Bathroom Blast from the Past!

It has been a long time since I have seen a bathroom like this one!  Actually for one so ancient it is not in too bad a shape.  This one is situated in J & P’s place.  The cupboard is made from thin plyboard with a formica finish.

The legs of the sink cupboard look quite hilarious I think but I guess there was wisdom in having one so high off the floor in case of bathroom flood.

The whole bathroom is in pale pink and white and the bath and sink are the original enamal covered metal ones, both in yellow. Even the tiles are the originals.

I have been trying to work out the vintage of this delightful bathroom.

Sams Sweet Potato Salad

This week I decided to make a salad that included warm sweet potato.  I didn’t have or follow a receipe I just used ingredients I particularly like and that I thought complimented each other.

I pre-cooked sweet potato so the small pieces were still a litle cruchy and then threw in a couple of handfuls of sugar snap peas for 1 minute.  For the croutons - I cut up 5 slices of white bread into small squares and drizzeld them with oil and put them on a baking tray in the oven on high for five minutes to brown.  I thinly sliced 3 chicken breasts and quickly cooked them in some olive oil, garlic and lemon and pepper seasoning.  I placed a few leaves of lettuce on the plate and placed the warm sweet potato and sugar snaps peas on top.  Then I cut several grape tomatoes in half.  I placed some warm chicken and crutons on top.  On the kids salad I placed Cucumber slices.  On Cliff’s I placed mushroom and on mine a big handful of chopped coriander (no-one else likes the flavour!).  The kids ate theirs with no salad dressing.  I made a simple salad dressing for Cliff and I of micro diced garlic and chilli and a drizzle of Petra’s lemon olive oil.  Delicious!  We will definately be having this meal again!

Zephyr - Moroccan Lamb Salad

Yesterday J, P and I cycled to Fremantle along the river cycle paths from Mt Pleasant.  This is an easy 20km, almost flat cycle (40km round trip) except for short short, winding hill section in the Pt Walter Reserve.  It is perfect trip when you set out at around 10am arriving at the Zephyr Riverside Cafe on the Fremantle foreshore for lunch.

The menu made everything sound wonderful and it was hard to choose from a great selection of sandwiches, grill and salads.  J chose the Moroccan Lamb Salad ($24) this had spicy martinated lamb served warm a top a salad of cerry tomatoes, cucumber, capsicum, onion and Tzatziki dressing.  J said that the lamb was lovely and tender and the salad delicious.

P decided on a toasted turkish sandwich.  She chose the Middle Eastern turksih ($17) which was vegetarian.  P said it was very filling.  The Turkish was filled with chilli

Zephyr - Middle Eastern Turkish

hommus, grilled eggplant, spinach, sweet potato, capsicum and fetta.  P said that the feta had a lovely lemony tang to it.

I decided on the Rustic Vegetable Salad ($18).  This salad was served vegetarian but I chose to have some grilled chicken wth it ($24).

This salad was stunning in look and the taste was a devine mix of flavours - roast potato, sweet potato, roasted capsicum, carot and caramelised onion.  The chicken was perfectly cooked and was tender, moist and lemony.  The feta was the same as the one they had used in the Turkish, with a lovely lemony tang and not salty.  The mix of vegetables made this dish just perfect.  I would definately choose to eat this again.

The only drawback is we discovered that it was BYO and we have grown accustomed to dining with a glass of

Zephyr - Rustic Vegetable Salad

wine or a beer with our ‘cycle lunches’.  We settled on a glass of water each with our meal and a coffee starter.  Overall the meal was great and good value for the quality that was served.  We aso had a bowl of wedges that were served with two dips - chilli sauce and sour cream.  All up the meal was $70 and definately one of the best lunches we have had.

Even without the usual beer with lunch it was hard getting back on our bikes for the cycle home at the start.  Once we got going it wasn’t too bad.  About 5 minutes into the return trip there is a hill and once were were over that it was an easy ride for the next 10 minutes until we hit Point Walter.  The day was just perfect at 24 degrees C and the blue sky and gentle head wide made the ride along the river home very relaxing.  Our top speed reached was 35kmph and we averaged just 15kmph on this particular trip (down from our usual 18kmph) as we took it very leisurely.  For a few kilometres after Point Walter towards the Raffles there were an abnormally large number of Black Swans.  We normally see a small group of 4 or 5 birds but today there were dozens of them in several large groups.

Japanese Slipper Cocktail

Japanese Slipper… the one pictured was enjoyed at The Roxby Thai and Seafood Restaurant on South Street in O’Connor.  Roxby has a huge menu from a hundred traditional Thai favourites, to award winning seafood (including crayfish) and a range of steaks and ribs.

Roxby have two restaurants - one in O’Connor and one in Willeton.  We’ve only been to the O’Connor one which is situated in the building that used the be a Lone Steak House so it has a strange aura (as it was purpose built for the Lone Steak House with lots of pine, railing and western bar!).

Ingredients of the Japanese Slipper - crushed ice, 30ml Midori, 30ml Cointreau and fresh lemon juice.  It is a delicious and refreshing cocktail and the Maraschino Cherry was a nice finish!

Big Ben

Of the four girls in my family I, as the eldest, am the only one born in England (the others all arriving after we came to Australia).  However, of the four girls in my family, I am the only one who has not holidayed in England - which is kind of ironic!  Unfortunately I am inflicted with a mortal fear of flying.  It is a totally irrational fear - as phobias always are.

I first flew at the age of 16 to Bali for a family holiday with my parents and siblings.  My next trip was at 20 to Singapore & Penang.  All of these trips were uneventful (as far as the plane trip went).  However after this point, for some reason, I started to become ridiculously nervous in the week preceding any flight and this has escalated for each subsequent flight.  It drives me crazy and others even crazier!  In the past 10 years I have had a couple of trips to Melbourne, have honeymooned in Bali (2001) and visited Sydney (2003).  And… this appears to have been the point where my phobia spiralled out of control.   Last year before the planned ski trip to Queenstown NZ with a stop over in Sydney on the way back I went to the Doctor and ashamedly asked medication to “knock me out” for the trip.  Of course (unfortunately) there is no anaesthetic type medication on the market that would solve my dilemma and instead I was given beta blockers and other “calming” medications.   These did seem to help (a little) as I wasn’t physically stick with headache or nausea for days after the flight.  Now, a year later, my mental illness has kicked up a gear.  Even watching or hearing a plane fly overhead makes me feel physically sick (read “mentally”).

This morning my beloved (20yo) B left with her Grandma for London where they will spend the next 3 weeks sightseeing and shopping.   They will see all the places I long to visit - where I was born, where my family is from, all of the landmarks.  The sad thing is that I could have gone with them if it hadn’t been for my ridiculous phobia.

I am very angry at myself for being this way, I mean, I consider myself of average intellegence.  I KNOW that you are safer in a plane than driving your car on the road.  It is not the fear of crashing that scares me and this is what I find so infuriating.  It is being locked inside an metal box and not being able to get out.  It is the ‘weightlessness’ that I feel that makes my head feel like it is going to explode.  It is the noise of the engine, the vibrations and the feeling that I get in my head that makes me feel like I am sliding downwards.  The anxiety is so bad that even THINKING about flying myself or knowing that someone I love is currently flying gives me a headache and makes me feel sick.

This is something I need to resolve, something I need to find a cure for.

Badgingarra Emu Downs Wind Farm

On farming lands in Badgingarra, 200kms north of Perth is a huge Wind Farm called Emu Plains. There are more than 40 huge turbines which apparently cost around $180 million to build.  You can’t appreciate the size of these turbines without being there.  We watched a white service ute head down a dusty farm road towards the base of one of the turbines and by the time they parked the vehicle looked as small as a sheep in a far away paddock! This turbine farm alone makes enough electricity to power 80,000 homes and saves 455,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each year.

For a country like Australia, with its huge windy costal areas and sweeping farming lands, Wind Farms seem like an ideal way to generate electricity, with little impact and whilst still allowing the land amongst the turbines to be used as normal.

At Badgingarra where the turbines some of the paddocks had grazing cows and others had been cropped.  A second Wind Farm is also currently in progress that is due for completion in 2010.