Dreaming of Vintage Treasures

  For the last few days of 2018, my family and I were still in Eden . After missing the chance to buy some fresh seafood off the wharf the previous day , we returned on the Sunday, made friends with the lovely fisher-lady and brought some mussels back to the cabin. My mum and I finally got to make a paella and a fruit and tea sangria - it was yum! I spent the day reading and hanging out near the beach.  Later in the afternoon, my mum and I went for a walk around the caravan park. I've always loved the painted fish walls of the laundry, the other side of the wall is even better. It's a bit of a tradition to take some photos in front of the fish wall each time we're there. My mum and I found a seat bench near the creek and sat around for a long time chatting away. I admired the reflection of the clouds in the water. The next day, we spent the last day of 2018 at a nearby, somewhat hidden place called Boyd Torn beach. We drove ...

After a day out in Merimbula , my mum and I began the next day with a walk by the beach. The sky and water looked beautiful. I cooked some pancakes with strawberries and nutella for my family and I. We then drove to the Eden wharf to buy some mussels, as my mum wanted to make paella for lunch. We stopped off to say our annual hello to Denise the horse who we've now renamed Denis after discovering he's a boy! He's usually very friendly and let's us pat and feed him grass but this year he bit my sister! We laughed about that for ages! Then we popped into Tribal Suzani Eden Specialty , a hippy shop that we like to pop into whenever we're in Eden.  I love these lamps, puppets and Turkish plates. Last year, I bought a raw amethyst stone for myself and a snakeskin bag for my mum from this shop. This year, I bought a bright coloured maxi dress, which I'm sure will pop up on this blog soon. It's not too often that I buy brand new c...

After a relaxing day at the beach in Eden , my family and I spent the next day of our holiday in a nearby town called Merimbula. We browsed the strip of shops and had a good walk around. It's a bit of a tradition for us to have lunch at the Merimbula RSL, so we made our way up the hill. We arrived too late (the kitchen closed at 2pm) so we tried eating somewhere else for a change. Source My sister spotted Dulcie's Kitchen, a house made in 1925 that has now been turned into a hamburger place/pub. It originally had 10 people living in the home and the mother Dulcie loved cooking, so the place is named after her. Half of the walls have wooden paneling and it's decorated in old photos of the people and the town as well as mounted deers near the fireplace. Source We all enjoyed the hamburgers and were glad to have tried a new place to eat. My mum and I looked a bit like twins in our maxi dresses. This pink dress was fun to wea...

Hello!  I've recently come back from a holiday. My family and I went to Eden, New South Wales after Christmas . It was an 8 hour drive from Melbourne and the road trip is always one of my favourite parts of going on holidays. On our obligatory holiday stop at McDonalds for breakfast, I passed on my usual hash brown and had a toasted cheese and tomato sandwich instead. Who knew they sold toasties? I only go to McDonalds about once a year - can you tell?!  I spent most of the car ride sleeping, the windy roads put me and my sister straight to sleep! We spent the next day swimming at the beach. We're really lucky to have a beach about 20 metres away from the cabin, so we could eat outside by the waters and hear the waves crash at night. For dinner, I made us a quick Mexican meal - nachos, tomato salsa and guacamole. We're still on a Mexican kick after a friends' Mexican themed party ! Aren...

A couple of days before Christmas, it was my sister's 21st birthday. Instead of having a big party, she organised a trip for my family and I to go to Sydney   back in October . I t was so fun,  I wish I had've thought of that for my 21st! On her actual birthday, we went off for a day trip to Hanging Rock. It's a large geological formation, basically a giant rock and you can walk to the top of it. This curly tree greeted us on the way in. It was made famous by the Australian novel and later movie called Picnic at Hanging Rock. I've never read the book or watched the movie, but after learning a bit about the history of it, I'm intrigued. I wish I had've dressed up in something white and flowy, like the actresses did in the recent TV series: Source I love dressing up, so wasn't too thrilled about dressing down for the day. My sister recommended wearing runners for the steep walk, but I'm much more of a boots girl, so I stuck on my t...

Hello!  2018 is almost finished - can you believe it? I thought my family and I were having a quiet Christmas at home, but we got a few invites at the last minute! On Christmas Eve, we went to my uncle's house for lunch, the lamb spit and my mum's stuffed peppers were delicious! The jokes in the Christmas crackers had us laughing this year. What do elves learn at school? The elf-abet! It's the silly season, alright! We stopped off at my nonna's on the way home. I don't get to see her as often as I'd like, as I've been working full time this year, and I miss her.  Now that I've got some time off, I'm happy to see her much more. On Christmas day, my family and I had lunch with my best friend Renee and her family. There's nothing like a good ol' catch up. And they're a clever lot. They hired a hall and everyone brought a couple of plates of food, which saved one person the stress of cooking a huge feast...

Hello! I finished work for the year on Thursday. We had a staff lunch at a cute Italian farm estate. The food was delicious and it was nice to celebrate the end of the year with all the lovely staff. I can't believe I've finished my first year as a teacher! It's been such a challenge and steep learning curve, I'm glad I persevered. I'm hoping that next year is a whole lot easier now that I'm a bit more confident and familiar with everything. Now that I'm on holidays, I get a chance to embrace the holiday spirit. I love how my mum decorates the house for Christmas. We've both  been  slowly collecting decorations over the years. A lot of them must be vintage by now, we've had them for that long! My mum has always told my sister and I stories of how much she adored her grandmother's little gold Christmas tree when she visited her in Italy as a child. So my mum was thrilled to find her very own this year for $2.50, ...