Christmas 2012 and Depot Beach (far away in time...)

Christmas was fabulous.  Apparently I was even having too much fun to take photos.  Luckily my Mum snapped this one before the kids got to the crackers.

Followed by a trip to the beach house for New Years.

As we are on tank water this is the most convenient and fun way to wash off after the beach.

I spent a lot of time doing this.... (nothing).

Will someone please take me down to the beach!?!

oh okay.....  R teaching them to surf.  Me, still doing nothing.  It was a lovely break.  Happy New Year all.

                       

Seal Rocks

We have just had a fabulous week away up on the mid North Coast of NSW at Seal Rocks.  A gorgeous little spot that reminded me so much of Depot Beach.  Perfect beaches that are totally unspoilt by development, surrounded by national parks.  No cafes, just a tiny little general store and best of all no mobile service.  Woohoo, it was bliss.  The one significant difference from Depot though was that Seal  Rocks has a lighthouse.  The boys having had the fabulous Lighthouse Keeper stories by Ronda & David Armitage read to them from a young age were just besotted with it!

These two are their favourites!

                  I think I could have quite happily lived in the lighthouse keepers cottage on the cliff!

                               I think that they had my husband in mind when they whipped this particular sign up.

          

 This is the house we stayed in for the week.  Yes, we lit the fire every night, despite the fact that we didn't really need to.  There is just something ever so cosy about having stories in front of the fire in the evening after a lovely day at the beach.

                                   


    The locals call this little corner of the beach kiddies corner.  It was divine.   Crystal clear water at a gorgeous temperature, the kids adored it and so did we.  I can't wait for our next visit!

                             

A holiday, a hiatus, the horror of living in a construction site and of course, the Wedding

Hello, not sure if there is anyone still to say hello to after such a long and unplanned break, but if anyone is still interested... I am back!

Firstly,  many thanks to the gorgeous people that emailed and left comments checking in on me.  I was so touched to hear from you, and Julia, your comments had me giggling (they always do though!).  We actually have been sort of at sea! We have been away at the beach house, a place so lovely but also so remote that there is no mobile service and also no internet service.  I know, it is kind of hard to believe in this day and age, but yes such places do exist!

The other reason for the lengthy hiatus is that our house is currently a construction site.  Anyway more about that to follow soon but for those that have asked, we are 99% sure that we are going to paint the house Dulux Oyster Linen, the same colour as the house in the first two images of last post, with chalk USA trims.  The front door will be either black or gunmetal grey but this is still to be decided, ...the  door knocker I have chosen is  black and is currently on it's way from France.  When it gets here I will make a final decision regarding the house/door colour!  More about the renovation to follow very soon! 

Meanwhile, here are some holiday snaps:

... and, despite the construction site it is wonderful to be home! I am currently watching the Royal Wedding (and typing this!)  in a room in which two of the walls are comprised solely of orange plastic.  The doors out to the backyard are nailed shut and the rain is slowly drifting in.  Nevertheless, I am curled up on the couch, cocooned in a blanket that my grandmother knitted for my brother when he went off to boarding school at Timbertop (where Prince Charles went briefly), enjoying a glass of champagne and reminiscing about the last itme I watched a British Royal Wedding.  It was 1981 and we were on posting in India.  I think my parents might have been out or away as I watched the Wedding with my Ayah (nanny) and all the other servants and their families,  in the servants quarters behind our house.  There were at least a dozen of us squashed into a tiny room, watching the wedding on an even tinier black and white television, but I can still remember how thrilling it all was to a little 9 year old.   It was the only thing that I saw on television in India and in English during the course of our posting to Delhi. 

Hope all are well and I will be along to visit you all soon. xx

edited to add:

Julia, this is the new spa:

It's been 6 years... and best wishes to the lovely Jane.

Recently I celebrated my sixth wedding annniversary.    In this relatively short time, together we have experienced the truly magnificent and also the one rather random and unexpected shock, it has almost all been magnificent though and I am truly grateful to my wonderful husband for the last six years.

It hardly seems possible that it was six years ago that we gathered all our friends and family together to celebrate our marriage:

and drank copious amounts of champagne and watched fireworks and celebrated till early the next morning:

at my favourite place in the world:

A special day, but it all seems rather insignificant though in the scheme of things when I think that today the lovely, dignified and courageous Jane undergoes surgery.   Best wishes for a speedy recovery Jane.

Easter... oh to be at Depot Beach!

Easter always makes think of Depot Beach (well, after all the more obvious associations like religion and chocolate). My parents have a holiday house at Depot Beach and I have spent many wonderful easter holidays there. Sadly this Easter we are unable to visit as the house is undergoing some much needed renovations. Instead, I have been reminiscing about times spent there. Including our wedding:


R and I collected all the stone "nameplaces" from Pebbly Beach (Depot's neighbour) and then returned them after the wedding. The shells we used to tie the napkins were collected over the years, many of them from as far back as my childhood.

The two hanging flower arrangements were made by my beautiful mother and an extremely talented friend (Thanks Mark!). They used two old vintage lobster pots that we had found washed up on the beach and carefully arranged Singapore orchids inside them. Another gorgeous friend had flown in from Singaore that morning with the orchids (stored in flight in the champagne cart in first class!)

The rest of the flowers were simply purchased from the Flemington flower markets in Sydney that morning and then "arranged" (stuck at the last minute) in old jam jars, the same ones my Dad uses every year to make his famous homemade jams.

As you can tell from this photo, Depot Beach is very undeveloped, in fact it is in the middle of a national park. I wrote a very heartfelt letter to National Parks and Wildlife requesting permission to get married on the beach and I was so grateful when they approved our request for the marquee on the beach.

It was a magical wedding, Depot Beach is magic!