i've been photographing soap and jam

i spent a lot of available daylight time setting up for and photographing my jam and soap. i've put together a little slideshow to see if it all works. if it does then i'll use something like this in my 'under construction' page for my website..
please click on the 'view slideshow' button.

pete's favourite pudding

the weather is cooling down and we've had plenty of rain, so it's time to cook warming foods like lasagne (olympia's favourite) which we had for dinner last night. and i made pudding for pete. it is pretty easy and tastes way better than it looks.

take:
3 eggs
a cup of cream
a few dessertspoons of sugar
a heaped tablespoon of plain flour
6 waffles (toast for extra taste)
a block of white chocolate chopped coarse
2 cups or so of berries (preferably not strawberries)

then:
mix wet the first four things and pour over the remained which have been layered into an oven-proof bowl. grate nutmeg generously over the pudding, and cook in a moderate oven for about 40 minutes. let sit for a while before you serve it.

rosie's birthday tomorrow

my baby turns 23 tomorrow! well, a long long time ago she was my baby. a gurgling, smiling and perfect child. and still is. we watched her perform with 'the bakery' at surry hills festival today in the afternoon sunlight. the band rocks, and the crowd agreed.
tomorrow 'the bakery' perform at another festival and then rosie has a solo gig in paddington. she is launching a mini-ep and will perform with some friends. should be great. i've made 100 little white cup-cakes to share around.

we stayed at bobo creek

pete had an eventful trip up to bob creek with a 6 tonne truck carrying the cottage. eventful only when they finally made it through the gate onto the property and the truck bogged. 'she'll be right' were the words of the driver despite pete's concerns that it was pretty soft underfoot. anyway, it wasn't really all right, as they had to hastily unload the contents, dig out the truck wheels, and then reverse painstakingly step by step back along the kilometre or more of driveway, including a narrow bridge. all this under the light of the full moon. the truck drove back to sydney and pete and suriyan found food and bedding and slept by the creek in the cabin.
meanwhile mookhi, isabel and i took the early train to taree. it is over 5 hours but the most spectacular trip and i got lots of knitting done and started to read 'timeless simplicity' (some quotes later). we were glad to see pete and suriyan and even gladder to leave the noise of speedboats on the wide and gracious manning river behind and head to bobo creek.
mookhi spent hours wondering and climbing trees, and measuring the depths of the creek. izzy and i walked up and down the creek imagining our cousins playing in it. pete and i stacked and cover wood and walked over the whole property (some feat, as 40 acres is pretty impressive) and talked about our dreams for the place (some feat too, as our dreams are pretty impressive. suriyan took amazing photos with his new camera.
we ate well and slept well lulled by the constant babble of the creek. we played and sang and the girls squabbled and eventually played nicely.
then all too soon the drive home. a great lime thickshake on the house at the new cafe in nabiac and then on to rebecca's for an amazing easter feast with organic roast pork, masses of veges, miniature berry pavlovas and easter eggs thanks to my parents, rebec and shivaji. our contribution was our unwashed state - although i had swum in the creek...
now we can't wait to get up there again.

the early sun through the treesizzy holding up this huge tree
the cabin by the creek and the girls' tent
this is where we will reconstruct the cottage
more of the creek - deep enough to swim

more views of the deconstruction

here is more of what went into the dismantling. thanks to jay and simon and especially my dad, david who spent a day lifting and wrenching out recalcitrant nails.



pete and suriyan will take the cottage up to bobo creek tomorrow with a 6 tonne truck and two guys. p and s will stay up there and i'll bring izzy mookhi on the train on friday. yay! we finally get to sleep there. it will be basic but will give us a first taste of it all. more photos when we get back...

google bobo creek

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inside the cottage

the cottage
Originally uploaded by lyrebirdcreate

the cottage was like this when it was standing. now is neatly stacked piles of wood and windows and flooring and all the other bits and pieces waiting for the truck to take it all north where it will sit in the shed until we can get up there to put it all back together.

taking it down

pete worked until the rain made it impossible. the cottage is almost ready to load onto the truck. a fair sized load of discarded gyprock and tiles will have to got to the tip, but it means we get to line the cottage with recycled timber - we're thinking of old paling fences for a thoroughly rustic look...