Canberra

Last weekend Ian was the diversion to get a long time friend out of the house while preparations for a surprise 50th were put in place. The party was in Canberra so we accompanied him for the weekend and took the chance to ride around Lake Burley Griffin - one of our favourite rides.
We left our run a little late for a choice of accommodation, it was the last week of the Impressionist exhibition at the National Gallery and even three weeks out accommdation was in very short supply. We did however manage to score a classy room at the Formule1 motel.
Sunday morning we took ourselves off the the Poacher's Pantry for what I reckon may well have been the best brunch ever. I had spinach and fetta fritatta with bacon and chili jam, Judy had smoked salmon and asparagus and Ian baked eggs with washed rind cheese and prosciutto - all meals had beautiful sour dough bread.

Here we are - post brunch - looking very pleased with ourselves despite looking into an eye-squintingly bright sun.

Breaking the drought....

It has been so long since anyone put finger to keyboard I thought I should break the drought and show that we do occasionally do something.
Over the weekend we drove up to Mount Wilson, a quaint town on the Bell's Line of Road to see if the leaves have begun to turn. It is Camelotesque, beautiful and untouched although our visit coincided with the annual nut harvest (unbeknown to us) and so the "centre of town" was busy with people who had apparently come to stock up on chestnuts.
Here by the way is the busy centre of town complete with fallen leaves.

I know you are wondering why would people travel all the way to Mount Wilson to gather their own chestnuts, so are we; the couple of occasions when we have had chestnuts left us determined we would not again cross the road for them - perhaps there is something we do not know.
As a town Mount Wilson remains completely unspoilt, about 2 years ago a small cafe opened its doors but that is it as far as anything even vaguely commercial goes. The only way to spend money in town is to visit one of the many beautiful gardens which open for visitors to enjoy (and apparently to pick one's own chestnuts if you are not yet aware they are not worth the trouble).
This time we did break new ground and found another way to return home $10 poorer and that was to visit the Turkish Bath (yes Turkish Bath) Museum which we found open for the first time on the occasion of this visit.

Mount Wilson was in large part a summer retreat for wealthy Sydney residents but the bath was built by a local identity, at a cost believed to be around £8000 in the (vain) hope that it may help in the treatment of his wife's cancer.
He obviously was not inclined to do what he could to keep the costs down and the decoration is quite remarkable, right down to the hand painted windows which were imported from England.

We do always enjoy a wander through the grounds of the Anglican Church as well. It now offers evening prayers on the second Sunday of each month at 3pm! I should have thought evening prayers ought not take place until evening.

It was in the grounds of the church we found these cyclamen adding their cheer to the day.

And lunched in a park where this tree caught my attention, doing its very best to put on the show we had travelled to see.