Limes, lemons & lemonades...

I have been quite busy. Recently I was given lots of limes and lemonades from a friend. I also got some free lemons from somewhere else. All up I'm guessing I had around 4 kg of limes, 4 kg of lemonades and 10 kg of lemons. That's alot of citrus! There is a purpose to the mad bulkness. I juiced the majority of the lemons and limes and froze the juice in small plastic bag ice cubes (Glad of course). So I will not run out of lime or lemon juice for a long time. I also grated the rind of 60 lemons and froze it, so I won't be running out of rind anytime soon either.

With the majority of the lemonades and some limes I made lemonade syrup concentrate. I now have lots of lemonade syrup. It's very delicious, very easy to make and very cheap too. Recipe here. I added lemon rind to it also as other recipes I found for lemonade syrup said to add that too.

With some of the lemons I made lemon butter for the first time and it didn't quite turn out as well as I'd hoped. I tried to preserve them, but I will have to redo two of the jars as they didn't pop in.

I will be attempting to make meringues today as lemon butter requires only egg yolks, so I have lots of egg white that needs using.

The house smells of lemons.

our outback trip

I've been rather busy since I returned from my trip to visit M's family. It was a lovely trip. M's grandfather didn't know we were there until we surprised him. He was speechless when he first saw us, but was very happy. I am glad we could make him so happy for his 90th birthday.

Overall we had a great time, it was very relaxing and much needed for M and I. The drive wasn't as long as I thought it would be, and I enjoyed the actual travelling. There were lots of cute little country towns along the way. We'd like to go back to one or two of them someday.
It was good to see M's family again, we hadn't really seen them since we moved Feb last year, particularly his grandparents.

M got a hair cut, it went from just above his shoulders to really short. His mum demanded he have a haircut and said "M, your hair is disgusting!" Thus he got a haircut.

The two days of driving there and back that we did, we left really early before sunrise so we were able to get get beautiful photos of the sunrise. The morning we took these it was a frost, freezing cold and there was ice all over the car.

The dog photo is M's pop's (not his grandfather) dog. He is a very well trained dog. If M's Pop wants his slippers, he just has to ask the dog and he will get them for him. He also collects the mail, brings the clappers to Pop and one other thing...can't remember what. He loves playing ball though, so we were throwing the ball for him to catch and he caught it and I took the photo.

The old car and building are where we went when we first started going out over 4 years ago. We haven't been back since, so we decided to have a look and get some photos while we were there. It is a beautiful place to photograph and have photoshoots. I need models to come out there...such a long way though—sigh.

We also went to our favourite milk bar, it is set up like the 1950s and has amazing flavours for milkshakes and spiders. Everytime we go to visit (which has only been once so far) we go there. But when we lived there, we would go there quite a bit.
It was a wonderful but way too short trip. Of course I had to look in op-shops in pretty much every place we stopped at, just can't get enough of it.

My favourite Coldplay songs

Animals: B-Sides (Disc 2)
No More Keeping My Feet Off The Ground: B-Sides (Disc 1)
A Message: X & Y
Til Kingdom Come (Bonus Track): X & Y
Everything's Not Lost: Parachutes
God Put A Smile Upon Your Face: A Rush Of Blood To The Head
The Scientist: A Rush Of Blood To The Head
White Shadows: X & Y
Fix You: X & Y
Speed Of Sound: X & Y
Such A Rush: B-Sides (Disc 1)
Bigger Stronger: B-Sides (Disc 1)
For You: B-Sides (Disc 1)
Lost!: Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends
Viva La Vida: Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends
Violet Hill: Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends
42: Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends
One I love: Castles
Brothers & Sisters: B sides (Disc 1)
Where is my boy: B sides (disc 2)
Moses: Castles

I like all their music, but these ones really are fantastic in my opinion.

I can remember the exact moment when I became a fan of Coldplay. I was 16 and studying for my year 11 exams (in NZ so prob year 10 in Oz). I had the radio on, I heard this amazing song, I could not believe my ears and the vocals were so unusual sounding. I wanted to hear more and find out who they were. The song was Yellow—I fell in love with Coldplay at that moment of first hearing them and have been a fan ever since. I remember most people I met not really liking Coldplay, but I remained a faithful fan! It's coming up to 10 years of being a fan—wow! That's gone fast. Their sound has changed somewhat, but they are still good as always.

I have all their music, albums, B sides–everything! (That I know about).

I'm liking their new album Viva La Vida or Death and all his friends–its a different sound to their older music, but I think its an improvement, change is good anyway.

Holiday

I'm going on a short holiday. It is M's grandfather's 90th birthday, so we are driving 12 hours to see M's family for the weekend. It will be a welcome break—chance to see family and to photograph different places. Where M's family live is outback Australia, in the desert, with lots of red dirt, sun and no mountains; it is very flat. The colours are very different to where we live, will be a welcome change. I am also looking forward to the trip out there—photographing different places we pass through.

A think

It's a crazy world when there are people saying there is no God, people saying there is a God and people saying they are god.

It's all about choice.

A thought.