives tell them. I enjoyed this book very much and it was a definite change from the usual psychological thrillers I usually read.
Tall Chimneys is set at a much later period, just before and during the second world war. This can be read as a standalone. It is about Evelyn who is banished to Tall Chimneys as the family don’t quite know what to do with her. I enjoyed this one the most as I felt I really got to know Evelyn and her trials and tribulations against the men in her life and how much her home meant to her.
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
Another book I also loved is the first novel by Chris Whittaker called Tall Oaks. Last year I read another one by him called We Begin at the End, this would be one of my all time favourite novels. What a talented author this man is to be able to write from a 14 year old girl’s viewpoint. They are both contemporary fiction and each features a police officer trying to solve a crime. Both have twists that I didn’t see coming.
I do belong to a book club and we meet once a month, usually in a cafe or in the house of whoever chose the book. It is called the Dancing Queens Book Club because we mainly all met at zumba!
We chose our books around two months in advance. Some of the books I love but some are DNF’s! which is a bit slack of me, but life is too short to read something I can’t get into. It’s one of the reasons I love my kindle as I can download samples to see if they grab me or not. I can usually get a feel of whether I’m going to enjoy the book by the first chapter although I do try and give it the 100 page test.
My two adorable grandchildren enjoying their books
I thought it was high time we went out for dinner in the city, so yesterday I booked a restaurant that we’ve been to before but not for a while. Normally we tend to just visit our local as we know what we’re getting and always enjoy it! But time for a change. We only live 15 minutes away so it’s not a hassle.
When we arrived our hostess showed us to our table upstairs. I didn’t even know this place had an upstairs let alone a roof top area. We had a lovely table with an outside heater, although one arm got very warm while the other froze! I wondered being right at the top how the service would be. Well no worries there because we didn’t have to wait long at all. The service at this restaurant is first class and the atmosphere was wonderful.
Hubs and me enjoying city life at night on the rooftop of The Standard, Northbridge, Perth
OUR FOOD
Here we have Garlic Potato Gems, Caramelised Pork Satay Dip with Puffed Rice Crackers, Crispy Fried Chicken, Shredded Duck with Rolled Turmeric Wafer and Jumbo Tiger Prawns in Black Pepper Butter.
The menu had a few sections, Eats, Small Plates and Large Plates. We went for a few small plates, before I got too carried away the waitress stopped me and said that’s enough!
Accompanied by a Tasmanian Pinot Noir
I think Perth must be one of the few cities left in Australia where the hospitality industry is booming. I hope before too long that the other capital cities begin to thrive again soon.
PS: I posted some photos on Facebook and Instagram but cut off Hubby’s head! I sure got lots of comments about that.
Posted as part of Six Word Saturday hosted by Debbie at Travel with Intent.
The month of June for me started with quarantine and is ending with lockdown! Plenty of time for blogging.
WEEK ONE
The first week was spent at home in quarantine as we had been in Melbourne and Sydney the previous week. It was only 11 days as the 3 days in Sydney were counted as part of that. My daughter’s partner very kindly brought our two boys back to us from their little vacay in The Big Paws Hotel.
What to do about their walks though? Dear Hubby (DH) opened up our two side gates and created a mini circuit around the house. He very diligently walked around and around for an hour every day. At first the boys followed and thought what new game is this, but just after a few days grew bored with this as I did! He also decided that our bougainvillea needed cutting back and as a verge collection was coming up, we tackled this head on.
Somebody is protesting against no walks!
A huge job
We relied on the kindness of friends and neighbours and some online shopping for our food and wine.
One day I had a surprise visit from a good friend and we sat outside, socially distanced and had a lovely chat. She brought some beautiful tulips and a small bag of exotic fruit, lucky me.
The beautiful tulips she brought as a gift.
WEEK TWO
The second week we were able to get out for dinner and celebrate our 30th Wedding Anniversary, definitely something worth celebrating. We had dinner with very dear friends at a restaurant called Dilly Dally.
Not too much change 😬
This week was also the first time I had seen my two adorable grandchildren for nearly a month.
It was good to catch up with these two precious bundles. I could also get back to my weekly activities of zumba, Bridge and Mahjong.
WEEK THREE
This week was much the same as before. I did venture out with a girlfriend one night to our line dancing class. Not the boot scooting kind but more dancing in lines. Such great fun and we get plenty of exercise doing this.
Our couches are getting ruined by our spoilt boys so I ordered a couch cover for one of the couches to see if this would improve things.
Not quite what I had in mind!
WEEK FOUR
It was Book Club this week and the book this month was The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Kranostein. This was not a book I could relate to even though it had some pretty good reviews. There are 11 of us in the club and I think most enjoyed it.
Our Girls Games Night was also this week and it was my turn to host. My son and his girlfriend bought me a Murder Mystery game for my birthday. Even though it’s meant for male and female, my friends were all okay about some of them dressing up as men. It was a brilliant evening and everyone made such a great effort with their costumes.
A Slice of Murder
Also during this last week was my Grandson, Lachie’s third birthday, what excitement that was. He sure did receive a lot of gifts.
My little lumberjack
Last of the month from today’s walk around the lake.
I hope everyone else had a good June also, look forward to hearing all about it over at The Changing Season hosted by Ju-Lynn this month. Next month Brian at Bushboys World will be hosting.
Who doesn’t like a good game? Well my dear husband for one (DH), but I grew up playing them. Christmas and Boxing Day were the best days back then. Our whole extended family got together on Boxing Day and played all kinds of games. Escalado was an absolute favourite with everyone. We played the wind up version with all of us shouting and cheering, of course bets were taken.
Nowadays there are so many games out there and just over a year ago I got together with a group of likeminded ladies and we formed a monthly games night. There are seven of us and each month we take it in turns to host and we play several different games. We start around 6pm with cocktails and nibbles and a general catch up on our lives and then get started. It is absolutely the best fun and generally laugh till we cry.
The Games
I think our favourite so far is Telestrations. “Each player begins by sketching a TELESTRATIONS word dictated by the roll of a die. There is a sand timer to limit the time for drawing. When the time is up all players, all at the same time, pass their sketch to the next player, who must guess what’s been drawn. Players then simultaneously pass their guess — which hopefully matches the original word (or does it??) — to the next player who must try to draw the word they see — and so on.” This game has us in hysterics – at times we are just so stumped that only a wild guess is made. A pictorial Chinese Whispers!
Midnight Taboo
Not to be confused with just Taboo! This is a team game and they must guest the target word from your clues, but you must not say the forbidden words! An adjudicator with the buzzer is looking over your shoulder!
Qwirkle
Qwirkle a strategic matching tile game where you really have to have your thinking cap on! Where you find out who is the most competitive. We’ve played this on many occasions as the rules are easy.
Pictionary
Another drawing game, where you find out who the artists are! Also it depends what version you play, Australian, English or American. So many of the words and phrases have us baffled.
My adult children also love to play games and I try to find a new game every Christmas that is fun.
Watch Your Mouth is another game that is just so hilarious that we all end up with tears running down our face. A person has to say a phrase whilst wearing a mouth guard! The frustration that comes with repeating the same phrase but the same nonsense coming out is the funniest thing to watch. Highly recommended.
Tiny Hands is a team game and also great fun to play with likeminded souls who don’t mind looking silly. There are various stunts that have to be pulled off with your your tiny hands, catching a ball, tying a knot or serving someone a drink.
This month it is my turn to host our Girls Games Night and we will be having a Murder Mystery Evening. Everyone dressing up in the roles that they have been assigned. Hopefully a fun night.
Has anyone played any of these games, or have some that they love playing? Would love to hear.
