Preparation.

I have been on a roller coaster ride of 40th birthday parties lately. It makes me sad to think that everyone will turn 41 next year and the constant stream of invites will dry up. I don't know about you, but that's the only reason I check the mailbox....in the hope of discovering a party invitation.

I have an invitation for a 40th birthday party this weekend. The birthday girl has been texting me madly to remind me to get onto the Vitamin B in preparation for the aftermath of her party. I might add, this is the same friend who organised our trip to The Golden Door health retreat where we weren't allowed to drink alcohol or even caffeine.....for a whole week. We didn't, yet we did celebrate with bubbly on the plane on the way home.....I was cured of coffee, though. Today, I went into the health food shop in the village to stock up on Vitamin B:

Of course, you always have to offer an explanation and didn't I feel like a right royal idiot admitting that it was to ward of any excesses that may be incurred on Saturday night. I got the tablets and my husband and I took our first dose over lunch today. I wonder if it will work? Hope so. Will let you know.

Have been last minute workshopping what I'm going to wear. Am thinking I might go with my By Malene Birger ostrich feather skirt yet I don't think that the right top is in my wardrobe.....yet. So on a mission, I used the window of opportunity between picking up one boy and the next from school to whip into town. Being Hobart I got a park right out the front of the shop. I think I've mentioned before that I am determined, through on the job training, to make both of my boys able to do the whole ladies - change - room thing. Here's Tobes pulling back the curtain to expose me to the whole shop:

Obviously, he needs more work. I think I may have found the top though:

It's Wheels and Dollsbaby. This is how it looks on their website:



Utterly fabulous! Not the same as on me. Am pondering whether I should give it a go anyway.....maybe it would look better with a black bra rather than a black camisole?! Who am I kidding. Might go and try it on again tomorrow.....just in case.

R

Melbourne.

On Saturday I escaped from the shackles of my housewifely duties and went solo to Melbourne for the day......to go to a surprise 40th birthday lunch. I had a six hour day pass.  Talk about hedonistic decadence beyond my wildest imaginings....and of course I had the start of a nasty little flu to take with me. Here is a photo of my Jetstar plane sitting on the tarmac at Hobart airport.....and yes, of course it was delayed:

Saturday is the biggest day of the week in our house. Rest and relaxation never get a look in. There is too much tricky coordination involved in timing dancing drop offs and pick ups with soccer matches, play dates and anything else randomly thrown into the mix. I had to get my mum down from Launceston to help.

We flew in from Hobart, Sydney and Launceston and rendezvoused at Melbourne airport. When I celebrated my own landmark birthday late last year, I took it upon myself to organise my own party as I wasn't sure about how I'd cope with a surprise element.....with my luck I'd be caught with messy hair sporting bathrobe and ugg boots. We gave a bit of thought to the fact that this particular birthday girl might not relish a surprise, surprise. Luckily, she knew that she was going out to lunch so on Saturday morning she went from the gym, clad in lycra, to Scanlan and Theodore from where she emerged totally glammed up in a whole new outfit. Bring on the surprise!

We had lunch at Golden Fields in Fitzroy Street, St Kilda:

(Images from their website)

It is apparently the best new restaurant in the 2012 Age Good Food Guide and is kind of Chinesey. It was perfect for the twist on the banquet style lunch that we had....without a lazy susan or chopsticks in sight. Look how delicious the food was:

This was me getting a tad artistic with my camera and the present (a bronze sculpture) and the slow roasted lamb shoulder with salted lemon. I forgot to take photos of the chicken congee and the twice cooked duck which you shredded and then put inside a steamed roll with plum sauce. Oh, and the peanut butter and chocolate dessert. It was all good.

Eventually we were bounced from the table that we had occupied for six hours. As you can see it was getting dark....and a bit messy:

Time for me to head to the airport and catch my flight back to Hobart. Happy Birthday again, Mon! 

R

Adelaide.

So in the very early hours of Saturday morning I got up to fly to Adelaide to go to an old friend from school's 40th birthday party. It was a surprise organised by her husband. He managed to pull it off as look how surprised and happy she was:

If it had been me I don't know how I would have coped with the surprise aspect - I'd be worried that I hadn't brushed my hair, or worse. Apparently there was talk about taking the birthday girl to the pool before her party, luckily for her they didn't so she was all set to party. We all brushed our hair too:

Isn't it fun hanging out with friends that back in the day you went to school with and that you don't see so often now? It makes you wonder why. Maybe because most of them live in Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne, Launceston and Sandy Bay.

Sometimes it's no so fun for your husband though. Mine has previously held the title of Best On Ground yet he was Best Behaved on Saturday and refrained from fertilising the flowers. That's not to say that the silly drink wasn't had. Things did get a tad messy:

Sorry girls, I couldn't resist! I'm not ashamed to admit that I discoed in the aisle of the bus back into town when it pulled up at the traffic lights. At that stage I felt like I was revisiting my twenties. On Sunday though I felt like I was in my hundreds.

So what did we do in Adelaide on Sunday while we waited for our return flight? We went and queued for a table to have yum cha with trolley service at Citi Zen Chinese Restaurant:

Not surprisingly, we said no to the chicken's feet.

Oh, and we had to make the most of being unencumbered by children to go shopping for suits and shirts for my husband. It was a long day as our flight didn't leave until 7pm. We didn't make bed again until midnight - two nights in a row.

However, I still got up on Monday morning to complete day 30 of the challenge:

And I've got the certificate to prove it:

Namaste. Now what?

R

Parties.

This morning, early, I drove Felix into the countryside behind Richmond to go to his friends eighth birthday party at Zoodoo Wildlife Park:

You too can go there if you are overcome by the urge to see Bengal tigers and African Lions on a farm half an hour's drive from Hobart. Zoodoo is a particularly depressing 'zoo' - and I use the term loosely, as don't be fooled into thinking it might be remotely like other places calling themselves a zoo eg Western Plains Zoo or Taronga Zoo - this is Zoo Doo.The whole experience is made even worse by the overwhelming home made atmosphere. And if that's not enough, one of the other mothers damned it with scorn '.....they only have instant coffee'! Quelle horreur!

So if I haven't convinced you, don't go to ZooDoo, rather, donate your entrance fee to Save the Tasmanian Devil and go to the village of Richmond instead. At Richmond you can feed lots of ducks (and geese and today there was a rooster) with the backdrop of Australia's oldest bridge:

Richmond is a country village with beautiful Georgian architecture. There is a decent lolly shop if you go with your children:

And a  pub if you don't:

Now, on the subject of parties, I celebrated a milestone birthday in October with a garden party lunch. A particularly gruelling choice of festivity considering when we returned from France in January you couldn't see much garden beyond the weeds. I would look out of the window with a newborn baby and the garden would reflect the chaos of my life.

After repetitive gardening behaviour and lots and lots of hard slog (day after day, week after week and with much thanks to Allister who laughed when I told him I was planning a party in my garden) we managed to achieve this:

It was about 3 weeks too early for the roses so I compensated with pink Chinese lanterns which I strung along the fence and clustered in different shades and sizes under the umbrellas. I had Tamar Valley Roses

in posies of different pinks, which my mum brought down from Launceston, and pink lillies on the long table set for thirty.

I had a glam Collette Dinnigan dress covered in foxgloves and dressed my whole family in pink for the occasion. The children were then disbursed to carefully prearranged playdates and sleepovers around town - I spent months acruing credit. Tobes was delivered back around 6pm when he had a lovely time wandering around smacking all of the ladies on the bottom. 

My friend Mary, who lives up the road and trained as a pastry chef in New York, did the food. She was worded up that she was working to a pink, floral theme that was to be top heavy with dessert inspired by French patisserie:

Mary has just started up her own business Gourmania Food Tours where she leads you on a taste of Hobart. It is a fabulous way to explore the city as Mary knows all of the provedores, pubs and restaurants and all of the produce. If you are interested in food you will love it!

She did an amazing job doing the food for my party and made vichyssoise garnished with herbs and borage flowers picked from my garden,  pissaladiere, lemon tarts with lemons grown on my tree, religious a la rose inspired by Laduree in Paris, chocolate marquise cake, macarons etc etc etc.

However , the best thing about my party was that I shared it with 30 of the nicest people I know. I had friends from school:

old friends who made the effort to travel vast distances:

and friends who live nearby (one of whom came dressed as Errol Flynn who grew up 2 doors down):

And a merry time was had by all - it was well after midnight when we finally turned the lights out. Did I mention that we also had pink drinks........!

R