Holiday Shopping and a Long Drive

On holidays - time to relax, yeah right, not on your Nelly!!!!!

Up at 5.30 that's AM to go for a ride with my son Mitch on Beach Road - the Bay looks fantastic at that time of morning and we finish off with a muggachino while telling each other tales and experiences of  the past.

Mostly exaggerated of course. our memories extend the tales to humour with much guffaws - that's what blokes do.

Mitch didn't join us for coffee and when I arrived home, I discovered he went back to bed. Young fella couldn't live up to us old blokes. (mind you, I feel like a nano nap now at 4.00 pm)

Mitch is working at a music festival so we dropped him of at a friend's home so he could get a lift. I said to Sue, "Why don't we do some shopping at Mediterranean Wholesaler". It's a traditional Italian Supermarket in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. Brunswick is not easy to get to from Bayside but its worth it when you get there.

And we always buy more than we really need - then there's the coffee and little Italian pastry to enjoy during the shopping expedition.

Five different pasta we bought - there were more but we didn't want to go overboard.

Arborio rice for Risotto and Fine Italian 00 flour for making pasta.

Pesto, capsicum, artichokes and Italian peeled tomatoes.

I picked the spreads for my morning toast.

Porcini stock cubes - dehydrated porcini that Sue will use to enhance  risotto or pasta meals.

Montipulciano D' Abruzzo takes its name from the grape not the town in Tuscany.

While I write this today, I'm on the Gold Coast with My daughter Carly. We drove approx 2000 kms in 20 hours door to door with stops. Being a southerner, I find the heat up here in Queensland takes a little getting use to so I can't imagine what it might be like as you drive further up into the tropics. Its a big country which I'm yet to discover and may never.

Hopefully I can get some photos and words on the blog while I'm here. There's not a lot of history, well old history about the Gold Coast. Being developed over the last 100 years, I find its more like a mini Miami or Los Angeles. "All Show"

Anyway I'm here to help my daughter to pack boxes to drive back to Melbourne at the end of the week so she can settle back in the town where she was born. While here I'll also spend some time with Jack my father and sister Faye.