Selamat Pagi Ubud

October 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

These beautiful flowers are outside shops in Monkey Forest Road, Ubud

Ten months have now passed since Mr. E.N.L. and I left Australia to come to Bali and living in Ubud has made our stay a very easy one.  Away from the tourists and crowds of Kuta, Seminyak, etc. but still near enough to pop down for a little bit of shopping and a night out with friends for a lovely meal every couple of weeks.

Ubud has lots of culture, religion, artistic things going on everywhere, and is generally known as the Cultural Heart or Artistic Centre of Bali.

There are many Cooking Schools, Silversmithing courses, Batik classes and of courses hundreds of yoga retreats and wellness spas.

Participants are encouraged to "help" grind the pastes at Casa Luna Cooking School

Organic Markets are popping up everywhere to cater for the Westerner’s tastes for healthy fruit and vegetables.  We can buy wonderful tomatoes, mangoes, papaya, pineapple, rocket, coriander, etc. all grown without chemicals.  The strawberries are exceptional, especially teamed with the magnificent yoghourt produced here.

Villas in Ubud are generally very open-air with fans to catch the breeze.  It is said air-conditioners are not needed but for most people, an hour or two of a blast of cold arctic air is very nice every day.

These houses allow airflow and are simply built

Most people live 5-10 kms out of the centre of Ubud, away from the noise of motorbikes and chickens and dogs and the ricefield area as shown in Julia Robert’s Eat Pray Love film are the most preferred.  Bicycle trips and fancy car rides tour past these magnificent areas, whilst the hard-working farmers with their bent frames from years of bending over to tend their rice crops, go about their business.  Ducks move happily around the fields doing the job of pesticides.  A green, tranquil scene and one that I hope will never disappear.

Natural fertiliser and bug control for the rice

Filed Under: My Home

Empty Nester Living’s new life in Bali

April 2, 2012 By 1 Comment

Ubud

Land of rice fields, culture, art, woodwork and village life

Typical ricefields which are disappearing around Ubud

We moved up to Ubud just prior to Christmas and the rainy season hit us full on.  Actually, we found it quite refreshing – as long as you have shoes with good grip, a good sense of humour and a big umbrella at all times – you will survive!  The humidity was somewhat oppressive, but we enjoyed settling into our new abode.

We rented a lovely three bedroom villa in a great village called Tegallantang which was 2.5kms from the main street of Ubud.  The villa was only one year old and owned by an Aussie.

Not your ordinary balinese experience....

Maybe the villa was not quite the traditional balinese house, but it was a luxurious transition and for us quite necessary to make us feel at home when we first arrived and had to do things for ourselves.  Now we are move used to the way of life and can speak a little bahasa indonesian, we can look for a more traditional way of living.

Tirta and Rasta - "our family"

With a villa come staff and above are two members of our beautiful little family – Tirta and his son Rasta.  They had just been to visit the temple in their village and we had given Rasta a helicopter pencil which was a great source of amusement.

You have to have a pool in Bali

Ubud is a lovely area in which to live – it does have its tourists but they arrive (annoyingly by bus – mainly Chinese nationals) and they depart around 3.30pm leaving everyone to get on with their lives.  The locals depend on tourism, but there is quite a large ex-pat community here and a bias towards wellness spas, yoga and holistic and healing centres.  The westerners living here are very into organic vegetables and fruit and lots of little local markets are now appearing on a regular basis selling organically grown crops and unlike other places in the world, the quality of the organically grown product is far superior in taste and look than that of the supermarket or alternative version.

The ladies at Ubud market cooking up some lunch for the locals

The ricefields are disappearing rapidly around Ubud as westerners discover what a beautiful place it is to live.  Villas are springing up everywhere up to 10kms from the centre of Ubud (the Royal Palace).  Perhaps Julia Robert’s Eat Pray Love had a lot to do with putting Ubud on the map, indeed Sri Widari, the street where we live, is the street where she road her bicycle along – supposedly to the sea (a little bit of Hollywood there methinks….as it just goes out to the ricefields and the sea is not a bike ride away!).

Trauma teddies are still in production in Bali - Rasta has found these and has hidden them behind the chair.

Filed Under: My Home, My Travel

Empty Nester Living packs up and moves to Bali!!!

April 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment

 Bali

The serenity and tranquility of Sanur beach at dusk

The good thing about being an emptynester is that on a whim, just because you can, and “because I felt like it” you can just get up and go, pack up everything and leave and go wherever your fancy takes you!

So that’s what Mr. E.N.L. and I did.  We packed up our belongings, rented out our house, went down to the Indonesian Embassy, got a ticket for a year away and flew the coop!

Sanur beach with the mountain in the background

We arrived in Bali on 1st December and it was hot and humid and typical of the start of the Rainy Season in Bali.  We had booked a hotel in Sanur which was one where we had always stayed for holidays previously and we knew was clean and safe and quiet and a good base from which we could look for something more permanent whilst we decided which location would be the best for us.

Fragrant frangipani trees frame our balcony over our room which overlooks a lovely little pool

A lovely little haven from where we can spend some time to think about where we will go next, what we will see and do and what new experiences and surprises lie ahead.

Mr. E.N.L. and I stayed at this lovely little place for two weeks and during that time we took two trips up the hill to Ubud to see the “real Bali”  - where people still go about their daily life like they have done for centuries and beautiful rice fields still abound and we made our mind up that Ubud was where we would like to base ourselves for our twelve month’s stay – away from the tourist spots and shopping delights of Seminyak and Kuta (we could still get that by driving down 1 hour’s trip).

Fragrant frangipani

 

Filed Under: My Home, My Travel

Turning a long, empty area into a Dining Area and Lounge Areas

October 7, 2011 By 2 Comments

What to do?  Where to put it?  Where will it fit?  Will it look silly?  Does it suit the new place?  Soooo many questions… in fact…until you get into your new place and measure and place things here and there…how do you know!  On entering the door of our new townhouse, you pass a stairway which opens up into a long, narrow room.  At the bottom of the staircase we have turned a “nothing area” into a lovely little reading space, which visitors make a beeline for when they come to visit too!

A nice place for my morning coffee

 

Having been pretty strict on ourselves in our packing,  we of course did bring a few things that we had to find places for and having come from a house with lots of rooms to a place that was one long, narrow room virtually from the front door to the back doors (without so much as a room divider to be seen) was a challenge.  One of the things we had to find a place for was our huge antique gilt mirror.  By placing it opposite the courtyard, it reflects the light and bounces it back into the kitchen, making it lighter and giving a “window” effect.

I can see the greenery and the birds who come to visit

 

Again, there was the previous owner’s colour scheme of purple to consider.  First things first, out came the painting clothes and copious amounts of Dulux “Whisper White” for the walls again, a trip to Porters Paints to continue our theme of silvery grey on our day to day furniture and a shopping trip to buy a new rug and new cushions for our new colour scheme.

Our dining table and chairs fitted in very well in the space opposite the small courtyard.  We are people who use our table not only for eating, but for spreading out the newspapers (particularly the weekend ones) and Mr. E.N.L. always sneaks downstairs from the study with his MacBook Air and takes over the table daily.

Great spot for entertaining

 

The beautiful wooden floors worked well with the Whisper White walls and opened up the area so it did not look too narrow and by keeping the area free of clutter, we achieved a pleasing effect.  However, we did feel it was a little “woody” and bland-looking so our choice of rug was very important.  We think it was a brave decision to go with a black and white rug but were so pleased with the outcome  we went out and bought black cushions and lampshades to continue the black and white theme.

Our new rug!

 

The whole back of the house comprises doors which lead out onto a paved area which is has a retractable awning for Summer shade.

The awning helps shade the interior of the house too

 

It’s nice to use all the space that you have – and use it well!

Filed Under: Dining & Lounge Room, My Home

Polpettini Di Pollo

October 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment

 

Fresh basil and mushrooms

 

This is Mr. E.N.L.’s favourite Italian dish!  Years ago, he went out to a little family restaurant and their “Specials” board had this dish on it and he returned many, many times requesting it to be put on the menu permanently.  In the end they reluctantly gave him the recipe (perhaps to rid themselves of him?) to take home to his wife so that she could cook it for him!!  Of course the quantities are not Cooking for Two but if you make up a batch you can freeze what you don’t eat the day you make it and just thaw and heat up.

In typical chef fashion, the recipe was scrawled on a scrap of kitchen paper, quantities were approximate and bit by bit I have fiddled around and converted “some of this” and “a handful of that” into a nice-tasting recipe which works, as follows:

1kg. chicken mince (I like to use half thigh and half breast)

250g. button mushrooms

250g. smoked bacon

250g. breadcrumbs (try to use fresh, but okay to buy)

1 small bunch parsley

salt and pepper

parmesan cheese

garlic

3-4 eggs (whisked)

Whiz mushrooms, smoked bacon, parsley and garlic.  Put all ingredients together in large bowl and mix using your hands (ugh!).

Form into balls and seal in oil to completion or alternatively just seal and then put in oven on greaseproof paper for around 15 minutes on 180deg.C when needed.

A batch straight out of the oven

Serve with a homemade Napoli Sauce

using

Chilli

Garlic

Onion

Basil

Tomato chunks


I like to grate some fresh reggiano cheese on the top and chop some fresh basil and sprinkle over.  Serve with a green salad and a glass of Sav Blanc.


Add Napoli Sauce, grated cheese and wine and you're ready to go! Yum!

Filed Under: My Recipes

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia – my hometown

September 27, 2011 By 3 Comments

Flinders Street Station

 

Now that I have more time on my hands (and no roses in my garden to smell! – thanks to the drought and the possums) I have embarked on a journey of discovering so many new things.

One of them is the city in which I have lived for most of my adult life – Melbourne, the capital city of the state of Victoria (located in the south-eastern part of Australia).  Settled around 1837, Melbourne is an exciting mix of a CBD with dark, smoky basements, fascinating laneways housing grafitti and bistro dining, sophisticated rooftops and leafy suburbs all with gourmet eating and drinking covering all ethnic styles and shopping, shopping, shopping!

Named No. l in the World’s Most Liveable Cities 2011 it is also commonly referred to as Australia’s “cultural capital”.

Following is a small selection of Melbourne through my eyes, things I have experienced recently and love to do.

Hosier Lane is famous for its artwork and grafitti

 

Getting around Melbourne by public transport is by train, bus and our famous trams which began operation in 1885.  Our trams are used every day by tens of thousands of workers and not as a tourist attraction like San Francisco.

The older style trams are still used on the tourist runs

 

The heritage W class trams are used on the City Circle route as a free and convenient way to get around.   City Circle trams can be used as a “hop on, hop off” way to explore the sights of central Melbourne city and are a great favourite with tourists.

The free City Circle Tram

Tram shelters still exist in their original condition and paint colours

 

There is also a Restaurant Tram which serves gourmet meals and is booked out for functions maybe up to a year ahead.

Melbourne, architecturally has a mix of early Georgian/Colonial buildings, many incredible specimens of Victorian, Edwardian and Federation houses through to New Millenium buildings of today.

Some examples of architecture around the early 1900′s include Melbourne’s Luna Park (1912) and the Bathing Boxes of which most were developed between 1908 and 1911.  These bathing boxes are 2.4 metres long x 2 metres high and retain classic Victorian architectural features with timber framing, weatherboards and corrugated iron roofs.  There are 1,860 bathing boxes around Melbourne but only 3 are listed on the Heritage Register.  They remain as they did over one hundred years ago, with no service amenities such as electricity or water.

This group of bathing boxes are at Brighton Beach

 

Luna Park is still operating as a fun park and you can still hear the screams of children (and adults) on the rides of the Big Dipper and as they experience lots of the old family favourites like The Ghost Train, The Giggle Palace and The Hall of Mirrors.  Sure it’s a bit dated and tacky, but it sends you back to the era of drive-ins and roller skates – not such a bad thing these days for kids who live  in  “virtual” worlds.

This was the first of the four Luna Parks built in Australia

 

Inner Melbourne has a large number of Victorian terraces built in the 1880s fueled by the prosperity of the Gold Rush with ornate ironwork and lace in the French Second Empire style.

A classic example of a row of Victorian terrace houses in Melbourne

 

Commercial buildings also benefited from the Gold Rush money boom and wonderful examples of Victorian architecture remain untouched in inner Melbourne suburbs today, still functioning as commercial properties.

 

South Melbourne Town Hall

 

My favourite form of architecture is Victorian (I guess you might have noticed by now) and I love the rows of terraced cottages  that Melbourne still retains.

These two little cottages would have looked like this 100 years ago

 

That’s enough about architecture of this lovely city, but before I finish on the subject I have to mention the wonderful Markets – Queen Victoria Market, South Melbourne Market and Prahran Market in particular.

 

Queen Victoria Market's wonderful delicatessens

 

My favourite market is Prahran Market because it’s just down the road from my house and I visit my favourite stalls at least twice a week to get fresh fish, meat, chicken, fruit and vegetables.

 

Terry always greets us with a smile and beautiful fillets of flathead!

 

Theo & Sons Seafood is the best!  The fish is so fresh and at Christmas the queues are so long with people getting their crayfish, king prawns, oysters and seafood platters for their Christmas Lunch.  (That’s what Aussies call Traditional Christmas Lunch now).  Terry (above) always looks after Mr. E.N.L. and educates us on how to cook fish well, so Mr. E.N.L. not to be outdone in the cooking stakes, made some tzatziki for him.  Terry thinks Mr. E.N.L. has Greek blood in him now!

 

Fresh fish from Theo @ Sons

 

A highlight of visiting the market is a coffee at Ablas Patisserie where the lovely Roxy and her wonderfully entertaining boss Michael serve the most delicious baklava free with your choice of coffee or tea.  The store is about to be renovated but I have included a shot of the lovely pair because I love to spend a 10 minutes or so nattering with them.

Michael and Roxy

 

and, which one will I choose….

 

Yum!

 

After visiting Prahran Market, a stroll along Chapel Street to window shop all the fabulous boutiques is a must!  Did somebody mention shopping!  Chapel Street is great for shopping, as is High Street, Armadale and the Chadstone Shopping Centre (a retail shopping heaven).

Hide the credit card Mr. E.N.L.

 

Melbourne is a deep sea port named Port Phillip Bay (about 2 1/2 times the size of Sydney Harbour) and when visiting the city, many visitors do not see the many beautiful beaches that wind along the coast.

 

Beautiful white sand beaches wind all the way down the coast to Portsea

 

I love to follow the rugged coastline down to the Mornington Peninsula where you can spot wild dolphins playing in the water and enjoy the beauty of wineries, beaches and other tourist attractions.

Get lost in Ashcombe Maze

 

Visit a winery and walk through the rows of vines or have a wine tasting and nibble some of the local produce the area is famous for.

 

… and I couldn’t mention My Melbourne without mentioning  the wonderful suburb of  Carlton (and also my football team)

The Italian suburb of Melbourne

 

and China Town in the CBD…

 

Very busy and bustling China Town Melbourne

 

having a barbie on the Yarra River (aka the “upside down river” – because of its brown appearance)

 

 

or watching my team play an AFL game of football – GO BLUES!!

Melbourne is a great place to live and I hope it remains the quietly understated capital city in Australia that it is still today – a secret that I hope too many people don’t discover!

 

Filed Under: My Travel Tagged With: ,

My Trip to Penang

September 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A mix of cosmopolitan Asia and old Penang, Clove Hall is part of the restoration in heritage-listed Georgetown

 

In Spring, 2010 while reading the weekend papers, Mr. E.N.L. came across an article on a boutique hotel in Penang, Malaysia.  I knew he was already mentally packing his suitcase by the end of the article and by the time I got on the website, I was also!

Clove Hall

The article was about Clove Hall which is Penang’s first boutique luxury homestay hotel, and is testament to the passion of an Australian called Christopher Ong, who has turned the shell of a derelict Edwardian-era mansion into a beautiful boutique hotel.

A lovely seating area where you can read and take tea

 

Every piece of furniture contained within, every fixture and fitting tells a story.  Fabulous ornate desks, hand-carved antique teak tables, a glorious four-poster bed, decorative candle holders, stunning wooden and tiled floors, the verandahs, the ceiling fans and the long wafting curtains.

Our room had a glorious four poster bed

 

Each of the suites are named after a particular spice – along with understated whitewashed columned grandeur, oversized tiled lobby, gardens and pool.

A very inviting pool awaits after a day of sightseeing

 

This colonial gem is situated in Georgetown and from there sightseeing of Georgetown and Penang to experience the rich melting pot of cultures from all over Asia can be done.  Georgetown has stunning refurbished temples, churches and mosques jostling for space with elaborately tiled houses in a maze of narrow streets.

Clove Hall welcomed us warmly, with smells of spices from the lush gardens and afternoon tea, served at 4pm daily, which we chose to take seated outside underneath the huge ceiling fans at the entrance of the house.

 

Garden area outside our room

 

We loved every minute of our stay in this beautiful place and can’t wait to return again very soon!

Filed Under: My Travel

“Fairy Floss” Teddy

September 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment

That's him on the left

Okay, so I said I wasn’t much of a knitter!  And please believe me, it’s true, but after knitting so many Trauma Teddies (yes…by now I can knit them without a pattern) I just had to try out this little number.

So, there I was in Lincraft buying some more wool to knit some more Trauma Teddies for the Red Cross to distribute to the ambulance service and hospitals and they had those free patterns that you tear off – like How To Make A Tassle and How To Make A Pom Pom and in this case – How To Make A Fairy Floss Teddy.

Well, I could not wait to get myself home – along with my 50g ball of Fairy floss yarn and 5mm knitting needles to see what a new teddy would look like.

“Fairy Floss” teddy seems quite at home with Rumble Ted (head teddy in this house) who is now over 60 years of age and belongs to Mr. E.N.L. and my favourite trauma teddy (which somehow never gets in the bag every time I have to send them off to Julie at Tight Knit World who co-ordinates our teddy knitting).

Some of the trauma teddies I have knitted for the Red Cross

Filed Under: Knitting, My Crafty Things

Chicken Tagine With Fresh Dates And Lemons

September 10, 2011 By 1 Comment

 

“Dates have been an essential ingredient in Morocco for thousands of years in sweet and savoury recipes alike”

 

 

4 chicken marylands, halved

4 tbspn extra virgin olive oil

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 tspn paprika

1 tspn ground cumin

1 tspn ground tumeric

1 tspn freshly grated ginger

Salt and cracked black pepper

1/2 finely sliced lemon

2 onions, finely chopped

150g green olives

6 large fresh medjool dates, halved and pitted

1/2 preserved lemon, rinsed and sliced

1/4 cup coriander leaves, coarsely chopped

Always buy more dates than you need as they seem to somehow disappear!

Preheat oven to 200deg.C.

Place chicken pieces in a large bowl and drizzle with 3 tbspn of oil.  Combine garlic, paprika, cumin, tumeric and ginger and sprinkle over chicken.  Season with salt and pepper and turn chicken to coat.

Grated ginger, ground cumin and tumeric and paprika

Add lemon slices, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Refrigerate for one hour

Heat a large ovenproof dish or tagine with remaining olive oil and when hot add onions and stir over medium heat for 2-3 minutes.

Add chicken and turn to coat

Add 1 cup of water and stir well.

Place chicken on top of onions, turn to coat, cover and bake for 30 minutes.

After covering with the tagine lid and cooking for 30 mins it can go straight from the stove to the table

Add olives and dates and bake a further 10-15 minutes or until chicken is tender.

Serve chicken with juices, olives and dates spooned over and top with preserved lemon and coriander.

Serve with couscous.

Serves 4

 

Yummy homemade Limoncello (maybe not traditional) but so nice in frozen glasses as an accompaniment!

 

The beautiful moroccan dish at the top of the page is just one of many given to me by my good friend and fellow blogger, Richard.  You can read what he has to say by visiting him and trying some of his yummy recipes too on http://moroccantajine.com

 

Filed Under: My Recipes

What’s In A Name?

September 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Choosing the name for my blog was easy.  It simply reflected a stage in my life I had arrived at.  A place I was content to be and a chance to do many exciting and challenging things I had not had the time nor inclination to do earlier as I was a busy mother and carer.

However, I know that not all mothers come to this stage easily.  Just the other day I read a story that upset me a lot.  It concerned a lady who was suffering from Empty Nester Syndrome.  The impact of this problem on herself and her husband was and is profound and it made me realise that I needed to make some reference to this problem on my blog.

If you (or someone you know) is showing the more obvious signs of this insidious problem, then take the steps to get qualified help as soon as possible.  There is no stigma in admitting you have this problem.  Every mother misses their children when they leave home, but for some it simply affects them differently.

Help is all around and two great places to start are you own doctor or simply jump on the internet and search for local support nearby.

If anyone wants to post a note about this profound subject I’d certainly like to hear from you anytime.

Filed Under: What's On My Mind
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