Heatherlie...

I'm not sure if this has already been posted but this is a stunningly beautiful Provincial style guest cottage in Historic Maldon, Victoria (the centre of the goldfields) Australia.

Heatherlie was featured in this months Country Homes Ideas magazine - Owners Robyn and Ian Slattery have made extensive renovations to the pretty circa - 1880's cottage which features a classic bullnose verandah, open fireplaces with slate hearths and floors polished in Baltic pine. The main house has three bedrooms and two bathrooms that can accommodate up to three couple, so it's great for a group of friends looking for a quiet break. All rooms boast soft comfortable queen-size beds and luxurious white linen, while the bathrooms have deep claw-foot baths and stylish Crabtree & Evelyn products.

Guh....I'm swooning at it's neutral colour palette, earthy textures, warmth and comfortability.

This is exactly the kind of place I could see myself relax and unwind whether a romantic trip for two or with 4 of my closest friends :)

It's all about the details isn't it? :)

^^ I love eet!

Winter is approaching and so is my need to get away from the city. What a fabulous find. Thank you CHI!!

The Lake House...

(Sunset on the lake)

(Will searching for his golf ball lol)

(The resident ducks)

(This is an older pic of the front of the house. The planter boxes are now painted charcoal and the plants and trees have matured)

(This house has the perfect neutral background for any design style)


(This is my mum's bedroom complete with a lovely old brass bed she's had forever)

(The view from the balcony is the perfect frame for the blue and white colour scheme)

(This was originally my grandparents room and now one of the three guest rooms recently damaged by the storms)

(This house does host a sleeping curse lol. Anyone who visits is affected)

Last week Jim, the kids and I joined my mum for a wonderful short summer break at her lake house up the central coast of NSW.

I am truly one of these blessed people who have gorgeous homes to vacation at during both winter and summer as my mum owns a gorgeous home on a lake, 5 mins from the beach and my dad owns a farmstead and acreage down south in one of NSW most beautiful rural areas - the southern highlands. I'll blog about his place another time.

My mum's home, is in a small but developing town and the property itself backs onto a beautiful grand lake. My family built this home almost 30years ago and to my mum's credit and clever design skills, I feel it really has stood the test of time and hasn't dated.

Since my grandparents death 2 years ago we really haven't felt the need to get rid of any of their 50's/60's furniture as it's still good quality and with brand new accessories, looks quite modern.

I'm only posting a few photo's at this time. A few months ago there were some ferocious storms up there and the house got quite damaged. We are still having rooms recarpeted and painted but once they're done I'll do a complete photoshoot of the house room by room. I love it so much I can't wait to show it off :)

We had a fun and relaxing time but I'm happy to be back to my blogging world :)

I can't wait to catch up on everyones posts.

Our Trip....part 4

We had just spent the past 5 weeks in Greece relaxing and catching up with some good "family time" and it was time to begin our journey home.

First stop, Munich, Germany. Another place I'd longed to visit. I, like all girls, had grown up with all of the brothers Grimm fairytales, so to actually see the area to which it all begin was quite....well....enchanting.

The storybook churches were absolutely gorgeous, with their tall steeples. The kind of church every child dreams of being married in.

The main square of Munich, "Marien Platz" looked actually like a village. So very cute!

The highlight of our 4 day Munich stay was the 2 hour trip to the Bavarian Alps to visit Neuschwanstein castle. That place completely blew me away. I truly couldn't believe my eyes when we stepped off the bus and I looked up at Cinderella's castle perched high on the mountain top. And to complete the scene, it was snowing! Heavily! Again I had to stop myself from crying of happiness.

Another mementos occasion, the children had never seen snow before so as you can imagine their excitement was almost too much to control LOL. The snowball fights between them and their father started almost immediately. The downside to that was my daughter wasn't wearing really appropriate footwear (as we weren't prepared for such extreme winter weather) and her feet got soaked to the bone, therefore she winged the whole way up to the top and the whole way down. At one point Jim and I had to remove our socks and put both pairs on her just to try and keep her feet functioning. It was bloody freezing! Ahhh the joys of travelling with kids LOL.

We had the time of our lives, I wished we could have stayed in Germany longer. It was way too short a visit, however I'd like to look at it as a preview of a longer stay yet to come.

We then left the freezing cold city of Munich and headed for the steaming hot city of Hong Kong.

Hong Kong I have to say wasn't what I expected. But then again I don't really know what I was expecting. I guess I was in a state of culture shock and anxious to get home cause I really wasn't a happy camper. Our accommodation was a living nightmare and we refused to stay there so we spent hours trudging our luggage up and down Nathan road looking for somewhere else more suitable for a family.

The crowds were massive and the smog was thick. To me, everything looked filthy and I hated the men grabbing at us trying to lead us down a back alley to buy stolen hangbags and watches.
The shopping wasn't cheap and everywhere you walked, water from the thousands of boxed airconditioners would fall on your head.

Haha I sound like a grumpy pants. To be honest I think I was just tired and looking forward to getting back to my home and my family and friends. The kids really needed to get back into a routine as they had basically been running feral for the last 2 months with no real rules.

We were only in Hong Kong for 2 days and I think we just chose the wrong area to stay (Tsim Sha Tsui). Perhaps another visit someday, with my sister, who frequents Hong Kong will prove to be a much better experience.

We made it safely home and now I look back on this incredible adventure I had with the 3 most precious people in my life and absolutely believe it was a dream come true.

Our Trip...part 3

We had just finished up our fabulous week long visit in Paris and were heading for Greece. This is where Jim started to pipe up and show some real enthusiasm. Jim hadn't been back to the "mother country" in 15 years and he desperately needed to touch base lol.

Just a 2 hour flight and a 45min drive from the airport and we had arrived in the little coastal village of Fourka. The climate was gorgeous, not too hot, not too cold and definately no humidity. The first thing I noticed was all the "older" gentlemen sitting around at all the outdoor cafes in the early evening. I wondered "where are all the women?", then I spotted them all sitting around drinking and eating in someones front yard. I immediately got the sense of a very layed back and relaxed atmosphere. A place where time really wasn't an issue.

We stayed with Jim's parents in their home. It was a typically beautiful provincial style Grecian home, with white render, brown shutters, marble window sils and a black iron balcony. Jim's mum being your typical Greek villager loves living off the land so as you can imagine, there was every type of fruit and nut tree you could think of and fortunately for us everything was in season. It was like paradise. The back drop was spectacular as this town is tucked away 15 mins from the coast in a valley. Pine tree forests wrapped around as far as the eye could see and the smell was divine. Alot of people asked me if this area had been affected by the recent devastating fires but fortunately Fourka had been spared this time, and the fires were towards the south of Greece. Very sad nonetheless.

We spent a glorious 5 weeks in Greece and our days mostly consisted of hours of relaxing and tanning at the beach (It was such a relief to know that my kids could swim and play in the water all day and know that the possibility of drowning was very minimal considering there were no waves at all and also the fact I didn't have to worry about blue bottles or sharks! Unlike Australian beaches LOL). We also spent time bathing in a volcanic hot spring bath and going for mountain hikes through the forests.

Our nights were mostly spent at home with the kids but once a week we'd head down to Jim's cousins hotel for "Greek night" and us and the other tourists would learn some of the local dances as well as try to sing a few tunes karaoke style LOL.

During our time in Greece we did a couple of bus tours around the country. One was a basic tour of Thessaloniki, which is the second largest city in Greece. We saw sites like the great wall, the white tower, St Dimitrios basilica (my husbands name sake) and the archeological museum. As you can imagine all very interesting stuff! Our other bus tour took us on a 2 day journey to the south of Greece not far from Athens. This tour was amazing. Our first destination was the ancient city of Delphi. This city is home to the temples of Athena and Apollo and dates back 4000 years. Our other destination was the coastal city of Nafpaktos. We arrived on october 7th which is a significant date in their history as it was that date that the Spanish, Venetian and Genoese army's liberated the people from their Turk rulers. That evening there were huge celebrations with a re-enactment show and fireworks. It felt like new years eve. We had a blast!

Our time in Greece was happy, relaxing, educational, enlightening, ocassionally lonely (as homesickness started to kick in) but overall a time we'll cherish and remember forever.

Time to head home......via Germany and Hong Kong of course LOL......