Brisbane Good Food & Wine Show goodness

I was fortunate enough to win a pass to the Good Food and Wine Show from Vanessa at 26 Years and Counting.

Now, not being a foodie but a big appreciator of food (and the occasional wine) in general, I was excited to rock up to the Convention Centre and have a poke about.

What I found was a crowd eager to sample some quality wares and a lot of stallholders, with businessness small and large ready to please them.

The big draws, are of course the cheese (yummo) and the wine (a little early in the day for me) but there was a grand array of other goods - chocolate, fudges, preserves, dukkah... you name it!

I met up with Vanessa who was watching a chef demonstration and we wandered around together. After a while I learnt to be shameless about asking to try samples!

It was a great way to spend a few hours, and I enjoyed looking at local producer's stalls as well as the bigger brands.

Do you go to food and wine shows? What's your favorite bit - the free samples or the chance to talk to the brands?

Date day

Since the boarder moved in, my fiancée and I have had very little time together. I’m working when he’s at home, he’s working when I’m at home. When we are both home, the boarder is there too. As a result, I’ve been sulking about being neglected and generally not paid attention to and resentful of evenings spent with the boarder rather than my other half. Weekends lately seem to have been filled up with separate activities so I resolved that on Sunday we were finally going to spend some time together, a “date day”.

I gave C some notice and asked him to think about what he would like to do. He wanted to go to the movies, but as this was not what I wanted to do I tried to steer him towards something where we could actually talk to each other, thus creating some “quality time”. In the end he just told me to pick something and he would go along with it. I am a genius.

I suggested a drive, like we used to do when we were dating. I pointed out it was a gorgeous day and I wanted to see the ocean, so off to the Sunshine Coast we went.

I have really missed cruising along in the truck with C. It was off the road for so long, and there is nothing quite like driving down the highway looking down on all the other cars from a great height, with the magnificent stereo blasting and the wind in my hair. I looked like Bridget Jones on a mini-break when I got there, but I didn’t care.


We had burgers and chips at Dicky Beach, but a walk on the beach itself was not on the cards due to inappropriate footwear (and a refusal to take off sneakers from one party). We decided to go for ice cream up at Maroochydore, but the lack of parking along the main strip meant a diversion to Macca’s for a McFlurry. Have you tried the new McFlurry? It’s terrible.

And then we went home. Sometimes you just need to get away from your own place and spend time actually talking to your partner. And for me, sometimes I’ve just got to see the ocean.

What do you do for quality time? Do you have “dates”?

*all images mine

Rods, Rock 'n' Roll

A few weekends ago, one of us (that would be me) had the bright idea of heading down to our local festivities venue, Pine Rivers Park, to see “Rods, Rock 'n' Roll” - a celebration of all things cool and retro. There was a massive car show 'n' shine, food stalls and a great variety of bands playing music from the 50s to the 70s.

It was such a great afternoon. We ate hot chips, drank hot chocolate and C even ended up winning a fuel voucher from a survey he did about motorcycle safety!

C is a great person to go to car shows with. He knows all the cars and explains to me which ones are cool. Also which ones are famous from movies and music videos. Like the '33 Ford coupe that is so recognisable as ZZ Top's 'Eliminator'. Or a blown '57 Chevy exactly like that in the movie 'Running on Empty'.

I determined that the 30s is definitely my fave car era. I just love everything about the shape.

Although I'm not a huge car girl, I was really impressed by the amount of time and effort these folks put into their machines.

After a soft-serve ice cream, we eventually called it a day.

What's your favourite retro or vintage car?