Verge Scavenging in Cottesloe

Yes, I know the title may seem a little off as Cottesloe is one of the upper crust suburbs in Perth, but you see it's a perfect place to rummage through rich ppl's 'junk' to see what treasures you may find. So on Sunday after having lunch at the 1Malaysia food fair a group of us decided to cruise the streets to see what we could find and take (legally of course :p). While driving around the streets I couldn't help but notice how MASSIVE the houses are in the Cottesloe area. There were very modern looking houses right next to these old style almost colonial looking houses and the funny thing was that they all fitted right with the whole coastal scenery.

We circled a few blocks and but didn't find much at all to scavenge, but while waiting for one person in the group to switch cars I looked down this one street and saw this....

I don't know why I took the photo maybe to me it was the perfect shot of a suburban street lined with these massive pine trees and the sun slowly setting amongst them. Anyway that was all I had to show from the verge scavenging expedition.

Melbourne Cup: The French Connection...

Melbourne Cup, the race that stops a nation...well that's what it's touted to do.

We had our usual office sweep and I managed to pull out the horse 'Americain'. I don't follow the horses and am only the yearly 'gambler' whereby I just join in with the office sweep for fun on Melbourne Cup day. I couldn't get near a tv this year so we listened to it on the good ol' wireless and waited for the call for the last 200m. All I could hear was "Americain in front of blah blah and leads by 2 lengths..." and as the race caller whittled down the last few metres of the race...AMERICAIN WON!!!! It was quite surprising considering that the race favourite wasn't my horse and pretty much everyone was backing the favourite. It was later on that I read up on where my horse was from, who the trainer was and who the jockey was that they all came from my most favouritest place in the world....FRANCE!!! To be honest I initially thought that the horse was from the US since the horse's name seemed like a play on words. I know this is a far fetched link to my recent travels but you know I gotta somehow keep the dream alive.

Americain Magnific!!!!

Sunday......

Just another lazy Sunday filled with....

and....

I love this game!!!!

The one that got away....

On Catch of the Day.....SONY PS3 120Gb $249.........that's what I wanted and I got to the point of checkout and then their server CRASHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Swan Valley

Daryl's life group today had an outing in the Swan Valley and I managed to get an invite out to join them for lunch at Riverbank Estate. I haven't explored much of the Swan Valley besides heading to Sandalford for a concert last year and the compulsory visit to the Margaret River Chocolate Factory when we are entertaining overseas guests. So this time around we were having a late lunch at Riverbank Estate. I'd never heard of this place but it was a place that Dee and Phe had been to previously and they rated it. There are a few ppl who I value their culinary palate and Dee and Phe are two who are on my list. I joined the rest of the guys at the Estate just in time for lunch as they had headed in to the Swan Valley earlier to look around more.

We were seated outside under a large verandah overlooking the vineyard which was great since it was a clear spring day to be outside enjoying great company and of course food and wine!!!

We started off with a chef's tasting plate which when it came out had a large assortment of prawns, sardines, fish, prosciutto, ham hock terrine and marinated olives. Then on to the mains where there was a majority of double cooked pork belly. Luckily not everyone on the table ordered the same thing and there was also a mushroom stack pie, quail and also a steak. The food was presented soo well and it tasted AWESOME. It's food I would rate and wouldn't mind driving all that way to eat again. Well after the mains we still had room for dessert and we weren't disappointed with a ooey gooey chocolate fondant, poached pear with bailey's parfait, home made chocolate cookie and pralines ice cream and a meringue was what we ordered to finish off the meal. After the meal and so as to not fall asleep we headed over to the Mondo nougat factory to get some sugary goodness.

All in all it was nice way to spend the arvo with great company, conversations filled with many funny moments and topped off with great food!!!

Feels like the 1st day of school

The dream came to an end today, it was my first day back at work. For some silly reason I had it in my head that it was going to be like my 1st day back at school after the summer holidays. You know when you're excited to see everyone to catch up on what's been happening but then again a little apprehensive cos you don't know if you'll hang out with the same group of kids or if your usual lunch buddies will sit and eat lunch with you...ahahah....but it was all good...I still ate lunch with the same ppls and talked about the same things...some things never change.