Winter Weekend

The winter blues really tried to catch us this weekend. It was grey, rainy, windy and misrable the whole weekend. But we tried our best to escape! So we went for dinner in a fancy restaurant on Firday night. Saturday night we went to see the Simpsons Movie in the cinema – laughing really helps getting over the winter blues! But the movie was not as good as we expected. I think one quote describes it best “Why should I pay to see a movie that I can watch for free on TV?”
On Sunday night we went to one of our favourit pubs in Freo – Little Creatures – and had drinks with some friends which was good fun.
So if you ever feel the winter blues I recommend – a nice dinner, funny movies or drinks with friends! :-)

More garden pics
The rainy weather on the weekend inspired my to some more close-up garden pictures.

Flowers are a girl's best friend

... at least they are mine. Ian surprised me the other day with this lovely bunch of flowers! From time to time he would stop at this little corner shop here at North Freo to buy a bunch of flowers. And I really like these days when he comes home after work, says hello and smiles at me with flowers in his hand! He is so lovely :-)
Unfortunately he is not so well at the moment – severe back pain – very unpleasant. But I just bought him the new Harry Potter book on the weekend. So he can distract himself a bit while lying in bed. Really hope he will be fine soon!

Rain, Chocolate Mouse and a Dog

The forecast for the weekend is really bad - “Showers, heavy at times with the risk of a thunderstorm through the day. Strong and gusty N'ly winds ...” It is one of those Saturday mornings when you look out of the window at this gray rainy sky and refuse to get up ;-) [Just like when Anni looks out the window and sees a brilliant blue sky and a bright sun and refuses to get up. Ian]
The only thing that motivated me this morning was breakfast across the road at Harvest Road Restaurant. It is a really funky, cute, little restaurant with fantastic food!! I usually have 'The Freo' but decided for Waffles, poached pears, chocolate mousse instead today. The combination of homemade dark chocolate mouse, pears and probably original French waffles with some special ingredients was just divine! Great start into the weekend!
An the way back we saw this dog sitting high up on a chair on the veranda in front of this old cottage. He looked so majestic, proud, protective and cool – we laughed instantly :-) Unfortunately we only had our mobiles so the image quality is not that good but I hope you get an idea!

The Waifs

How I got to know The Waifs...
I was travelling around the south-east coast of Australia from Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney up to Brisbane in Dec04/Jan05 with some friends. During our trip in a tour bus along the great ocean road the tour guide played music from his ipod. This is where I heard 'London Still' for the first time and I loved this song! I told Ian about this song and he told me that The Waifs are actually a Western Australian band from Albany!! And so I liked them even more and a couple of weeks later I bought their lates album 'A brief history...'. I really like their Australian lyrics and their Australian folk music. My 3 favourite songs are probably: London Still, Bridal Train, Hair Cut
So when I heard that they are on tour in Australia we bought tickets straight away. The gig at the Freo Fly by Night Club sold out within a day! So we went there on Thursday. The club is really tiny, only about 500 people fit in there and it is smoke-free!!! Unthinkable in Germany!
It was a really intimate atmosphere and you could tell that they had a really good time performing on stage. And it was soo good to see a live act again and to dance in the crowd! I really enjoyed it and we had a fantastic time!!!
They played lots of their old songs but also stuff from their new album. But I have to say that I don't like their new songs that much. Because they recorded this album in Nashville so the songs are American country songs – lyrics and sound – not much to do with Australia anymore. So I hope they will go back to their roots after that :-)

Business Class Cinema

We went to see Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix last night. But I don't know what I liked more the movie or the actual cinema :-) Because we went to one of the Gold Class cinemas. Tickets usually cost about $A35 but we got them for 10 bucks, including a $A20 food vouchers!!! And looking at the menu we actual needed that :-)
It was great! It felt like travelling business class :-) When you gon into the gold class section there is a little bar where you order food. So we ordered antipasto platter for about 7.30 and wine for about 8.00pm. We were escorted to our seats and shared a big cinema with just 30 other people or so. I actually though that the screen would be quite small but it was massive!! The move started without any adds which was a bit of a pity because I quite like them. And the chairs were so comfy!! You only had to press a little button on the side and the chair started leaning back and a foot rest came up – just great! During the movie waitress came around and served the ordered food on the little table between the chairs. After the movie we didn't wanna leave it was all too good!
But I am spoilt now and the next time we go to a 'normal' cinema the chairs will be too hard and uncomfortable, the person in front of me will be too tale and the people around us will be too noise ;-)

For the rest of the weekend we did a bit of gardening again. And I ran 5km yesterday and we went for a 40km bike ride around the river this morning. Now I only need to learn how to swim properly (I mean to do the crawl) and decrease the time between running and cycling and I can do little triathlons ;-)
The weather today was beautiful! About 20C, clear blue sky and sunshine. And when we rode around the river we saw dolphins catching fish for breakfast, a big pelican fishing as well, seagulls, galahs, … - just great!

Japanese Night

Friends invited us over for dinner on Saturday night. Ian borrowed a projector from work and we looked at all the photos and videos from this years Japan trip. It was really good to remember the place, the slopes, the food, everything – we laughed a lot :-)
And of course we had Japanese food! We heated up a soy sauce mixture in a little table wok. Then we put fresh mushrooms, spring onions, snow peas, capsicum, thinly sliced raw beef and noodles in the sauce and bring everything to a boil. It really doesn’t take long and it is sooo yummy!!

Thursday Night Out

We went out on Thursday night and caught up with some friends. First Ian and I met at the Belgian Beer Pub in the city – a really great place if you like good beer. And I like one of the signs saying “You will like our food even if you don’t like Brussels“ – and I hate Brussels sprouts!! ;-)
Afterwards we went to see Macbeth in Her Majesty Theatre in the city together with some friends. I haven’t been to the theatre for ages, so I really enjoyed this play. Even though I was pretty tired after work but the play was interesting enough so I didn’t fall asleep ;-)
It was actually really good. I quite liked the way they moved from one scene to the other. All the actors were on stage nearly all the time. They were either acting in the middle or standing / sitting motionless oneither side where they blended in with the sets.

More Garden Pics

Fremantle Prison Tunnel Tour

As part of Karen’s birthday we went on the Fremantle Prison Tunnel Tour today.
It was really good fun. We climbed down 18m into the old fresh water system of Perth that the convicts built about 1860. We crawled through the darkness of the narrow and low tunnels that were partially flooded with water and we paddled small boats through this labyrinth. The most amazing thing for me was the darkness.

Crouching in the tunnels we switched off all our lights and it was pitch-black! The eyes just wouldn’t get used to it; there was not the faintest bit of light. It didn’t matter if you had your eyes open or closed.

The renovations finally started….

… well, kind of. We still don’t have approval and actually not allowed to do much. But this weekend we pulled out the old air conditioner and replaced it with a new gas-hot-water-heater.

Visitor from home

I had a short visit of a friend from Großbrembach – this is the little village where I come from in Germany with about 800 inhabitants :-)
Actually our mums arranged the meeting. The exchanged our email addresses and telephone numbers. So she phoned me up this Sunday and I showed her around in Freo. We strolled along the cappuccino strip, through the markets, along the harbour front and relaxed with a cup of coffee in a nice little café – the X-Ray café on Essex Street. And I got to know sooo much gossip from Großbrembach!! :-) It was great! Sitting in a café in Freo and chatting about this small little village in Thuringia about who split up with who, who is dating who, who did…. It was a lovely day!

Gardening Weekend