Monday 9 August 2010

Back To Reality!

I'm BAAAAAAAACK!! Did you miss me??? I'll pretend you said yes! :0) Well, my beloved Geek Boy and I are back from our holiday travels of the last two weeks - and almost decided we were going away again, since the night we arrived home saw the temperatures dip to 4 degrees! Now, that may not seem too cold to some of you and it wasn't even the lowest we've hit in Toowoomba this winter, but after two weeks of coastal and northern warmth, it was a bit of a rude homecoming!

Still, we had a wonderful time away - saw lots, did lots, caught up with lots of family and friends  and (much to GB's dismay!!) ... SHOPPED LOTS! Tee! Hee! Hee! I won't try to tell you all about it in one post (did you just hear Chookyblue give a sigh of relief?!? Tee! Hee! Hee!) but over the next few days, I'll fill you in on a few of our adventures.

Firstly, though, I'll apologise for dropping off the radar for the whole time. I had planned to post a couple of times and keep up with emails, but we just didn't have reliable internet for most of our time away - The best laid plans of mice and men  etc! Thanks to all the OPAM gals who emailed their finishes to me. Never fear - even though you didn't hear back from me as you usually do, your finishes were added to the OPAM spreadsheet. And on that subject, I'd like to give a HUGE ...

THANK YOU!!

... to my OPAM partner in crime, the gorgeous Peg, who carried the bulk of the OPAM load this month due to my patchy internet access - thanks Peg! You're a Wonder Woman! :0) OK ... now on to our adventures ...

After much scrambling to pack ports, check lists, convince dogs they were NOT coming this time, write lists for house-sitter, get dogs out of the car, check lists again ... you get the picture! The usual 'going on holidays' chaos ... we headed north east to Noosaville, where we'd booked a lovely unit for five days of beach bliss. So, of course ... IT RAINED! Though there were patches of ordinary old overcast to break up the rain, it was WET! SIGH! This always happens when we head to the beach, but we figure it's still warmer than Toowoomba and rain is a bit of a novelty, so being veterans of wet beach weather ... we did other things! :0)

Our days started with a 'weather report' ... which involved stepping out on to the balcony to see what the day was like ...


Here is our balcony view - it's a tough job, but SOMEONE had to do it! Tee! Hee! Hee! Our unit overlooked one of Noosa's canals and that meant that some of our neighbours had weathers and webbed feet ... do you see that little torpedo speeding into the bottom of the frame?


He had friends! :0) It was a lovely way to start the day, communing with nature. :0)

Since it was a bit grey and cold at the beach, we headed inland a bit and up into the hills to visit one of our favourite places - Montville. If you haven't been there and you're ever in the vicinity, you really should include it on your itinerary. Set amongst rolling green hills that remind me of photos of Scotland and Ireland, you'll find a cute little village that has lots of wonderful shops to browse through, coffee shops to get your caffeine fix and restaurants to relax and enjoy a delicious meal. The best part? You can do all of these things while enjoying this view ...


Isn't it great!! I think perhaps it's good that I don't live at Montville, though, cos I'd spend so much time admiring the view that I would never get anything done! Tee! Hee! Hee!


Here's GB checking out the scenery from the deck of the restaurant where we had the YUMMIEST barramundi lunch ever! It's a bit hard to see due to the haze, but on a clear day, you can see the ocean from here too - the best of all worlds! :0)


This is one of the great buildings at Montville - very soothing to listen to the water splashing over the waterwheel.

So ... after a day of enjoyable browsing, view-admiring and shopping (forgot to take photos of my purchases! Oops!) what better way to end the day than ...


Feet up, canal views, a glass of my fave berry wine and a fave book .... AAAAAAAHHH!!! Life doesn't get much better! :0)

The next day was a quiet one, we slept in, communed with the ducky neighbours, checked out my Uncle and Aunt's new home in the area and generally kicked back - we have to do a bit of a balancing act when we're on holidays, cos while I like to be out and about having adventures, GB just likes to kick back and sleep/read/play on his computer ... So the quiet day was balanced by dinner out at a lovely restaurant where we met up with someone who I think many of you will know ... Lynette Anderson and her beloved Vince!


Here we all are, after enjoying a DELICIOUS meal at Lynette and Vince's fave restaurant ... the Blue Fish ... I think ... I'm not 100% certain of the name! Oops! We had a wonderful evening of good food, fine wine and LOTS of chatting! The boys exchanged geek-speak (techo talk!) and Lynette and I chatted about ... hmmm ... well ... EVERYTHING! :0) Definitely NO awkward silences! Tee! Hee! Hee! Lynette and I have chatted via email a bit, but this was the first time we'd met up and we had a fabulous time - look forward to catching up again soon, Lynette and Vince and thank you for a really enjoyable evening ! :0) Actually, Lynette and I will get to catch up a little in September when she comes to Toowoomba as one of the guest tutors at Marion's Stitchers' Dream Day Out event ... can't wait! :0)

After a VERY rainy night, we tossed up whether to go to the markets at Eumundi or not (they're only on Saturday and Wednesday and we'd missed the Saturday ones) but finally decided to brave the mud ... and mud there was ... in ABUNDANCE! Hmmm ... they really should consider paving their car park!!! While the Wednesday markets are a little smaller than the Saturday event, there was still plenty to do and see, including this guy ...


He was tickling the ivories on this spinet and it reminded me of the old western movies where there's a guy off in the corner playing a slightly out-of-tune piano. As you can tell by the photo ... he was a real character! :0) After picking up a few birthday gifties to put in my birthday basket, we enjoyed some freshly made Dutch pancakes with fresh local strawberries - YUMMO!! - then headed back to the unit when it started showering again.

And having come to the end of our five days 'at the beach' we headed inland the next day to my parents at Mundubbera for a couple of days before heading further north ... but I'll tell you about that next time! :0) Right now, I'm off to answer a few more of the 88 emails I found in my "In box" when I got home ... EEP! And there were over 100 blog posts in my RSS feeds folders, too - WOW! You blogging buddies sure had been busy while I was away! :0) I'm gradually catching up with my blog reading and answering the emails, so if you haven't heard from me ... hang in there, I'm getting to you! Tee! Hee! Hee! Til next time ...

BEAR HUGS!
CHEERS!
KRIS

18 comments:

Maria said...

Despite the rain it looks like you had a great time sight seeing coffeeing and dining with friends.
I did miss your weekly garden reports Kris. How is it going??

Dawn said...

Oh Yes I did miss you but you were always in my thoughts with me thinking...'oh thats right Kris is on a holiday having a ball'...Lol... and you had a fab time too despite lots of rainy days... wonderful to have you back...
Hugs Dawn x x x

May Britt said...

Looks like a wonderful vacation :)
And how fun to meet up with Lynette. She is such a nice lady. And I took a look at the book you was reading. I love Nora Roberts books too ........together with red wine :)

ittybittyandpretty said...

nice to see you back, such a shame it rained the whole time....
montville is our fav place to visit as well and might i say that is the best pic of the wheel ever!! i have never thought to get that angle 0_o
hope you can warm up a little.

xxrosey

Anna Rosa Designs said...

Hi Kris,
Oh yes, I did miss you!
Sounds like you and GB had a fabulous time away. I was at Montville myself only last month.
Ah, back to the grind now.
Happy creating,
Hugs,
Anna

A Bite of Country Cupcakes said...

I have aphoto of me standing in front of that very same water wheel!
I love Monteville !!!
Good to know the rain did'nt hold you back at least

Bearly Sane said...

I love your spirit Kris ... nothing holds you back! Good to see you enjoying a little R&R irrigardless of the weather ... and glad to have you back posting in blogland ... thanks for sharing.
Warmest Hugs,
Sandi @ Bearly Sane

Susan In Texas said...

Missed you terribly, but I know how hard it is to blog on vacation. Too bad about the weather at the beach, but it sounds like you had a lovely time anyway. BTW what's a barramundi lunch? Sounds tasty!

Susan in Texas

Kerryanne @ Shabby Art Boutique said...

It all sounds fabulous Kris - even if it did rain a bit. Looking forward to hearing the next holiday installment and hearing about the shopping... I'm assuming that's fabric shopping [giggle].
Hugs ~ Kerryanne

I see the bridge! said...

Oh Kris, welcome home, what a pity about the rain. Still it looks like you had a lovely time at all of my favourite places. You shall have to come and spend a weekend with us again soon and I will promise to make it sunshiney.
Kiss Noises Linda

Crowing Moon said...

I was just thinking of you wondering how your holiday was going. Looks like you had a great time. :D
Hmmmm about it always raining when you go to the beach..maybe you should go when it isn't Winter! hahahaha
We went to the beach (in Winter;)) a couple of weekends back...it was great to get out in the ocean air for the day although it was freezing :)

Anne-Lise at Rag, Tag, Bobtail said...

Looks like a lovely break, thanks for showing the pics.

Jenny of Elefantz said...

What a glorious time away, Kris - love the piccies, and it's good to *hear* your cheery voice again!

Beeeme! said...

Hooray! Now, about this September thingy...I might actually be able to come this time...must look it up. And Susan in Texas? A barramundi is the most divine of fish to eat, delicately flavoured and NO bones...my absolute fave fish dish.

Unknown said...

Welcome home ! So nice to hear about your lovely holiday .

Joy said...

Of course we all missed you dear Kris!!! Blogland just isn't the same without you ;o)!!!! Lovely to hear about your travels ... and I see we have similar taste in our reading matter too ... don't mind me a bit of Nora Roberts mystery too ;o)!!!
Glad you're home safe and sound, looking forward to the next installment :o).
Hugs,
Joy :o)

Peg - Happy In Quilting said...

After reading your post ...I have been on holidays as well I think...sounds perfect, I can't believe how quickly it went...Lucky you with you time with Lynette....glad you had a fab time Kris...

julia said...

Hi Kris!
I sure missed you a bunch! Who else writes the funny, witty posts with cute things to show?
I'm glad you've had a nice time...despite the rain!
What an amazing sight you could enjoy...I wouldn't have expected this to be Australia (yes, I've been told that it isn't all burnt & red but I haven't seen much of it yet & seeing and hearing are two completely different things...!).
The piano/spinet guy is just great!
Welcome home! Don't let the stress in too soon.
Hugs, Julia

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