Life Trove

23 March 2013

Weekend at The Hunter Valley

Dani and I had a great weekend in the vineyards of Hunter Valley. There was plenty of rain on Saturday, but that didn't stop us from visiting lots of vineyards and sampling plenty of wine.

Some highlights of the weekend:

Picking up Dani in Newcastle on Friday afternoon after she'd had a meeting there with other University sustainability managers.
The amazing views from our room.
A delicious pizza at a very nice restaurant on Friday night.
Watching several episodes of "Breaking Bad." What a great series, highly recommended.
Visiting vineyards and trying lots of wine.
Selecting delicious home made chocolates at a local chocolate shop.
On Sunday morning, the best mocha and delicious crumble at a restaurant specialising in nothing but desserts.
Checking out lots of great sculptures at one of the wine farms.
Hunting down a bottle of sparkling Shiraz.
Discovering that most of the ways out of the Hunter Valley were closed due to floods. It took us quite a while to get back home!

Views of the vineyard from our hotel

view from hotel room

Delicious dessert for breakfast

One of the restaurants in Hunter Valley specialises entirely on desserts. What an amazing selection of mouth-watering treasures they had. And what difficult decisions. I had Apple and Rasberry Crumble and Dani tucked into Lemon Merengue Pie. The highlight, though, was the Mocha that came with a jug of rich, molten chocolate that we had to spoon in ourselves. Best Mocha of my life and I've sampled quite a few!

Mocha doesn't come better

Dani wasn't being a glutton - half of that was mine!

Statues at a local vineyard

One of the vineyards we visited had a great art gallery and a statue garden. Here are some of the statues that caught my eye.

When floods get in the way of home

We took an extra couple of hours to get home because it had been raining hard, and the first two routes we tried turned out to be flooded!

22 March 2013

I'm too sexy...

20 March 2013

The family at Goudini Spa

Thanks for the photos, Jo.

14 March 2013

Drinks with Roger

It's always great to meet up with lovely Roger. We enjoyed a couple of beers and a nice meal.

4 March 2013

Student art exhibition at National Art Gallery

27 February 2013

Affirmation (2013)

Proud

Presentation of my photos to Mosman Camera club
Wisdom Trove

Dani

Dani: Emotionally best I've ever experienced.
Dani "You're so easy going, calm."
Dani "Thought you looked really good on site. Even better in person."
Dani "You're so easy to talk too."
Best emotions of any boyfriend.
You're so calm.
You're so easy going.
G-Force "so good looking."
You make me feel beautiful.
I could imagine a life with you.
Always saw you as long term.
You're so easy going.
Emotionally best I've experienced
So easy to talk to.
Love that so easy going.

Photography

Hans "You're one of the best photographers in the club."
6 audience awards at clubs
2013 Top Shot medal and book. Zero to Hero.
Hans "As good as anything in Austalia."
We're all going to retire from competitions.
Sue: "Loved through the eyes of a child."
Hans and Brent: "What a hard act to follow."
Sandy "I was in tears."
Sandy, Brent, Sue loved the quotes.
Hans: "We do get the best presenters."
Janice: "Do you work? Awe inspiring. Made me very green."
Hug from Pamela straight after.
Jack "What did you present before?"
Applause after birds and music.
Top photographer: How did you get backdrops so blurred?"
Janie, one of the best photographers in NSW: "Last night’s two speakers were the best I’ve ever seen at a camera club. I’m driving Len (Janie's husband) nuts this morning telling him what he missed! Thank you so much for organising the evening, it was very inspiring.
Hans: For those of you who were not at the meeting last night, you missed something very special as both Graeme and Brent's presentation were absolutely fantastic...
Hans: Just a short note to say a big thank you for the wonderful presentation you gave us last night. It was by far the finest that we've had this year. I fully appreciate the amount of work that you put into it, which resulted in a telling story of your photographic life so far. Your images were to say the least, spectacular, and I insist that you enter them in competitions so that all the members can see them. Once again many thanks for a job very well done.
Sue about Hans: Graeme's Presentation was THE best ever presentation he had seen.
Sandy: Your presentation and quotes have inspired me to get out there and shoot more.
Sue: Congratulations! I wanted to email you after your most stunning presentation on Friday night. Both Jann and Wes enjoyed it thoroughly and haven' stopped talking a about it - we all LOVED it. I thought your presentation was one of the best EVER, with your mix of photos of various subjects along with your collection of 'quotes." You are such an excellent photographer on all genres without being heavily Photoshopped, your intelligence, your enthusiasm for life also shone thru. Wes said I most most fortunate to have you as a friend with so much knowledge of photography, of course I heartily agreed.
Sue: I tried phoning you on Skype to enthuse verbally - you should be very proud of yourself. We three thought your presentation was not too fast nor too slow. I heard so many "oohs & aahs" around me with each image that you showed so my judgement was that your presentation was a HUGE success. You SHOULD be very proud of yourself.
Sue: Is it too much work for you to burn your presentation onto a disc so as I can look at it again & again, it truly was sensational?