Tuesday 5 January 2016

Unexpected Finds In The Hammock

And the visitors continued....
We were delighted to see our granddaughters, who with Paul came to stay for five days.  It was a full house with them and Michelle and Michael.  Lots of fun, lots of noise, lots of presents! 
Stevie and Riley loved the kangaroos and the chickens, if they had had their way the eggs boxes would have been checked twenty times a day, collecting eggs is so exciting, particularly if you then get to eat them for breakfast! :-)  Riley loved catching chickens and giving them cuddles. 
We set up a couple of hammocks under the trees that proved very popular with everyone.  Poor Riley had the shock of her life when she found she was sharing the hammock with a tree frog.  I don't know who was more shocked, her or the frog!  While Stevie was making pastry with Grandad Steve, Riley and I found the teeniest tiniest frog in my little pond, it was the size of my little fingernail, so cute. 
Paul gave Stevie and Riley these nifty bed tents that they both enjoyed,  They just hook over the edges of the bed so quick to put on, and quick to remove.  Not quite so quick to remember how to do that twist and fold manoeuvre to get them back in the box to take home though, ha ha.  So I got to sit on the floor between the beds to read bedtime stories while little heads poked out of the tents.  The girls like to have a turn at reading some of the story, it was wonderful to see how well they are both reading, kids are amazing.
 The girls did a bit of gingerbread decorating, these are two of Riley's people.
 And these are two of Stevie's people. 
We visited the new Wildlife Park at Discovery Bay, behind the Whaling Station museum.  It was nice to be able to stroke the kangaroos, there were some very tame ones there, and a lot of albinos, I guess they are less likely to survive in the wild so end up in wildlife parks?
There was lots of sleeping going on at the Wildlife park, look at this wombat, thoroughly content.  The size of its head amazes me.
Look at this camouflage.  These are curlews, just sleeping in the sand out in the open, which surprised me until I looked at them from above and realised how well hidden they were in plain sight from predators.
 We adored this quoll, who couldn't have given a darn about people watching him.  He remained sprawled out on top of his shelter, fast asleep.  Very cute to look at, but rather a vicious and effective predator as far as I know.  Love his dots!
 We did playgrounds.  This is a rebuild of a playground at Middleton Beach, isn't it fabulous, like a pirate ship, and kids can climb down inside it or be up on the deck.  It proved very popular with Stevie and Riley.
 We risked visiting Boston Brewery during busy time.  Far out, so did hundreds of other people!  But to Boston's credit, they let people sit on their own picnic blanket in their lovely grounds and order food.  I was mega impressed with their ability to cater for a huge crowd of people and we all had a nice time.  They have a great playground there so the girls had lots of fun too.  Although in the car when we were almost home, poor Stevie discovered the after-effects of spending a long time on the fun spinny ride in the playground, and lost her lunch.  A nice warm shower and a change of clothes and all was right with the world once again.
 We did beaches.  It was like winter most of the time, cold and windy and we rugged up and had fun climbing on rocks and walking on the sand.  Steve and I had discovered a wonderful beach some time ago called Lights Beach near Denmark, with lots of rocks and pools, so we went there again.  Here are Michelle and Michael.
 And Paul and Steve.
We had a walk along Frenchman's Bay beach after the wildlife park and came across an interesting discovery where the beach meets the bush.  The is Vancouver Spring.  This fresh water spring was discovered in 1791 by Captain George Vancouver when he travelled from England to be the first reported visitor to the Albany area, where he named the sound King George Sound.  It was fascinating to come across an unexpected piece of history whilst having a simple walk on a beach.
 
 We ate, oh my goodness we ate.  Steve and I have our diet booked to start on the 17th Jan, we figure the house will be empty of Christmas goodies by then! 
 
Here is Steve trying to look fierce in his Xmas hat, eating amongst myriads of pink megabloc creations.  :-)
 
Everybody went home a few days ago,  it's been wonderful to see everyone.  xx
We spent the weekend cleaning the house and putting Christmas away, and washing.  Then we had a couple of days of utter sloth.  I read a great book written by one of my favourite authors - Kate Morton.  It was her new book, The Lake House, and I enjoyed it very much.  Oh yes, ha ha, and Neo finally came out from behind the bed, where he took up residence for most of the week. :-)

Meanwhile, in the garden, the zucchini plants have quietly invaded the world.  So many zucchinis!  Front left are two cucumbers so that gives you an idea of the size of the zucchinis!  We will have to start picking them more regularly now to keep the size down, they literally grow before your eyes.  I had never tried raw zucchini before but we've been eating raw slices with picky plate lunches and we both really like it.
 I've been scouring recipes for using them, I made zucchini bread yesterday (yum) and we had grilled zucchini and runner beans with mashed potato and sausages for dinner - also yum, and satisfying as all the veg was from our garden.  I'm going to try pickling zucchini next, and also try a chocolate zucchini cake recipe too. 
Happy Happy Birthday to our darling daughter Michelle.  The start of a new decade in your life lovey, enjoy!  xxxxx  ooooo

4 comments:

  1. Don't forget the Women's Weekly Zucchini slice. Grate it up and put in freezer to go into soups too.

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    1. Thanks for that Fran, I have the WW cookbook, I'll look it up. I didn't realise I could freeze it, that will be really useful!

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  2. We like zucchini on the bbq sprinkled with chicken seasoning...yummy!

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    1. Ah, good idea Andy, we'll try that, thanks!

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