It's been a while since my last post.....

......but gee we've been busy.  Earlier in December we travelled to Magnetic Island for Dallas's (Philip's mum) 80th birthday.  Quite a milestone.  We took Dallas and four of her friends to lunch at a lovely little french bistro at Nelly Bay.  We talked and laughed our way through a lovely lunch and as we were practically the only customers in the restaurant we were waited on hand and foot.

The following week I went along to the Julatten Ladies Christmas lunch at the Highlander Tavern.  I haven't been able to attend many of these this year.  They always seem to clash with something else that I'm doing so it was lovely to catch up with friends.

Christmas parties were next on the agenda.  Our friends Doug and Di invited us along to their lovely home for a get together.  Doug and Di have sold their home and moving to the Sunshine Coast in March so this will be their last Julatten get together.  We will really miss them.

Christmas came around so fast.  We had decided some months ago to drive out to "Caleewa" for christmas because a few months ago we really thought we would be hand feeding our cattle.  Thank goodness we have had enough rain to grow enough grass to sustain the cattle so that feeding is not necessary. We drove out on Tuesday prior to Christmas so that we could help Marco move a mob of cattle before christmas.  

Christmas at "Caleewa" was fabulous.  Marco cooked us blueberry pancakes with ricotta and honey for breakfast and we washed this down with Passionfruit Champers.  It was so delicious.  

After breakfast we cleaned up and then opened the mountain of presents.....always seem to have too many!  We then cleared away the debris and began the lunch preparation.  Must admit I did not do much in the kitchen because my daughter in law is extremely efficient in the kitchen.  Marco and Suzie had invited Joe and Desley (caretakers that we had employed previously) to join us for christmas lunch and they were a lovely addition to our little quartet.  

Christmas lunch was a magnificent feast of Pork Belly (braised in fennel, apple and white sambucca) pureed cauliflower, roast pumpkin, carrots and sweet potato and broccoli with almonds.  It was delicious and filling so we waited a while before Suzie presented us with a Berry Pavlova with salted caramel sauce.  My mouth is salivating just thinking about it.  I made Suzie give me the recipe so watch out friends.  It will be on the menu.

We didn't leave the lunch table until 3.00pm and then we just all lazed around digesting our lunch and shooting the breeze.  No dinner for any of us that night.  The perfect christmas day.