Road Trip...

DSIL#1 - "I have a couple of Stamp Albums you can have - come for Lunch"

I must admit I could get used to having a view like this from my Kitchen window.

And the 'Couple of Albums' turned out to be BIL's extensive Collection of First Day Covers.  

Apparently, we now collect other peoples Stamp Albums....

So that is how we found ourselves having an unplanned weekend away in Ballarat.

 

Ballarat is only 90 mins from home but we decided to turn this into an early Birthday treat and stay overnight at the RACV Resort.

So, having nowhere to go but Home and all day to get there, we took the opportunity to visit the Creswick Woollen Mill.

We wandered into the past looking at the old tools, and weaved our way through a portion of the 100 meters of the World's Longest Picnic Rug

 (Guinness Record 6-10-2011)

We read about their advances in Fire Blanket Technology for the CFA

and walked past silent looms. 

(The blankets are now woven in Waverley Mills Launceston TAS and finished at Creswick.)

All that was left was to spend way too much time in the Mill Store.

Checking out the beautiful Woollen Blankets and clothing.

And who could resist a basket full of Alpaca Offcuts.....

Return to Sender ..... I wish

Have you ever ordered something on-line and it either takes FOREVER to arrive IF it arrives at all?

This week we had a parcel delivered that was clearly not ours.
The only similarity was that it was the same Street and Number.

I wrote on the envelope that it needed to be sent to SOUTH AUSTRALIA and put it back in the Mail.

This was a litany of errors starting with the sender not placing a Return Address AND leaving BOTH tracking labels on the Parcel.  

There was no way I could contact them.  I had the tracking numbers so I could see what was happening - just hope the recipient did too.

This parcel ended up in a loop of arriving at my place - going back to the mail sorting only to come back to me.

I tried to return it via the mail box and 2 Post Offices. On the 3rd visit, they took one look at me and the parcel, mumbled something about once the stamps are cancelled it can't be on-forwarded and decided to put it into a new envelope and try again.

I presume it arrived safely.  

Or it is bouncing around every other State in the Country that has the same Street Name as Ours.  

I will never know.

Cake Decorating

 At approx. AUD 110.00 per 1kg* Cocoa Butter is not my first choice for Cake Decorating but today's Workshop gave us the opportunity to try it out.

(With a HUGE Thank you to our demonstrator for supplying the Cocoa butter)

After having traced the provided Image onto our Plaques we then melted the Cocoa butter over hot water and coloured it with dusting powder.

(A small amount of Cocoa Butter went a long way!)

Then the fun began.

Painting our Christmas Bird. 

The Cocoa Butter flowed beautifully leaving a waxy finish which could be worked on indefinitely with a warm finger if needed.

By the end of the day, everyone had learned a lot and we had a table full of Christmas Robins.

I can imagine beautiful artwork on a cake using this medium.  

My only advice - Don't leave it near a heat source!

*Price & Image from Savour Melbourne

 (Home of The Chocolate Queen Kirstin Tibballs)