point + shoot: return to ythanbrae

This past weekend we travelled back to our old stomping ground in the beautiful Murrindindi valley. It was oh so bittersweet - I actually got excited going to the crappy overpriced little supermarket I used to loathe and Mr M thought I was a total freak (not unjustified). But here in overpopulated Gippsland I never run into anyone I know in the supermarket, I used to spend at least three times longer than needed as I'd run into old Mrs whats-her-name in aisle five in Yea and chinwag about last week's cattle prices. 

We stayed with dear friends in their amazing home, who I used to nanny for and Mr M bred some (pretty awesome if I do say so myself) embryo transfer calves for. The weekend was full of great friends, great local wine, great memories, great organic meals, great house which I secretly want to move in to. A new pony for the boys, who had both grown a foot! Some silage bale jumping in the sunshine, admiring new art purchases and some beautiful looking heifers at Ythanbrae.

Enough words...as always pictures say more.

How was your weekend? Playing along with Lou's point + shoot.

Images by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella

point + shoot: two months

When I decided to DIY lots of little (and big!) details for our wedding I don't think I realised I was literally giving up all of my weekends, which are now devoted to spray painting chairs...

...folding, folding, scoring, slicing, folding, folding, gluing...

...wrangling rusty ringlock into light fixtures, inspired my Katrina and Amie's...

...hand stitching little ruffles...

...designing and printing...

...so. many. jars!

...as well as co-ordinating little outfits and becoming a professional hot-glue-gun-wielder.

Not to mention The Scrapbook #1 and #2 which are in constant evolution and varying states of disarray...

Two months to go today...

Images by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella


P.S. Head over to Lou's place to play point + shoot just like me.

point + shoot: the recap

This Monday morning I am unashamedly totally stealing Chantelle's weekend stats counter from last week. So there you go, unoriginal but fun all the same. We had friends over to watch the big game, including a cats supporter and a pies supporter. On Friday I picked up all the sample desserts for The Wedding from our lovely cake lady. One word: deliciousness. My mum obliged Mr M and made her famous sausage rolls, I outdid myself with a cous cous salad recipe I made up and we kicked the footy in the drizzle at half time with all the hounds going a bit mental. Sunday brought some sunshine, some gardening, some more chocolate eating and some wedding projects.

How was your weekend? Hope your team got up! Go here to see some other fun weekends...

Images by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella

point + shoot: birthday boy

This past weekend brought lots of family to Brindabella - it was Mr M's birthday! Quarter of a century. Older than me (for a few months anyway). He wasn't forthcoming with a birthday cake suggestion so I took it upon myself to make him a white chocolate mud cake...and it was a winner! Super easy to make and worked perfectly, even though the recipe was a bit vague as to cooking time I baked mine for 1 hour 20 minutes. Perfect.

We also finally finished Chateau le Chookie, played a mean game of Monopoly (ragers, I know), made some pretty awesome pizzas and cooked up 35 jars of jam for our wedding favours. Only 83 to go...

Playing point + shoot over at Lou's place.

Photos by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella

point + shoot: the hipster

My weekend, according to Hipstamatic...

What on earth did we do before iphones?

Playing point + shoot over at sunny + scout.

Images by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella

point + shoot: the one with the sponge

The weekend brought some dear fellow farming friends to Brindabella. Since moving further south we don't see Tyler and Kate nearly as much, which really is shameful, but a five hour drive is hard to slot in sometimes. It was Kate's birthday on Friday so a cake was in order. I asked her during the week if she had a preference for a type of cake. The reply? A sponge. A sponge! To her credit she had no idea they were quite the tricky cake to perfect (and I had never made one before) and when she found out about my fluster over room temperature eggs and triple sifting dry ingredients she felt terrible! I, however, absolutely outdid myself in the Masterchef ranks though, even if I do so say myself. As luck would have it when I was flipping through last week's Weekly Times I came across a recipe submitted by one of our old neighbours at Ythanbrae: 'never fail sponge'. And fail it did not. Thanks Denise!

The rest of the weekend was filled with far too much farmer and wedding talk, garden walks and thinking about whether things in my garden at Brindabella would work up in the dry north west of the state. We went to see the church where we are getting married, pegged out the marquee size on the site where it will go, went for a drive to find an elusive canola crop we could see on a nearby hill, took Kate for bridesmaid dress fittings (!!!!!) and general mass cheese, quince paste and beetroot dip eating followed by a lamb roast and washed down with a bottle (or three) of Larnoo red talking about the inevitable: The Future. That pesky thing.

A serious case of Mondayitis ensued today. Great, great friends. Feeling blessed to have them in our lives and our future, no matter what that might bring xxx

Head over to Lou's to play point + shoot with me. 

Images by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella

point + shoot: ethan and the leaves

The weekend.
Saturday.
Hairdressers.
Seasons first lambs.
Lawn mowing.
Three nieces descend.
Gravel in Ava's hand.
Tessa terrorised by Scarlett.
Sunday.
Slept in.
Still packing at Dumerilli.
Collecting eggs.
Pumpkin soup.
Old bottles.
A trailer of mulch.
Raking leaves in the wind.
Silly.
Boys are different to girls.
Home.
Lazy pizza dinner.
Hot shower.
Warm bed.
Rain on roof.

Playing along with Lou at sunny + scout.

Images by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella

point + shoot: the family

This weekend was a rare occasion - all of my siblings and all of their offspring were in the one place at the one time. My four nieces live at opposite ends of the country, so catching up with cousins is a pretty big deal in the life of Chloe, Scarlett, Charlie and Ava. One pub meal, two footy games, four bedtime stories, a trip to the Prahan market for cheese, bread, grapes and olives, and a run around in a nearby park later and I'm fairly certain I know four little girls who would have slept soundly last night.

Playing along with Lou for this weeks point + shoot.

Images by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella

point + shoot: to church we go

Morning! How was your weekend? I can happily (oh so happily!) report that The Fence is done. Done! This was a huge project, taking loads of time and effort, stealing my weekends and preventing lots of other projects around the ramshackle farmhouse from progressing. So to say I am happy it's finished is the understatement of the century. Plus my hands hurt. Ouch.

sunday february 13th | 11.06am | narracan uniting church

In between fencing we decided that we had better start deciding where the heck we are actually going to get married. Yeah I know, kind of a big deal/major decision in the whole wedding planning process. I had been too busy dreaming of table centre arrangements and trying on veils to be bogged down in such mundane things as practicality! Sheesh. But on Sunday morning we tootled down the to the lovely little town of Narracan (a few kilometres down the same road I grew up on). Well to say Narracan is a town is a wee bit generous - it has a hall, a church and a school with about 15 kids. More of a 'locality' or 'community'. But the church, oh the church is so cute. The sign said services on Sunday's at 11am, which I thought strange to have services every week in this tiny 'town', and low and behold the sign was wrong. No service, just us peeking in through the windows to see how many of our guests we could cram into this teeny-tiny church.

Conclusion: I am calling the minister today and hoping to actually get inside the church to scope out exactly how teeny-tiny the space really is. Plus we want our family friend who is a minister to marry us, don't know if this is possible or 'standing on anyone's toes'. But oh how we loved the setting with the giant trees in the church yard, the Narracan creek literally at the doorstep and the quaintness of the little chapel architecture.

Go here to check out some other lovely weekends. 

point + shoot: a bush dance

I climbed out of the car (yes I 'climb' out of my soccer mum car) and literally hadn't put two feet on the ground yet before I heard the first whooping 'yeeeehhaaaa' echoing out of the Valencia Creek hall. Oh yes we had arrived at a real deal, fair dinkum bush dance.

Mr M's family friends had their 20th wedding anniversary celebrations on the weekend with a good old country ho-down in east Gippsland. The memories of going to these events as a kid at our local hall came flooding back as I remembered how to 'strip the willow', 'heel and toe' and got hit in the head by a wayward football outside in the dark by the gaggle of boys playing in the rain. The Briagalong Bush Band were brilliant, with an amazing fiddler who was only 15 years old and could fiddle the heck out of "The Devil went down to Georgia!"

saturday january 22nd | 8.50pm | valencia creek hall

After a slideshow of images from the past twenty years: their first home, buying a block of bush with nothing on it, travelling around Australia, working on outback stations, fruit picking in far north Queensland, building their dream home, living in a shed whilst they built the dream home, two kids later...the happy couple emerged in their wedding dress and suit with lovely lavendar cumberbund and bow tie! It was hilarious - 1991 fashion does have a lot to answer for! It totally made me reconsider my stance on selling my wedding dress! (Hopefully you would still fit into it after a few decades). We camped the night by the beautiful Avon River, even if I did get eaten alive my mosquitos it was a lovely setting. We left Mr M's sister, husband, two kids and dog all paddling in the river on Sunday morning.

How was your weekend? Any toe tapping, hay bale tossing, dosey-do-ing? No? Too bad, missing out.

Playing along with point + shoot.

more trees + some rocks

I promised a garden update on Monday so here 'tis! On the weekend we completed our major garden bed in the backyard, half of which had a rock border already and the other half once upon a time had a fence against it which we ripped out. So Mr M's trusty Dad, Mum, sister, niece and nephew came to help move a lot of rocks about whilst I instructed where to place them, dug a trench and spread mulch and top soil. We also dug out a small(ish) corner garden bed which had a half-dead rhodedendron in it, so I told Mr M to get the shovel, it's coming out! Little did I know it was buried half a metre in the ground inside an old washing machine drum! Who does that?! So planting my beloved hydrangeas took a bit longer than anticipated. We also planted our ornamental pear once we had flattened off the ground where the old tank and stump used to be, and on Monday night we planted our crabapple tree in the front yard where we can see it from our bedroom. Both trees were engagement presents from my brother and sisters. We also planted some wistringias which my sister got for us in a small garden bed under the pink horse chestnut. Oh and we spread a heap of topsoil, levelled it all out, scattered some lawn seed, angle-grinded the pipe off the wishing well, filled it with soil and planted some petunias and pruned the magnolia tree.

Phew! I was sore on Monday from pitch-fork duty.

gardening guru

Another weekend. Another gardening marathon.

The jungle here at Brindabella is tamed, I wouldn't really classify it as a jungle anymore (the waist high grass was really adding to the overgrown look the farmhouse had going on). This weekend Mr M's parents, sister, niece and nephew came to help do some more jungle taming. Along the way we found this little fella with what we were calling 'honey sacks' attached, is this what they really are though? This then started a whole debate/discussion on how exactly bees make honey, what is honey? I know it's nectar...but what is the process to make it? Is it bee poo?! Do bees eat honey or feed it to baby bees as my biologist sister seemed to think? We needed to google it...but alas there is still no internet connected at the ramshackle farmhouse so today at the office I might do some investigating...

How was your weekend? Any insect spotting, gardening or outdoor adventuring? Trot along over to here to see some other interesting snaps from interesting weekends. I will be back tomorrow with a progress report on the garden.

sunny days

This weekend summer arrived in chilly old Gippsland. The days were filled with lots of nieces, sunshine, champagne, yummy food and family and friends from afar. Our small engagement party was quite simply lovely and just how we had imagined (more on that later). Here is a quick photo of Mr M and I from the day...

  

P.S. I'm playing along here for this week's point + shoot :)

point + shoot: newly engaged

This weekend there was much champagne flute clinking, diamond admiring and a spread of bridal magazines at my house. We had not one, not two, but THREE rounds of visitors here at Ythanbrae...basically my weekend consisted of the following:

- 'flying' visit from Dad (literally)
- mmm yummy pub lunch in beer garden = sunburn
- amazing friends visit from the Mallee - yippee! Need to see them MORE, too bad we will soon be 5 hour drive away = sadness
- mmm yummy farm fresh lamb roast dinner
- firedrum on the lawn with champagne to toast marital bliss, hurruh!
- farm tour on back of the ute = more sunburn
- mmm omelettes for breakfast
- broken suction in dam = boys spending an hour with ropes/rocks/branches trying to fix it, no luck
- Mr M almost being skittled by PSYCHO cow with mastitis, I seriously had 000 at the ready. I see/get fair share of grumpy bovines (mainly bulls) that have to jump up on the rails occassionally in the yards, but this was something else, seriously psycho
- Mum and my sister Louise at Ythanbrae = sister back in Australia! Hurruh!
- copious beer and champagne drinking on the deck amid wedding planning, barbequeing and sunset admiring
- game of Rummikub to keep the man happy

That's all.

 
{ mum, mr m and me enjoying a drink on the deck last night }

 

How was your weekend? Go here to see some other adventures.

point + shoot - the rock!

Ok so I am totally cheating for this week's point and shoot - these are from last Thursday, not my weekend (which by the way was lovely and blissful with lots of champagne, Mr M's brother, wedding musings, a hit of tennis on the brand new grass court here at Ythanbrae and more coffee making at the gallery).

 

{ Photos I was taking before the question was popped. Another beautiful sunset. Perfection. } 

 

{ My engagement ring. A replica of Mr M's late grandmothers engagement ring. Perfect in every way except for the ring band size, so it is at the jewelers for a little visit. Our dear friend Olivia's engagement ring is similar which Mr M knew I liked so he has been stalking her finger! }

 

 { The ever lovely Miss Lily watching on as we celebrated }

The wedding planning is underway don't you worry, we've had a great time sitting down over a glass of bubbles discussing our ideas - which are all on the same page and tastes, we have a clear vision of what we want our day to be and represent. I can't wait to document it and share it on my blog.

This week's point and shoot from fatmumslim herself is a cracker - a beautifully cute video of her weekend with her little girl and her man. I loved it, pop over to have a look.

point + shoot

Hello!

I've hit the ground running back from a super busy weekend, on Saturday I had a family portraiture day as a fundraising effort for the Yea Pre-School - seventeen families, forty children (mainly all five and under), eight hours of shooting, very sore feet and a terrible cramp in my camera-holding-hand later and I'm so happy with how the photos turned out...

 

{ Baby Tander } 

 

{ Cheeky Riley }

 

{ Brothers Ethan and Dustin }

Now only 2,400 to sift through just to create some proofs...am chaining myself to my computer for awhile. Must. Not. Be. Distracted. By. Pretty. Blogs. 

 

 { Jordyn and her big brothers }

 

{ Pretty Rose and her exhausted dad Tai! }

How was your weekend? Catch any glimpses of Spring? I'm yet to see many around here but I'm sure it's on the way...Head over here to see some other snaps of Spring.

All images copyright of Emma Durkin Photographics