A mixed bag

A couple of weekends ago we went to Melbourne with friends. We left early Friday morning, arriving mid afternoon. We settled into our motel rooms before heading out for a bite to eat, then onto the footy at Ethiad. After the disappointing result, we walked back to our motel, got changed and headed up the road to the Crown Casino, for a relaxing wine.

Saturday was a lovely day of discovering the shops in the city. Bourke Street Mall was alive with people. We stood for around 10 minutes watching these human statues.

They were amazing, they just didn't move, not even a blink!!. At one stage one of them did start to slowly walk to shake someone's hand when they put money in the hat.I don't think I would last a few minutes, let alone however many hours they were there for.

While meandering up the mall we came across a huge line up of people and discovered that the 'Zara' store was having it's opening. You would have to be keen to wait in line for that long. We passed on that!!

Saturday night, the guys went off to the MCG to take in another AFL game, while Wendy and I had some tea and took in a movie...Water for Elephants. We enjoyed being transported into a different world of the circus for and 1½ hours.

Last year one of my sister's gave me an old hard covered Walt Disney book that had my name 'Annette' in the title. Well, my birthday has just passed again and you guessed it, I received another Walt Disney Book from her with my name in the title...classic!!  I look forward to reading it as the first one was actually very exciting!

One of my other sisters asked if I could email her through some of my favourite tea cup photos I had taken.  And what do you know...my present from her was greeting and gift cards with the images of my photos on them. What a lovely gift idea...I won't be short of cards to give now. She is a very good photographer and turns some of her photos into cards which you can purchase at www.postcardsalive.com

 

As you would agree there's nothing quite like a home baked cake, the shop ones just don't cut it as far as I'm concerned. My favourite one for baking at the moment is a Buttery Vanilla Cake, it goes great with a coffee. It's one of those recipes where you just put everything in the bowl and mix it. 

The recipe is:

250g butter, 2 teaspoons vanilla essence, 2 cups castor sugar, 4 eggs, 2 cups self-raising flour, 1/3 cup custard powder, 1 cup milk.

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix with an electric mixer until well combined. Spread into prepared cake tins. Bake in a moderately slow oven for 1 1/4hr. When cold dust with sifted icing sugar.

While I'm on favourites...my favourite drink at the moment is Malted Milk...yum. A couple of heaped teaspoons into a glass. Mix with a little milk first and then pour the rest of the milk in. It's a bit like milo in that you get the nice crunchy bits on the top.