Juniper cafe, 6 July 2016

Hayden and I celebrated the end of our six-month 'sabbatical' at a lovely little cafe near our home. Beautiful books, warmth, coffee and great food. That's our speed of celebration.

winter sunshine

Our place is gloomy to say the least, and in summer almost no direct light makes its way in at all.  But just now, on the verge of wintertime, we get some afternoon rays into the kitchen.  I like how they make the colours glow - albeit faintly.

warm day, cool drink

I'm trying to keep pace with documenting Tim's favourite drinks as we head into summer.  Recently he has most often been requesting a 'pink smoothie' (that's a smoothie made with berries and bananas).

I'm also trying to get myself (and my camera) used to the low light situation in our new home.  I tell myself it's not gloomy, it's shady, cool and dim. And calm.

loves working in the kitchen

...though it is sometimes hard to push the drawer closed, past one's post-lunch tummy.

Christmas present

Christmas pav-making, originally uploaded by &Naomi.

Yeah.... we got the Kitchenaid for Christmas. And about time too! Both Hayden and I had been wanting one of these for a while (and we'd come pretty close to purchasing one a couple of times, most notably when our tiny tinny electric beaters finally gave out on us about a year ago) but we were really just looking for the right moment to commit. Or the right excuse to cough up the dough. Let's call it the right moment.

So the moment finally came for us a couple of days before we were due to spend Christmas for once at home, when we devised a Christmas menu which included pavlova. Just look at the glossy sheen on that meringue. We were never going to achieve that with the old op-shop rotary beaters, were we?

Christmas brunch

Christmas brunch, originally uploaded by &Naomi.

Christmas at eight months pregnant is a little different to Christmas as I've come to know it in the last couple of years. No flying to see family and friends in Brisbane or New Zealand (no airport queues, no sad partings at the cattery, no wrapping up delicate presents and worrying about them in our luggage) ... just Hayden and me (and Lily and the Bump) at home for the day.

The food was always going to be a feature, though. That's one thing that didn't change, even without other family-members around to impress. But these days there is no way I can hold out all morning for a big feast in the afternoon, so Hayden fortified me with a beautiful Christmas brunch of corn fritters, bacon, guacamole and three different types of salsa. It was as delicious as it looks, and gave me strength for all that Christmas skyping. (I think skype is great, truly so much better than just talking on the phone. But those technical issues that seem to come up every single time can really wear me out. It's a worry for my health! At my last midwife appointment, my slightly elevated blood pressure had the midwife worried until I mentioned that I'd spent the morning attempting to set up a skype conference call. "Well, that explains it!" and she said no more about it).

Happy Christmas! Hope you had a wonderful one.