A fabulous birthday outing....

Oh, I had such a lovely day today.  Two of my very dearest friends, Heather and Franca (we met when our lovely daughters became friends in Grade 3! About eighteen years ago now!) took me out to the Yarra Valley for a birthday outing.

We ate lunch at the absolutely gorgeous Tarrawarra Estate. There is a great restaurant (where the chef cooks with a lot of produce from the estate's kitchen garden), an art gallery and a cellar door, naturally.

Thank you, Heather and Franca, for a great day out!  Love you both, so much.

hugs,

 

Cafe Vue at Heide Museum of Modern Art.... Part 1

[Warning: pic heavy post]

I had the best day yesterday!  Two of my dear friends, Heather -

and Franca - 

.... took me out for a belated birthday lunch at Cafe Vue at Heide Museum of Modern Art in Heidelberg.   Now, this is no ordinary museum cafe as Cafe Vue is owned by the famed Melbourne chef, Shannon Bennet whose restaurant in the city, Vue de Monde, is one of Melbourne's greatest restaurants.  So, needless to say, this was going to be a special lunch.

So, this was our lunch....

Quinoa and mushroom salad - oh my goodness, so delicious (there is foamy goats cheese in there and  edible petals)

... then it was grilled rainbow trout with a freekah salad and greens - also delicious.  These two courses were washed down with a reasonable amount of  a French white wine, Sancerre.

Then Heather and I lashed out and had dessert, too.  I, natch, opted for the Lemon Meringue Tart

.... Look, the top of my latte is a teddy bear! So cute!

Heather opted for Banana and coconut cake.  I don't like bananas but she says it was yum!

We were actually restrained in the dessert department as we could have gone for the dessert buffet which looked gorgeous.

... but we resisted.

... and of course, there were presents.... (lucky me!)

I was given this great book on everyday life in the Middle Ages:

plus scent for the house - you know the ones, where you put the bamboo rods into the scent and it diffuses around your room.  This is in one of my favourite scents, vanilla.

Okay, off on my Sunday walk with Marie and my Sunday dog now.

I will bore entertain you with pics of the gallery later on, plus I have a finish to show you and more roses from my garden.

Have a great Sunday,

hugs,

Day 10 and 11 Gifts of 11 Days of Kaisievic's Birthday Giveaway....

Oh dear, not quite sure where yesterday went... well, I do because I actually did lots of errands and had a nice lunch outing - but anyway, the day disappeared and all of a sudden I had forgotten to post my Day 10 Gift!

So here we go - Day 10's GIFT:

A wooden ornament cross stitch kit - 6 different designs.  Something a bit different, I thought.

And here is my FINAL GIFT - Day 11's GIFT:

Three Christmassy magazines:

Realistically, I cannot see me getting organised to work out all of the winners until next weekend.  So, this 11 Days of Kaisievic's Giveaway will be OPEN UNTIL FRIDAY, 26th OCT.  So, don't forget to join in the fun!  Just check out my other posts for the Gifts for Days 1 to 9.

I mentioned that yesterday I went out for lunch.  My DF, Anne, and I almost share birthdays - we are a day apart and a couple of years apart, too.  So, each year, we like to have a birthday lunch.

We usually go to this lovely cafe attached to a nursery, called Town and Country Gardens in North Balwyn.

We had a lot of fun.

Have a good day, everyone,

hugs,