JANUARY SCAVENGER HUNT

A last minute decision to join in lead to a frantic sorting through my photos for ones that matched,

as usual !

Here is January's effort

1.  information



This is where I turn to find out anything these days.

2.  soft

on my bare feet !

3.  in season

mango, my favourite fruit

4. in my bathroom

I sure got a fright when I reached for my towel !!!!

5. distance

The mountains from my backyard.

6.  two

Sadly it's two no more .
RIP Baker

7.  a mess

Dash got hold of the ham bag.... and it tasted great !

8.  odd

An odd number of table decorations for my Dad's 90th birthday party.

9.  entrance

The pathway to our front door. Very pretty at the moment.

10.  company

A gathering of friends and neighbours on New Year's Day is always good company.

11. blur

What rain does to the view

12. warning

coming down the Toowoomba range.

Well that's it for another month.

If you 'd like to see some other interpretations/collections click HERE .

Cheers.

RAIN !

Rain !

Love it !

A lovely rainy Sunday.

Love it !

Cheers.

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO - HOLLYWOOD VERSION

Firstly, I am surprised that many of you have not read these books.

They have been so popular here and most of my friends have read the whole series.

Admittedly we tend to pass these books around among ourselves.

( Make sure you read them in the correct order. )

I strongly advise you to give them a go if you like a good murder / mystery / drama.

( I 'd like to add that I found the beginning of the first one a bit difficult to get into but please persevere, it is worth it. )

Well, we've done it.

A great way to spend a rainy Saturday afternoon - a visit to the movies before the Saturday night crowds and lovely Thai on the way home.

Verdict:  Fabulous !

More detail than the Swedish version, more depth to the characters and their relationships and best of all only one small change to the storyline from the book.

I think the rape scene was more harrowing in the Swedish version and the sex scenes a little more graphic in the Hollywood version ( surprisingly ).

This time we had Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara in the lead roles.

(the Hollywood Lisbeth  - strange bleached eyebrows )

Both casts were excellent and I still can't decide which was best.

They certainly got the look right for Lisbeth.

( the Swedish one )

I highly recommend the Hollywood version as well as the Swedish version

but

read the books first !

Cheers.

MOVIE REVUE - Millenium Trilogy

Like millions of people all over the world I've read and enjoyed the Millenium Trilogy by Stieg Larssons.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl who Played with Fire

and

The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest 

Recently we purchased DVD's of the Swedish version of all three books and set about watching them.

We never watch movies with subtitles and we soon learnt that we could not look away,

put the kettle on,

anything that would cause us to miss those printed words.

We thoroughly enjoyed them.

The two main parts

( Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist )

were very well done, especially the role of Lisabeth. 

Isn't this just how you imagined her?

Next week we will go and see the new version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

with Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara.

I'll keep you posted.

Cheers.

GARDEN UPS AND DOWNS -FTF

Round about this time last year I wrote a post about how disappointing your garden can be sometimes.

Have a quick look by clicking here so you can see the photos I took before you scroll down to see the photos I took yesterday.
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no cheating now !
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"

What a difference !



We've had a few inches of rain too so the grass is turning green

but look at these flowers!

The path to the front door looks lovely too.

Not to be outdone the Golden Lyre Grevillea is putting on a show too.

You win some, you lose some.

That's gardening for you.

This time we've had a win !!!


I'm linking up for Favourite Things Friday again today 'cos these pretty pink flowers are my favourite thing this week.

 Cheers.

OFF TO A GOOD START

One of the things on my "to do " list for this year ( number 8 in fact ) is to finish decorating my bedroom.
On my recent visits to my local shopping centre I've noticed lots of black and white photos of the Eifel Tower in the homeware stores and I really like them.

So off home I trotted to look at the photos we had taken on our visit to Paris, my favourite city in the world.

After a bit of fiddling using Picasa I have come up with these :



Black and white with a hint of blue.

We sent away to have them printed up as large as possible without being poster size - about 11inches  by 14 inches.

The top two have come back and look terrific and I purchased one plain white frame to see how it would look.

I'm absolutely thrilled with it.

I'm going a little French Provincial-ish and I think three of these above my bed will be terrific.
So we're off tomorrow to buy some matching frames and have the next two printed up.

On the outside wall with the window I have a lovely little item that my talented friend Lynnie made for me at Christmas.

It's made of buttons covered with pieces of material from my quilt.

Isn't that a cute idea?

So here we are at the end of January and I'm actually achieving something.

I'm on the way with number 8 and have accomplished number 2 ( learning to take movies with my phone ) !

I'm really pleased !

Cheers.

A SUCCESSFUL BIRTHDAY BASH

Yes, the food looked good.



The cook did well.....



and did a taste -test to make sure all was well. !!



The guests tucked in without complaint
and the guest of honour 

blew out the candles with the help of his two great grandchildren.

Happy 90th Birthday Dad 

 

PREPARATIONS

I'm about to swing into frenzy mode.

The Oldies ( Mum and Dad ) are arriving today for the big birthday bash on Sunday.

This is when I start to panic about the amount of food I have worked out.

Will there be enough?

Is the cake big enough?

Will they drink much wine?  beer ? champagne ?

Does anyone ( except young people ) drink much alcohol in the middle of the day??

The table centre decorations are done   ... and quite pretty.

Blue and green are the colours of the serviettes I have purchased.

I'll feel better when I can start preparing the food.

Cheers.

START THE DAY RIGHT

Today is my best buddy's 60th birthday so what better way than to start her busy birthday than with a breakfast together.

Now, I'm not one of those people who is an early riser .....

 (Well, not since I gave up work anyway !!!)

and I hate the pressure of cooking when people are around

so I pulled out this recipe and it was just right.

Prepare most of it ahead of time,

pop into the oven when you are ready and in about 20 minutes it's done.

Tasty too, so I thought I would share it with you.

You'll need:

6 slices of bread crusts removed

3 bacon rashes , chopped

1 small onion chopped

6 cherry tomatoes

6 eggs

grated cheese

* Preheat oven to 180C.  Grease or spay muffin tin with baking spray.

*  Flatten bread slices with a rolling pin then press them into the muffin tin ( I spray them with the baking spray too and put the sprayed side down in the tin)

* Cook the chopped onion and chopped bacon in the microwave. Pour off any liquid then place a little of this in the base of each bread case. Cut the cherry tomatoes in half ( or use ordinary tomato slices ) and press into the bacon mixture.

* Break a whole egg into each bread case then sprinkle a little grated cheese over each one. 

* Cook for about 20 minutes or until egg has set.

Looks yummy.

Tastes yummy.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm !

and no stress !

Cheers.

Edited to add:

I see many of you are having problems with comments on your blog.

To fix it --- Go to Dashboard, Click on Settings, Click on Comments and change to Popup Comments.

Hope that helps, it fixed mine.