Perth

On Tuesday 23 April Mr Honey Pie & I returned to Sydney after a eight day stay in Perth, Western Australia.

We were there on the occasion of our eldest's  marriage.

Perth is the capital city of Western Australia and spreads itself out cautiously from the banks of the Swan River.

By worldly standards, it is a very young city, being founded in 1829, becoming a city in 1856.

Our first visit to Perth was in 1998.  At the time it was nothing more than the size of a large town.

But my how it has grown, thanks to the minerals boom.  
Our son took his first job as a geologist in the gold exploration sector in Western Australia and has since made Perth his home.
He lives within four kilometres of the CBD.

This snap was taken of the city at sunset from Kings Park.
The Swan River is to the right.  

And here is the same view after sunset.

Perth exudes a serenity I have yet to experience in any other city.
Everything is central, the city being small enough to not yet have lost its sense of cosiness.
Many of the original seaside housing has been demolished and replaced with newer contemporary dwellings giving it a clean sharp image.

While the cost of food in Perth might be higher than in Sydney, the cost of rent is lower and the purchasing power is much higher.
Perth is the fourth largest city in Australia.

ANZAC Day - 2013

Today's popular ANZAC biscuit has evolved from the army biscuit distributed to Australian and New Zealand soldiers in the battlefield during the Great War.

The original biscuits were so hard that soldiers preferred to soak them in water and to eat them like a porridge.

Today's ANZAC biscuits are sweet and crunchy, full of golden syrup and butter, rolled oats and coconut.

On the 25th April every year, Australians and New Zealanders remember their countries' fallen soldiers.

It is the anniversary of the first landing by Australian and New Zealand troops at Gallipoli.

In the City of The Blue Mountains, dawn services, parades and sunset services are held up and down the highway.

Both my parents migrated to Australia post World War II, to make their new home here.

My mother was two weeks off her sixth birthday when war broke out on 1st September 1939.

The Second World War had a long lasting impact on her.

I know, because her stories about her experiences during the war were retold on an almost nightly bases during my childhood.

Her island home was strategically positioned and suffered considerable 

 aerial raids as a result.

She and her family spent many hours in air raid shelters during these years.

It would seem perfectly normal then, that she should take her young daughters to the dawn service, held in Sydney's Martin Place, each ANZAC Day.

Afterwards, we would stay for the parade.

To this day, I am sure I have no idea of the effect the war had on my parents; especially my mother.

ANZAC Day must have been to her some sort of link to her recent experiences - provided some connection to others who had suffered during those years.

I'm sure that I don't appreciate just how recent those events still were to her as she gave birth to her first child eight years after the end of the war.

What impact did those years have on how she would relate to that child; on how she perceived her new homeland, her new friends, the new government, her husband?

I might have an inkling but I will never truly understand no matter how hard I try.

I feel privileged to have been born into a country that helped birth the ANZAC tradition.

ANZAC:  Australian New Zealand Armed Corps.

The original ANZACS were the soldiers who landed at Gallipoli on Turkish Aegean coast, on 25 April 1915.

Recipe for 

ANZAC Biscuits

1 cup rolled oats

3/4 cup dessicated coconut

1 cup plain flour*

1 1/2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

2 tablespoons boiling water

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter

1 tbsp golden syrup

Mix oats, coconut, flour and sugar together in a large bowl.

Melt syrup and butter together.

Mix soda with boiling water and add to melted syrup and butter.

Add to dry ingredients.

Roll tablespoon of mixture and place on greased tray.

Bake in a slow oven for 20 minutes. (Less for fan forced oven).

*(I used gluten free all purpose flour.)

This recipe is from 1968 edition of "The Commonsense Cookery Book".  (That's another story!)

Plants of Western Australia - And A Wedding.

We've been to Perth.

For a wedding.

Our eldest's wedding.

But just to whet your appetite...here are some of the beautifully unusual plants of Western Australia. 

Silver Princess (above).

Seven hundred year old boab tree which was transplanted into Kings Park after a 3200 kilometre road trip, in 2008. (Above).

Above three photos: Banksia

Seed pods from gum trees. (Above).

Bed Bugs, Animal Print, Black Velvet and Oatmeal

Wow, what  a week it's been!

After a fairly relaxed Easter weekend with family and a total overload of chocolate (did I tell you I'd given up Chocolate for lent?) my week went into overdrive after receiving a phone call from Youngest Son on Monday night at 23.00 hours to tell me they had bed bugs in the apartment.  Bed bugs! can you believe it? In one of Sydney's most affluent suburbs!

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Apparently Sydney is in the grip of a bed bug epidemic (and it seems has been for some years now).

The real estate agent and strata have not been willing to come to the party with sorting out the infestation even though we have since found out that at least four other units in the block have been treated against them.

I suspect that they hope that fobbing off tenants will be enough to ensure that they will not become liable for remediation but I know a couple who are determined to get their pest extermination fees reimbursed in full.

I spent Tuesday consoling one poor young woman who is devastated - her new bedroom furniture in (what she believes to be) ruins.

Every space possible was vacuumed, pest exterminator organised, clothing and linen hot washed and clothes dryer dried, and the unit left in disarray for the night while our son and his girl friend returned to the mountains for the night and returned home yesterday, Wednesday.

Wednesday afternoon I went dress shopping.

Our Eldest Son is getting married in less that three weeks and I still didn't have an outfit.

I have spent literally, months, looking for an outfit and I have finally decided on a Frank Lyman animal print and a Jersey Girl gorgeous black velvet pencil skirt.

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Here's a sneak peak. I've opted for a black camisole under the flowing jacket with the fitted black velvet skirt coming under the bust in sort of an empire line.

This way I can wear a string of pearls to finish off the outfit.

And the oatmeal? Well this morning I spent an hour and a half, a glorious hour and a half having a facial and boy am I relaxed now!

How is your week shaping up?