Back home again

Dad and I decided to run off to the Grampian mountains in Victoria.

Now we're back.

We ate so much food...and so didn't do anything all weekend, unless you count driving to Horsham for lunch (about 1+1/2 hours each way) each day as something... believe me, the food was worth it. There's this place there called Cafe Jas, and they make fantastic food. Lunch Saturday was a chicken burger (done gourmet style) for me and chicken noodle soup and lasagna for Dad, and I got their fruit punch - best drink ever, and they use frozen fruit chunks as ice-cubes. I got a whole (massive) frozen strawberry the first time - it was yummy, but bled on my jumper (sweater to the USA-ians) when it fell off my spoon. Oh well. Dad had a milkshake, but I converted him to the fruit punch and that was what he had the other two times. Second day Dad got soup again and we got a ploughmans platter to share - three kinds of bread, gourmet ham, smoked salmon, varying kinds of lettuce, pickled onions, cold chicken, branston pickle, swiss cheese, cheddar cheese and camembert. Not bad for $22 total for both of us! So much food we couldnt eat it all, but we definitely enjoyed it. Todays was strawberry pancakes for both of us - pancake, layer of strawberries, pancake, more strawberries, and cinnamon and vanilla flavoured yoghurt to go with it. Very yum.

The pub (which is the only reasonably priced place to get good dinner there) makes enormous serves - I got chicken parmagiana the first night, and ate about 1/4... I forget what dad got but he didn't eat his either. The next two nights we shared a single meal, roast pork Saturday night and chicken parma again last night - with two of us we got through just over 1/2 of it! We also had brandy snaps Saturday night.

Yes, I just spent a lot of time raving about food. I like food.

I also stitched - I took my lowery stand, and put it under a chair so that I could get a fair amount done. And I did! I restarted From The Ashes, and have come to the conclusion that I hate the chart. As I posted on the HAED board:

I restarted From the Ashes, got about 100 stitches in, and realised that no matter what I've tried, I just can't enjoy stitching this particular chart. I love the artwork, and I love HAEDs to stitch in general, but I don't love or even like this chart - it's just too crazy with the background which consists of several different colours EVERYWHERE which means that there is no real background stitching, and what is 'background' is harder to stitch than the detail.

So I hereby bow out of the challenge.

I'll keep stitching on this weekend each month with you all though, Froggy Frog World will come out to play!

On the other hand, I took A Restful Night with me as well and finished the row, and made a small start on the next (fifth) row of blocks while watching the third Harry Potter and Goldmember on TV. Here's a pic (with the wonderful camera which I am SO stealing from now on, even I with my shaky hands can take good stitchy photos now!) of the first four rows:


And now, just photos. I'll explain them all as I go! They're all in thumbnails so as to make this blog entry not too image-heavy.


The road from Horsham (the large rural centre) to Halls Gap (where we stayed) is long and windy (and narrow) up through the mountains. This is about halfway there, looking out towards the reservoir that I forget the name of, but has very nice tasting water.


Me, at the same place.


And this is where we stayed! They're not very big, but they seem much bigger on the inside. Very comfortable too.


This is the view from the front (main) room, looking out across the large grassy space. The road connecting the cabins goes around this, and the kangaroos keep the grass down. No need to mow the lawn!


This is our living room. Dad's wearing a Princeton sweatshirt because that's where the Karl Barth conference he just came back from was held, and he likes college sweatshirts. He has a few of them, but most have holes now.


My dad. Being himself!


My room, complete with a queen size bed - luxury for me, I've got a single bed at home!


This is my stitching chair while we were there, while I was still struggling away at From The Ashes.


We saw a lot of these, they dont mind humans at all.


What I look like actually stitching.


The cabins have both reverse cycle air conditioning and wood stoves. Guess which we picked? I like fires.


This is our little kitchen. We only used it for making tea (the drink) and glasses of water though.


This kangaroo was outside our car and quite happily stayed there.


There were a lot of kangaroos on the lawn


And Dad went over to say hello!


And the last - me with the sun in my eyes, but you can see the mountains. Aren't they beautiful?

Anyway, I'm glad to be home and looking forward to a good night's sleep!