New Zealand preview

Last week we had a 7 day mini-tour of New Zealand's South Island.. it was a wintery wonderland delight :-) Here is a little preview:

Learning to be a leader..

Late last year I blogged about YLT (see here) - or Young Leadership Team to use it's full name - which is a leadership training program run by my workplace. Sound like corporate rubbish? Well, it couldn't be farther from the truth... YLT gives me and 40 of my peers the chance to take three days out of work, five times across a year-long period, to focus on our own personal development.

The speed of modern life rarely allows us time to stop and think about ourselves and those around us, to self-indulge, or to consider life's bigger questions like, 'who am I?', 'what do I want my legacy to be?' and 'what am I great at?'..

If I haven't lost you yet, then next time you're standing in the shower, queuing for coffee, or washing the dishes, allow yourself a few minutes to think about these questions. You might be amazed at what a little thinking time can do....

Here are a selection of images from the fourth of five conferences, firstly my group, called 'Orient', holding a discussion in the sunshine of the Yarra Valley:

Here is our room where we conduct most of the conference, either sitting in camp chairs (so comfy!) or sitting/lying on the floor (less comfy when you are pregnant and your jeans don't fit anymore!).

On the second night of the conference was a Eurovision themed dinner. We were each asked to dress up as a rock star, and we then proceeded to perform rock songs in groups with made up lyrics and dancing. It was a fantastically run event, and the costumes were incredible! I went as Baby Spice as part of a group of Melbourne girls who joined together to be the Spice Girls. After a while though, I must admit to feeling very sober amongst a room full of merriment!

 

We always close the conference with a fun session run by four of our participants. This time we all learnt a thriller dance with the help of a You Tube tutorial. It was hilarious and as you can see makes for some odd looking still images!

Autumn sun in the Yarra Valley

Baby Lister is on the way...

Tom and I are very excited to announce that Baby Lister is on the way! Due in late October, our first born will be an Australian citizen before we can claim passports ourselves. We are happy to be expanding our family from two to three, and look forward to the delights of parenthood.

Naturally this will provide significant blog content, so stay tuned for updates :-)

Come Dine With Me - the final...

So, the final round of Come Dine with Me had arrived - and it was our turn. 36 hours in advance we had no menu, no shopping, an untidy flat, and I had a weekend of work ahead of me. It felt like we had a mountain to climb, but luckily for me, when it comes to dinner parties, Tom is an Olympic champion climber!

Our theme for the dinner was 'A road trip around Britain' - with each course featuring a dish from a different part of the British Isles. To kick off and set the 'road trip' theme, we served a 'lunch box' for our starter. Here is the full menu:

We opened the evening with a champagne toast.. under the guise of it being the final of our four rounds of Come Dine With Me and that being a good reason to have a toast. After a clink of glasses we revealed a second toast however - and announced to our Australian friends that we are expecting a baby! There were many congratulations, lots of male back-slapping, and a sprinkling of tears - Tom and I were totally surprised by the reaction and it was really heartwarming.

Next it was over to the table and on to the starter - a packed lunch box featuring homemade scotch egg, tomato chutney, dressed rocket and a wedge of homemade bread. Tom had made the scotch egg and chutney, and my contribution was the bread. It all went down well and several people had seconds of the scotch egg!

For the main course, we (well, lets face it, Tom) served beef wellington with roast potatoes and vegetables... plus - gravy in an individual gravy boat. Oooooh, fancy! The wellington was a high risk strategy, because you never know if on the inside it's going to be overdone or red raw.. Luckily, it turned out just perfect, and was gobbled up in no time.

Finally for pud, I served my usual contribution to a dinner party - pavlova! I named it 'reconstructed Eton Mess' however, because I didn't think pavlova was very British, but Eton Mess certainly is! I also had an attempt at a union jack in berries, although with hindsight I could have made a better job of this... nonetheless, it all got eaten up!

 

With the food consumed, it was time for our friends to record their thoughts on video. After that, we watched back the comments from the previous three dinners - much hilarity ensued, and scores were tight!! Finally we watched the scores for our dinner and with a couple of tens we took home the win! As the only couple not hindered with children or a late-stage pregnancy, we perhaps had an advantage... and after announcing our baby news our friends were quick suggest a repeat competition when we have a newborn, just to throw a complication into the mix!

It topped off a wonderful evening of sharing good news, good food and fun times with our Aussie friends. Here's to the next CDWM competition.. coming your way sometime in.. erm... several years time!

Come Dine With Me - the third night...

So.. we reached the third night of four in the ex-pats Come Dine with Me challenge. I'm going to call it CDWM from here on out because I'm already fed up of typing the full shebang out.

Tonight was the turn of Lou and Sam, famous for their cooking. Sorry, Lou's cooking. Expectations were high to say the least.. and they delivered! With a British 'oop North' theme, we knew to expect hearty delights, and they more than achieved this.. although I have one bone to pick which is that haloumi cheese is not native to the North of England now, is it Lou? They also served mouldy raspberries which was so hilarious (and got blamed on their 3 year old son!) that we all forgot about it by the time scoring came around....

Here is the menu:

Entree: halloumi stuffed mushrooms

Main: braised lamb shanks in red wine with mash and steamed greens

Dessert: chocolate truffle torte

And here are the photos!

A weekend in Cradle Mountain

Almost two years to the day, we returned to Tasmania for a second visit. Having toured Hobart and Wine Glass Bay in 2011 with Tom's parents, this time we headed to the north of the state for a weekend on Cradle Mountain. The trip was built around a wedding gift from Tom's work colleagues for a night in a Pepper's resort, and this seemed like a perfect excuse to escape to the middle of nowhere for two nights. Unfortunately it coincided with possibly the only two nights of the past 12 months when having mobile phone reception was rather important to me, but never mind, we managed!

We flew the short distance from Melbourne to Launceston on a plane with propellors (my first time), and as a result of this what would be have been a lightening quick journey on jet, actually took the best part of an hour. After this we collected a hire car and started the two hour drive to Cradle Mountain. Whilst we weren't planning on making the arduous hike to the tip of the mountain (I was using early pregnancy as an excuse, but in reality we would never have done this anyway!), we were hoping to take in some of the more forgiving walks, and also enjoy good food and relaxation. My second big goal for the trip was to avoid spiders. This usually features highly on my list of requests for trips to rural areas, and to save you worrying about what is to follow in this blog, I'll put your mind at rest now and confirm that the weekend was SPIDER FREE!

We were however lucky enough to have very close encounters (but not too close!) with wombats, patty melons (think mini kangaroo) and tasmanian devils. Cradle Mountain is rich in wildlife as well as in views, and whilst in the grounds of the hotel we were inundated with patty melons and one particularly bold wombat. We also did a late night wildlife drive which involved crawilng up and down the main road in a noisy tourist bus shining bright lights into the bushes to spot wildlife. It's a wonder the noise and light didn't scare them off, and we saw plenty!

The highlight was without doubt the dove lake walk, which offered spectacular views of the tip of Cradle Mountain, and a beautiful lake setting for the 2 hour trip.  The low-light was my fish and chip dinner in the hotel bar on the first night, which was so disappointing that it seems to have stuck in my mind somewhat... sorry Peppers!