Some mock wedding photos!

Poshing it up with George

Having booked a table approximately 5 months ago and saved up as many $2 coins as possible, it was finally time for us to head to George Calombardis' restaurant The Press Club on Saturday night, hurrah! George is the little Greek chubby chef renowned originally for hosting Ready Steady Cook in Australia but has since moved on to present Masterchef Australia. It would have been quite exciting to have our dinner cooked by George but really, the possibilities of that happening were pretty much zero! Never mind. Bob and I, along with the girls I work with (Nat and Renee) and Nat's husband Dave, arrived at the Press Club a bit on the early side and so decided that a glass of fizz was required. We were ushered into the bar on the right of the restaurant until our table was ready by the Maitre'D who was a fellow Glasgwegian, from Drumchapel no less. Fizz gone, we sat down and awaited instructions.

Our plan was to all have the 8 course degustation menu along with the wine to compliment each dish (hence the saving!!!). I've never done it before. We didn't get an insight into the menu at all, we were just brought dishes and wines and told about them at the table. It was absolutely amazing food, just in a class of it's own. We started with some bread, olives and black volcanic salt which I must admit was pretty tasty. Then a pre-starter (!) which was almost like a dessert - beetroot puree, sponge with feta and hazelnuts - then onto an ocean trout starter with sake, snapper with a dry rose wine, then subsequent pork, lamb and chicken dishes (the wasabi and avocado puree was fab and the popcorn with the poached egg over the chicken was yum-eee). Due to the amount of alcohol you are plied with, I'm afraid I don't have a great recollection of the desserts - I know one was a palette cleanser then the next had some coconut and pineapple but that's about it! We all loved it and were blown away by the food and the service but jings, I'd need to save for another 6 months before I could even contemplate going back!! Much fun.

The following day, I was up early to meet Liza at the Eureka Skytower on Southbank. We were both heading to a coaching conference at the State Netball Centre with the Australian Diamonds coach Lisa Alexander and Australian Diamonds captain, Sharelle McMahon. Exciting stuff! Liza, the fitness freak that she is, did the 1600 stair climb in 13 mins before meeting me at 830am. She is mad. She asked me if I wanted to join her but I declined and got myself a nice coffee and a muffin while I was waiting on her coming back down! The coaching conference was really interesting and we both got some good ideas for the Dusties teams we'll be coaching next year. The introductory chat from Bill Sweetman (a sports psychologist over a range of sports) was fascinating and actually quite motivating. He is working with Lisa Alexander to help coach the Australians back to their No. 1 spot in the world. It will be interesting to see if they achieve it! Anyway, glad we went, hopefully the Dusties can do better next season.....

Lawn bowls ticking over nicely - 2 wins and 1 loss, not bad for starters!

And finally......Bob is leading by 5 shots going into the 3rd and final round of the club championships - he tees off last in a group of 4 with his nemesis Nathan Doyle - who'll be the last one standing?! Bob we hope! Not only does he hold the course record at the moment, to be club champion would make his day. We will let you know the result!

Love to you all, Mo and Bob xxxx

Winners are Grinners - Part II!

I finally had a run in with a huntsman spider. Eurgh. We were out on the deck of Bob's pal Matt's house which has a corrugated iron roof to it. I was sat facing out towards the garden, and Bob and another couple of guys were facing me. They both looked up at the same time to where this horrid spider had crawled out of the woodwork - one of them laughed at the size of it, bub Bob just pulled my arm and told me to "come over here for a minute". I made the mistake of looking at it before it was brought down with a broom and tried to make a bid for freedom. And so, in a terribly grown up fashion, I cried in front of a group of adults at a barbeque. Brilliant! I was looking up at the iron roof every 30 secs for the rest of the evening after that! I was thinking my spider phobia was going quite well over the past 18 months but now I'm back in a permanent state of paranoia, especially since my mate Liza told me she woke up with one crawling up her leg in bed. Well isn't that just bloomin' marvellous.

On a different note - only Australia could organise a bank holiday for a 3 minute horse race! However, we were not complaining. To get a random Tuesday off was pretty nice and resulted in a party chez Bob and Mo. As usual, there was a random collection of people in our cosy little living room from 1pm - 9pm, all competing to win the 'Melbourne Cup' which was a horrid little 1970's retro type dessert bowl with lots of dollar coins within. It was a close call in the end, with Red Cadeaux narrowly missing out, literally by a nose hair, to Dunedin and therefore Natalie Bright narrowly missed out by a nose hair to Chelsea, who celebrated by drinking her pear cider from the cup. Quite funny. Her boyfriend Gary won a couple of races after the Melbourne Cup race and so we have a nice little photo of the winning pair with their cups. A few of the netball girls popped round with some pink fizz, a couple of girls had their fascinators on (along with Bob) and we enjoyed our CUPcakes along with some BBQ food throughout the day. Our neighbours even popped their heads in for a while. Needless to say, we were feeling a little worse for wear on the Wednesday and work wasn't looking too appealing! Bob was particularly pleased with his outfit and felt he deserved to win Fashions on the Field, particularly when the commentator on the telly said that skirts, lots of colour and accessories were the in-thing. Tartan kilt and feathery fascinator - done!

Since our TV win at the golf club a couple of weeks ago, we have had two further triumphs. The golf club have normal, mega and monster raffles which alternate from week to week. The monster raffle is the biggest, and this was the one we went to on Friday night. The golf club was packed, thousands of tickets sold and the first ticket picked out got to select from the monster prizes. Number 4566......was ours!! Hilarous. Couldn't quite figure out what to do with a 52" TV now that we had our 32", nor could we decide what to do with a fridge freezer or tumble dryer. We would have loved the dishwasher but simply do not have anywhere to put it. So we opted for the $1000 travel voucher and will put it towards our Great Barrier Reef trip. What a good start to the weekend! Maybe we should stay away from the raffle for the next couple of weeks, don't want to get too complacent......

The other triumph was Bob on the golf course. Yesterday, he had the first round of the club championships, which take place over three consecutive Saturdays, ending on the 19th November. With 167 contenders and 40 contenders in A grade, Bob managed to win the first round (which was also the monthly medal award) with a grand total of 69 (net 64). Yet another winning tankard to add to the collection......my runners up pile isn't looking too hot next to the winning trophies....argh! He played brilliantly though, just needs to find some consistency for the next two rounds and he has it in the bag! The prize, along with the tankard, was $50 for the local bait and tackle shop. That'll be well used!!!! hmmmmm. I joined him and his golfing pals for a pot of beer in the outdoor patio, absolutely glorious day, clear blue sky, 30C, shorts and flip flops on. Spring has arrived! Then back home for a quick turn around before.........

Our dinner with our surrogate mums and dads! David and Anna, Peter and Penny, Sue and Alan and Sandy and Keiran, otherwise known as the Dingoes! Peter and Penny had very kindly invited everyone round to their house (which backs onto the 16th green) for a BBQ last night which turned into a surprise mock wedding! Absolutely hilarious. Not only were Bob and I sat at the top of the table with regular top ups of fizz, we were dressed up in a ridiculously huge clown like bowtie for Bob and a tiara and massive veil (which doubled up nicely as a mozzie net!) for me before the chief bridesmaid, David (with his Dingo tie nicely in place) said a few words about how they had a soft spot for us and how they had taken us under the wings. They presented us with a lovely wedding gift too (a set of plates from a local Australian potter) which was entirely unexpected but very kind of them. Penny used to be a potter and had started a PhD in Ceramics of Oceania hence the interest in pottery and her decision to get us something by a local artist. It was a nice touch and very thoughtful. The groom then said a few words before tucking into a marvellous barbeque of chicken, lamb, turkey and all the trimmings. We even had favours of little sherbert sweeties and a version of a wedding cake, with Peter the photographer snapping away. That wasn't all.....after dinner, we were summoned to the 16th green for a surprise. With it being the 5th November and all, they decided to put on a mini-fireworks display in the bunker, but warned us that, with it being illegal to buy or set off fireworks in Australia, we had to be prepared to make a run for it should it be required! Absolutely hilarious to be on the golf course in the dark, knowing that these 60-somethings were up to some mischief. We didn't ask where they got the fireworks from, and they didn't tell us! Better not to know. No sign of any coppers you'll be glad to know! A marvellous night. And now we know that Peter and Penny have an outdoor pool, we might be making a few more visits in the next couple of months!

Had my wedding dress fitting on Thursday and managed to get myself to North Fitzroy without getting lost. It didn't take long and didn't require any nips and tucks so she showed me how to bustle it up. Once the train was all nicely folded up, she pulled out an enormous piece of netting and told me this wasn't required before taking a pair of scissors to it! Eek. She told me to go for a coffee, she'd stitch it up in a half an hour and viola, a piece of netting that didn't look as if it had been attacked with some shears. Good stuff. All good to go! Now I just have to make sure I don't lose or put on any weight at all! Uh oh. Not quite ready to substitute wine and chocolate for lettuce leaves just yet

And so for the final story.....if you've been following the blog, you'll know that we looked after Hamish the dog a good few months ago, when he turned up on our doorstep and refused to leave. Well, the same thing has happened but with a different dog! The cutest little puppy appeared this evening when we drove into our driveway, whimpering away, and after doing a little tour around the houses to see if he belonged to any of our neighbours, he is now curled up on a cushion in our living room, snoozing away. We managed to make some sort of lead from an adjustable bra strap and an old belt, and of course had to take a trip to Woolies for some puppy food yet again. We're becoming a stray dog home! As we did before, we'll have him overnight before Bob takes him into work and phones the council. Maybe this one is a regular escapee like the last...

And so that is our news! We have had a lucky few weeks. Wonderful to get Lindsey and Francesco's Save the Date card for their wedding on 14th July and their wedding plans sound brilliant, especially the girly pool party the night before the wedding! Our plans are coming together, now only 7 weeks to go, 5 weeks and 3 days of work to survive!

Other than that, we are good! Take care y'all, love Mo and Bob xx