Gilding the lily

Even though we had a FANTASTIC holiday up north, we still managed to get even more from our holidays by going back to Casa Luna in the King Valley where we went for our extensive, one ENTIRE DAY honeymoon back in 2006. Here I am enjoying a glass of wine in the lounge, enjoying Gwenda's delicious cookbook library.

And here is the dining room. Unlike 2006, it was just me and Jay - one table, this view!

Entree: an antipasto plate, including these beauties - eggs with bagna cauda and salmon roe.

And a baked tomato stuffed with rice and mint.

And a glass of wine, I think it is a Wood Park Roussane.

And the main course - Jason's favourite! He is still talking about it, and will be talking about it for years to come I think. Cotechino sausage wrapped in veal, braised in... something, served with gnocchi alla romana.

There are also three cheeky dogs on site to wear you out by making you throw their disgusting slobbery ball for them for eternity! Lucky they are so nice and cheeky. This is Jack and the middle one whose name I don't remember. Coco isn't in frame, but she was being bossed around by the two boys anyway.

Here is Jason and breakfast! Or at least the herd of Welsh black cows who donated a few members for our breakfast sausages. I salute your deliciousness, cows!

We went to Beechworth while we were up there. I bought a flan tin and Jason some cheesy stuff that Natacha will get to enjoy soon! We decided to take it back to the car, whereupon we discovered THIS:

It was a GIGANTIC huntsman - you could see its eyes and every hair on its hairy hairy legs... ewwwww! We stood around like complete wimps for ages until a couple wandered by and the kind bloke advised us on how to deal with it, and then even more kindly, dealt with it for us. It scuttled out onto the door and he brushed it hastily onto the ground, where it lay on its back, twitching and freaking us all out and the lady was weeping, 'kill it! Kill it!' and Jason and I were hopping around trying to decide what to do when it flipped itself over and scampered under the car and I said, quick, let's drive away before it climbs back in! and Jason said OK! and then I got in the car, but he took AGES to get back in the car because he was checking for the spider and I said if you take that long to get in then it will definitely climb back in the wheel and freak you out while you are driving and he said OK and got in and we drove away and we never really found out what happened to it, so spent the next two days being Very Cautious when getting into the car.

Finally, here is a photo for Lauren. Don't get in the car! Bad side-effects!