Merlot and a cork not a screw top

I wrote some time back about finding a bottle of with a cork after months of grabbing and twisting a screw to. See blog here.

This weekend I have had a pure hedonistic experience with wine and a cork. I was given two special bottles of red wine. Katnook Estate Coonawarra Merlot 2005 and a Shiraz Bishop by Ben Glaetzer Barossa Valley. Both these bottles have corks.

This Saturday seemed the time to celebrate by opening one of them. I have a good temp job that will bring money in for the next couple of weeks, the drive onto my property is scheduled to start on Monday morning and a friend from an earlier life contacted me.

I deliberated and chose the merlot.

Since my last cork problem I bought a new cork screw that I have never had to use. Life is full of grab and twist.

The cork screw went in like a dream and cork came out with a satisfying pop and the beautiful ruby coloured wine glowed in my crystal glass. It is the best wine I have drunk in a long time. I sipped and purred and munched on a Harro’s special pizza. Life was very good.

What is it after a little too much red wine (I couldn’t resist that extra glass) that makes us crave something sweet? For me it was a piece of Safeway’s Rocky Road Slice. Simple things can make us very happy and contented.

Yellow Mushrooms or are they Toadstools?

I have now got another crop of these beautiful plants. I have taken all the old ones out and I found at least eight tiny new ones sprouting away underneath them. The new ones have come out and the look just as beautiful as the last lot.

Does anyone one know anything about them?

I find them fascinating and very colourful.

Yellow Toadstools growing in pots

What should I do?

I have had another crop of these beautiful fungi. Does anyone know what I should do so I keep getting them?

I have left the dead ones lie on the surface as I imagine they would in the wild.

I hope this will produce new ones.

Will it?

They are very beautiful for the short time they are with me.

Morning on Sydney Road, Brunswick

These photos were taken at 8.50am near Blyth Street on Sydney Road.



It takes me about an hour travelling to get to my two day a week job in Brunswick. During that time I have moved to a very different part of the city

It’s an area of Melbourne I didn’t know and I find that life lived here is very different from life lived in the Bayside suburbs.

There’s the lack of the beach of course. But that wasn’t the first thing I noticed. On my first morning I left in plenty of time to negotiate the traffic and I arrived rather early at the top of Royal Parade. Great, I thought. I’ll have a coffee and read the paper. I drove along Sydney Road only to find it shut. I’m talking here about 8.20am. There were no people about and no cafes open. I found a news agent that was really a tobacconist. He had a whole wall of cigarettes and huge area of fancy lighters and amongst this two copies of The Age, one rather battered so I bought the other one.

I parked near the office to listen to the radio and read the paper. Opposite me was a medical centre. It wasn’t open either but there were 7 people queued up outside. One elderly man kept looking through the front window while another held forth on some topic and every now and again a couple of the women laughed with him and made a comment. A youngish man learned against the wall and pretended he was the only one waiting there.

It was curious. None of these people looked particularly sick and they couldn’t all have had an appointment at the same time. Yet you would hardly think the centre would operate on a first come first served basis. They were still there when I left and their numbers had swollen with the addition of a stocky middle aged woman.

By lunch time the area has come alive. The pavement is crowded. All the shops are open. The lines in the Post Office and the banks are long and the cafes are open and full.
There is a great place for sushi rolls and there’s a great café in Victoria Street that I plan to visit again.


















This is the place to buy your Wedding Dress. The shops are everywhere and the designs stunning.

I have never seen so many fabric shops so if you are a dressmaker this is the area to be. It is also the area for a bargain. Two Dollar shops and Variety Bargain shops are everywhere. See my previous post for my wonderful find.

I’ll be back there next week so I will explore further.

Growing Herbs and eating them

I've been checking out other peoples' blogs, as you do and I've found this delightful blog.

Great photos, with very practical information and sensible advice about growing herbs indoors.

There's even suggestions of ways to use the herbs.

Have a look.

Sydney Road, Brunswick

I am working two days a week in Sydney Road Brunswick. It’s a drab street with fusty and cluttered strip shops.

I found this stunning dish there. It’s bright clear colours are the very opposite to the street colours.

I have it on my table and smile every time I see it. It lightens my mood. It’s made in China and I would love to tell the people, who will have earned a pittance making it (it was ridiculously cheap – the cost of a pizza) how much pleasure it is giving me.

An up-date on the toadstools - they have all died and left a greyish mess around the plant. I am now wondering if I will get any more.

More beautiful yellow Toadstools

When I came home from work today there was another crop of toadstools.

I didn’t notice them in the morning. I was rushing to get ready for work but I did pass the pot on several occasions and I didn’t notice anything.

During the day there was a lot of activity in the pot because after work the moment I walked into the room I saw these brightly coloured toadstools. They had pushed their way up through the dead ones that were lying on top of the soil.

People say you can't see plants growing but I believe if I had been home I'd have seen these sprouting and pushing their way towards the ceiling.

I’m betting these spectacular fungi will dead when I wake in the morning which is such a pity because they are quite beautiful