chocolate coated kindness

breaking my ribs had some rewards... Mum and Pete came up from Sydney with lunch and Laura dropped in these amazing chocolate brownies.. thank you xxxx

eggs

I went to wish Leah a happy birthday this morning and came home with a dozen fresh eggs from her chooks!
David and Leah have four beautiful chooks in the bottom of their garden and they're in fine laying spirits.
This photo is from the markets in Mondulkiri, Cambodia, black eggs were very popular there. In fact all sorts of eggs are very popular in Cambodia.  People would put whole eggs with shell on skewers and smoke them or steam them. They would number the eggs 1-5 - referring to days. Apparently 3 days  is very tasty, we didn't ever try - the number refers to the age of the chick in the shell.

Chinese new year

Hanoi March 2009

Pakse Feb 2009

It's the Year of the Tiger!!
This time last year we were in Pakse, Laos, eating noodles as the new year dragon entered our restaurant with drummers, dancers and a big paper mache-faced man bringing good luck to the premises.
It was a hoot as they let off fireworks & streamers in the street and celebrated in front of the Chinese businesses in this small Lao town.
The Chinese shops all had beautiful potted trees, decorated with gold & red envelopes filled with money - the dragon came and ate them - their good luck for the year was measured by how much they gave, as was the time the spent drumming up a storm in their foyer.

Organic Chocolate Easter Eggs

Easter is on its way.  You can pre-order your organic chocolate easter eggs with Jasmine Greens.


$8.80 each for 130g organic milk chocolate egg
$8.80 each for 130g organic dark chocolate egg
$13.60 each for 200g organic milk chocolate bunny


Be quick, orders have to be in by Feb 21 - they'll be delivered to you closer to Easter. 
email your order to  jasminegreens@bigpond.com

help Calga stop the sand mine

the more populated the world grows, the more impact we inevitably have on the environment.  i've spent the past couple of days learning about Calga/Peats Ridge residents' concerns about a proposed new sand mine in their neighbourhood.


the mine, located on only 134 acres of classic Sydney sandstone country is expected to extract one sixth of Sydney's annual sand supply.  it will do this by cutting 35 metres down into the sandstone and into the local aquifer that Calga and Peats Ridge residents say supplies up to 50% of the Central Coast's water supply.


it's amazing how such a small block of land wedged between Mooney Mooney and Brooklyn can potentially have such an enormous impact on the water supply for almost half a million people.  in addition, the mine process involves crushing stone to extract sand.  


the process is highly water intensive and creates invisible, but highly dangerous silica crystals, not found on beaches, where the sand's silica crystals are rounded, these silica crystals are sharp from the mechanical crushing process and can cause asthma and more significantly, silicosis, not dissimilar to asbestosis, when inhaled - there is no cure for this scarring of the lungs, that will occur from long-term exposure to the tiny silica crystals.


today i helped Scott Levi put some info on the ABC website about the mine and next week Scott will broadcast some of the interviews I've made with Calga residents and former Hawke government environment minister, Barry Cohen, who has a special connection to the area in question.


if you can make the time, simply log onto this website & ask NSW Planning Minister, Tony Kelly to stop the mine.

what a lovely bunch of bananas!

Misha and Mandy gave us three banana tree suckers november before last - this is our first hand.

back to school

back to school - to school for River for the first time - spent the day driving between swimming lessons, buying new school shoes for the boys and looking for good yellow things for Gully to use as props for his swimming carnival tomorrow.


he's in Pelis - their house colour is yellow.  thankfully his goggles are yellow.


the Peli pennant i have in mind to make for such events will have to wait for the athletics carnival later this year.


just returned from a very long and informative p&c meeting with our new (temporary) principal...  the meeting went for over 2 hours and was the most informative and interactive I've been to... have committed to putting 2 options to the next p&c for the purchase of new outdoor picnic benches for the playground.


River hates me calling it the playground... "there's no play equipment there mum!  it's not a playground, don't call it that!" he says... maybe I can bring this up at the next p&c meeting.