Australia seems to do things a little differently. So let me take you on a tour of our colourful neighbourhood...
Spring has always been my favourite month; the new excitement to it, the thought of longer days and warmer weather ahead. With it's arrival comes the flowers. The purple crocuses sheltering under trees in England, yellow daffodils, a rainbow of tulips across Europe, the dainty Blue Squill in Montreal. In the countries we have lived in, spring has had the same tone - with some slight variations, but the essence is still there. Australia seems to do things a little differently. So let me take you on a tour of our colourful neighbourhood... Neither of us remember this explosion of bright colour last year (I am sure it was there, in all it's glory)
The rain has been non stop this week. Summer dresses and sandals have been replaced by jackets and big waterproof boots...
Christmas decorations are beginning to adorn shopping centres, advent calendars and crackers are on the shelves, and - most importantly - it is time for Lebkuchen! I am going to bake some more this year, but for the time being we are able to munch on some from Aldi - my go-to shop when I feel nostalgic as, being German, there were many in Munich! And where else in Australia would I find genuine, German-made lebkuchen?!
The 2km stretch of coastal walk from Bondi to Tamarama has been transformed for two weeks by artists from across the globe.
We walked into the city on Saturday, and went to look at the newly opened Barangaroo Reserve. Built on the old port area between Walsh Bay and Darling Harbour, the 5.7 hectares site is landscaped with more than 75,000 native trees and shrubs, and the 10,000 blocks of sandstone used were excavated directly from the site.
At the weekend we returned to our Sunday morning ritual of an early surf-walk. Holidays, bad weather, bad surf and niggling aching limbs had meant we hadn't done this for a few weeks; and whilst T was rewarded with good surf, fantastic sunrise views over Manly were my prize for leaving bed.
Our second week in England was spent with T's family in the pretty village of Parkgate on the Wirral Peninsular.
I have been having some technical issues with the blog over the past few weeks, so if you haven't been getting the posts directly to your inbox, please enter your email address in the subscribe box on the right of the page, follow the link prompts, and you should hopefully be up and running again! Thank you for your patience! Last weekend was hot: 38 degrees hot! Whilst most Sydney-siders went to the beach, sat in from of fans, or switched the air con on, there were those who believed the best way to cool off, was to curl up with your fluffy brother...
We left a sunny, hot Sydney, bound for England - where the forecast was for rain for our whole time there. Grabbing some fresh air before our afternoon flight, we soaked up as much vitamin D as possible, wondering if we could bank it for the following fortnight.
After our time in England we were all too soon making our way back to Australia.
The first leg, a 'mere' 3 hours from Manchester to Helsinki, seemed to pass by pretty quickly. It also had the best shaped cheese biscuits of any airline we have been on: |
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December 2015
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