Six Months of My Facebook

I reckon that the Sakis Rouvas number This Is Our Night should be commissioned and recognised as an Olympic Games tune.

Okay, great leap from my current structured role in the day time to a bar tender.

....and did not come home. Came home Sunday morning and was off again this arvo. Just came home again after giving the car an almost midnight wash self service in Russell Vale. Now I really know why the house is in a mess.

Kevin is bothered with two rude situations confronting him - should I be too kind and get trampled over, or stand up for what's decent?

I noted it was 12 degrees last night on the hilltop highway and cannot wait to see it go down to single digits soon. Felt lucky to escape the storm last night in Coogee.

Just came back from Leichhardt, where I had a spunky spaghetti marinara and chicken parmigiana at Gioia"s at Norton Street.

Kevin has come back from business in Sydney CBD - enjoyed the opportunity to sit down at a boardroom styled meeting and exchange ideas with peers, Board members and even caught up with Franco at the meeting. The wind was picking up this arvo but my mind has also been revitalised!

Had a great day getting beer into bottles, catching up with people I should keep more in touch with and then finishing up with Singapore chili crabs and a garden romp!

Kevin is so glad that he still nurtures dreams and has persistence, despite the roadblocks that energy depleting people throw at him.

Kevin feels so good devoting a weekend to his inner self and outer need to do nothing structured, as he promised himself.

Kevin is feeling so mellow, happy with closure of things that fail to capture his attention anymore and looking forward to things that really count.

I am exhausted after a long day on business off-site and coming back in the rain, but glad that he attended a farewell do back at uni.

A Path Less Travelled

This time it was the persimmons, bright-orangy, firm and standing out like dazzling leaflets on a stand over the pavement. Bankstown in Sydney never fails to astonish me. The day had been warmer than expected, with the winds of the past week huddled away, and yet there seemed to be fewer shoppers. Maybe it was the late afternoon, or perhaps the recession had taken a stronger bite. I scanned through various delicacies of cakes and stuff displayed at most of the shop fronts along the Mall. There were miniature dumplings laden with bits of pork, shrimp and chives - hey don't they look like yum cha stuff, but then there was this chili spicy sauce to take them with. I returned to the modest food shop that made a sensational tasty bowl of mung bean noodles swirled with seafood and garnished with aromatic, appetising ingredients. I looked at herbs that had not reached the shelves of Woolworths and Coles as yet.

The early night saw me around a home dinner table in Carlingford with coconut milk flavoured rice steamed and placed over banana leaves. To accompany this traditional Malaysian breakfast item, there were smoked crunchy anchovies, hard boiled egg halves in South-east Asian sambal, Lebanese cucumber slices, marinated prawns and chicken curry laden with potatoes and gravy. I always thought it can be too rich to eat this first thing in the morning, and now I find its rightful place as dinner on a Sunday night. No lamb roast. The Indo-Chinese jelly I obtained from a Bankstown shop complemented the grapes, nashis and rockmelon cuts on the fruit platter often served by cousin Susan and her hubby Boo Ann. This time Susan also made the tasty banana fritters. It was Eurovision finals night in Moscow on the telly.

I took a path less travelled through the expanse of greater Sydney and was restored with the fascination of discovering a new dimension. From Heathcote, I cut through Menai, avoided going back to Sutherland and kept going north till I found Bankstown. From Bankstown I checked out Strathfield through Belmore and then it was on to familiar territory through Concord, Top Ryde and Epping to Carlingford. Curry leaves and kumquats from Balgownie were packed in the car with me - I had looked at them and realised that these were not common in Australia not many years ago, but now has added to the fabric of diverse foods in both Bankstown and Carlingford.

Fruits of the Season - May

Mandarins on a platter

Plums and Custard Apples


Longans On The Stem