Fun in Melbourne

We have just returned from a short 5 day holiday to Melbourne, a wonderful city on the east coast of Australia. It has the most beautiful old buildings and a rickety old tram system running through the city streets. We went with four of our friends (one who was celebrating her divorce!!!) and enjoyed lovely weather to take in some sight seeing, shopping, dining out and watching a couple of games of footy. We bought some great clothes at the Factory Direct Outlets and ate and drank far too much!

This is the view from our balcony. That is the football stadium directly across the water.


Melbourne’s famous city trams. These trams continually travel around the main city blocks and it’s just so easy to jump on and off when you want.

My mouth was watering just looking in this shop window. This shop was situated down the cutest little arcade.



Gorgeous flowers at the Queen Victoria Markets. I just love kale – I’ve been too busy this year to plant any!!


This is our table at the footy stadium. We were able to watch the game while we dined or we could wander outside and come back in when we wanted another drink or half time desserts. I could get used to this life!! Thanks to our son-in-law who was able to organise this for us!!

Melbourne is well know for having 4 seasons in one day but as you can see we had wonderful weather. The days were a little cool but without any heavy winds so just perfect for wandering around. On Friday night we were treated to a wonderful fireworks display above the dock and Sunday night nature provided some more fireworks with a thunderstorm.
This weekend was such a lovely time for us to share with our friends.
Tomorrow I am heading off to the city again to join my son, his fiance and Ann (Mother of the Bride) to attend a night of food and drink sampling in preparation for their wedding in March.

Suzy

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Weekend Wineries

We visited some of the most gorgeous wineries over the weekend. Everything about them was just so beautiful. I could have stayed there forever.

This whole area is known for it's lush pastures and magnificent grape vines. Lucky this year has provided a decent rainfall which has helped to provide this. I loved the gnarly old grape vines on the end of the cellar door. The whole weekend was just so relaxing and it was lovely to be able to enjoy this with my sisters and cousins.

                                        Suzy

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Weekend Retreat

I have just returned from my annual weekend retreat with my cousins - there are eight of us and we have just enjoyed our 11th weekend away. We have a wonderful weekend of eating, drinking and being merry!! This year we travelled to the wonderful wine growing area of Western Australia. We usually fit in lots of shopping and this year was no exception. There are some wonderful kitchen shops which caught our attention as most of us are fond of cooking (and eating!!) and I took these photos of the gorgeous china which was in the most amazing colours.

We also visited some wineries and wandered along the back roads. It is a real tourist area so there was much to look at. We had dinner at the Aravina Winery which was really lovely (I have photos to share later) and just relaxed and enjoyed the company and the weather. I came home last night and was very tired today. Back to work tomorrow and Wednesday then my final photography lesson on Wednesday night. Life is a little hectic at the moment.....

                                                      Suzy

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Snakes and Ladders

How long since you have played snakes and ladders??? For me it is a long time but as grandie No 1 is now 15 months I guess it won't be long and it will all start again(I can't wait!!).
While away on my cousin's weekend last weekend one of the girls presented us all with a book (160 pages!!) of our family history. It contains a photo of every person in our family from my grandparents on. It truly is amazing and something I will treasure forever. As well as that she decided to make us a game.....

It is a game of snakes and ladders with 4 snakes and 4 ladders all representing each of the cousins. Mine is fairly easy to pick with 3 shoes, lipstick, quilting memorabilia and school stickers all on the ladder.

She had spent hours gathering together all the little bits and pieces for each person.

This cousin is a tennis player, a footy fan, a gardener and enjoys a cup of tea!

This ladder is for my sister who has the coffee shop, garden centre, is a footy fan and bakes cakes for the shop.

My cousin who 'owns' this snake works in aged care (hence the wheel chair and gloves), likes gardening and has been lucky enough to regularly go on a cruise.

As you can imagine we had many laughs while we played this game - especially after a couple of glasses of wine!! I am trying to think up a fun game for next years trip.

Have a lovely weekend...

Suzy