Melbourne, Matilda & Me–Part 1

 

This time,,Graham and I are OFF to Melbourne.

Sean & Rosie gave us  a gift voucher for Christmas and we used it to purchase tickets for Matilda at the Princess theatre.

Anyway, all sorts of dramas just trying to get here. The rain in Armidale this morning was torrential. We could hardly get to the kennels at Arding to drop the dogs off due to flooding.

And then the weather was so bad that our flight couldn’t land in Armidale and we had to take a coach to Tamworth (90 minutes drive south).

This delay, of course, stuffed up our connection to Melbourne, so we got shoved onto a later flight and sat 3 rows apart!

Phew…we finally arrived and booked into our hotel, (Mercure, Therry street). Which is nice… good location, clean, complimentary bottle of wine, nice view, small room.. where to put the suitcases?.. humpff.

Went out to hunt for dinner and just by following the crowd ended up at the very nearby Queen Victoria Markets.

And coincidentally it was their Wednesday Winter night market. Yippee!!

It was absolutely packed with people.. and had all these street food places. With every nationality imaginable  to choose from.

.

The choice came down to the shortest queue at the time.. the crowd was huge.

So we had a wonderful Sri Lankan curry plate. 

And great stalls to browse and buy…

Tired now, its been a long day….

Vincent and the Doctor

 

 

Okay – I couldn’t help myself.

I have started this new project when I have so many other quilts that I need to finish!

But I just love this Doctor Who fabric so much that I couldn’t wait to cut into it.

Vincent and the Doctor was a great episode of Doctor Who.

 

  Intrigued by an ominous figure in one of Vincent van Gogh's paintings, alien time traveller the Doctor (Matt Smith) and his companion Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) go back in time to meet Van Gogh (Tony Curran) and discover that Provence has been plagued by an invisible monster, known as the Krafayis, which only Van Gogh can see. The Doctor and Amy work with Van Gogh to defeat the Krafayis, but in their attempt to have Van Gogh realise his legacy through bringing him to the future they ultimately realise that not all of time can be rewritten and there are some evils which are out of the Doctor's reach.

I liked the way they copied some of the paintings for the sets.

So apart from the feature fabric which is festooned with exploding Tardis’s, I have use fabric from another fabric range called  Van Gogh.

I tried to create an optical illusion by making each round slightly narrower.

Its all coming together really well!

Which is great,,,, as I have to now put this aside unfinished while I work on a baby quilt!

Fiji Part 4 – Village tour and Mud Pools.

 

Our final Day in Fiji, and we are a bit bored of sitting around under palm trees so we decided to take one more tour.

We had our own private tour guide who took us to Saunaka which is his local village.

They welcomed us with a kava ceremony at one of their homes,

Then we visited the school.

We then returned to Nadi for a market tour.

Our next stop was the Garden of the Sleeping Giant.

Which was the home of the actor Raymond Burr and houses his orchid collection.

And,,

Then to the hot mud pools!

I wasn’t too sure about this, but it was actually really interesting. The mud was warm, didn’t smell, and felt nice on the skin.

First you cover yourself with the mud then wait 10 minutes or so until it dries.

Then you get into a dam to wash it off. Then finally move into a hot spring pool to get it all out of your pores – lovely like a big bath.

Last stop was back to the village, where we were treated like guests of honour and given a traditional lunch of fish.

Well, that's it…… time to get ourselves home.

Fiji was really enjoyable, not sure its completely my favourite type of holiday. Much prefer art galleries and museums to  swimming and palm trees but its nice to try something different sometimes!

Fiji–Part 3 - Around Denarau Island

Hey;..if you want get around this

tours-isty  resort there is only one way!

THE BULA BUS!

Well….. part of the problem is that the meals in Fiji  are so expensive… I don’t know of it's because we last went to South Africa where meals were good quality and so cheap.. but it was s bit of a shock here,...

Much cheaper to go to the marina to get lunch or dinner .. and the little kids love going on the bus.. 

That's another thing,, there are so many young families here. with babies under 3 or 4  years.. Good grief when my babes were that age we took them to the caravan park in Forster..

Goodness , I sound like an oldie.

Fiji–Part 2–Whales Tale Cruise

Its Anzac day – so why not take a cruise on a sailing boat!

We organised a tour on the Whale Tale Schooner.

They took us to their own sandy island – and we attempted to snorkel,, but we failed, I’m too sore in the shoulder and Grahams too moustached…

(But that's okay,…anyway,it probably wouldn't have be comparable to the Cook Islands Honeymoon snorkelling)…

So we had a nice swim in the warm waters instead..

We  did have a nice lunch in their pavilion. Fish, Chicken and salad.

Most of the buildings on the island were blown away this year in Cyclone Winston. This is all new built, I hope our cost of the tour helps them a little

And then we did a little fishing in the dingy,which is a glass bottom fish finder boat.. Of course we caught nothing but it was fun to feed the fish!

Then, on the way home, hot and salty, it was fun on board, alcohol included in the tour!!!.

We had a anniversary cake along with the honeymooners and birthday people..

 

They sung to us… Beautiful Fiji!

Bula ! from Fiji

 

Graham and I are on holidays again…

This time its a week in Fiji. Its our wedding anniversary holiday!

I have never been to Fiji before and Graham was here briefly 30 years ago during a cruise.

We spent the first 2 nights in Nadi and then have 5 nights at the Sofitel resort on Denarau.

We have hats and lots of blockout and intend to have days where we do nothing but sit under the palm trees.

Its warm, about 30 degrees and the water is nice and warm too. We may even swim…