Melanie turns 30...

... and gets a tagine.

Bella Vedere, Coldstream, 17 November 2007

Les cadeaux!

La bouffe...

Les enfants

Le gateau.

Halloween!

OoooooOOOooo! Halloween! In the spring!

Halloween doesn't coincide with pumpkin season in Australia (nor are Australian pumpkins suitable for jackolanterning, unless you want severe knife wounds), so we did it Melbourne stylee, with a watermelon. Carving was the easy bit. Emptying the watermelon first rather more difficult.

Dracula menaced virginal maidens!

Jennifer Love Hewitt ghost-whispered with Dobby!

Erm... the pirate captain faced Death without fear!

A witch doctor had a nice cup of tea with a little devil and Montreal Canadiens top French goalie, Cristobal Huet... I mean, fearsome slasher Jason Voorhees!

And the pirate's parrot dazzled us all with colour and dancing!

Sadly I have no photos of the scary mummy, swashbuckling first mate or scintillating little pixie, but lack of physical evidence doesn't mean they don't exist.

Random spring photos

Jason eats a custard donut at Gleadell Street market.

Hamish looks photogenic after a BBQ on the Yarra.

We go back to the Grampians and eat an entire cherry danish for breakfast, and Jason meets a curly dog at an olive farm.

Melanie goes to the Cook Islands but can't remember where she has saved most of her photos, but here are some nice ones she took of the beach.

Picnic food and coffee at Las Chicas

Escape to the Great Ocean Road

We all had a well-earned break to the Great Ocean Road in August - we rented a fabulous house at Kennett River, halfway between Lorne and Apollo Bay, where there was peace, quiet and a koala infestation. Morning number 1 saw breakfast on the deck in the sun!

Mmmmmm... parrot...

Here is Dan doing a fine demonstration of 'Men's Catalogue Pose #32'.

Saturday night we celebrated Mel's 30th birthday. Shenanigans abounded, ample evidence of the corrupting influence of inflatable plastic provided below.

Thank goodness Felicity and Andy were around to bring some class and romance to the weekend!

And the ever-beautiful Grace as well.

But not Dan.

Here is a koala.

Me and Jay looking colourful.

A lovely weekend, with lovely people, lovely ocean, lovely food, lovely music, lovely scenery, lovely parrots, lovely everything.

Canberra - Feel The Power!

I had to go to Canberra for a course. Jason came up for the weekend. Rrrrarrgh!

Nuts to you, JHo and lackeys!

hee hee hee!

Ah, what a great weekend. Canberra - Where You Go To Make Home Seem More Exciting.