New Years Eve

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Despite clean sheets, a clean room, clean pj’s and a freshly showered me, I barely slept, and was awake around 4.30am. I laid in bed for a few hours, catching up on a few more emails and reading up about which books to get for my Kindle.



I made breakfast for us all and we discussed our plans for the day. I spent the morning doing my finances (normal life continues, even over here), doing some more organising, locating the nearest swimming pools and deciding on a cake recipe.



At lunch time, Rowena and I headed off to one of the local swimming pools – it’s very close, and a 25m pool but fairly old and shabby. However, happy to see it was fairly empty and they had a ‘lap lane’ I spent a very enjoyable hour ploughing up and down, clocking up a few lengths. On the way home we stopped at the supermarket to do the weekly shop and purchase the extra ingredients required for the marble cake Rowena and I were going to bake.



Once home we started on the cake, juggling keeping an eye on everything whilst packing and getting ready for new year at Mount Tambourine. In true Kate style however I had a cake baked, iced, had packed and was dressed and ready in no time – I may have melted slightly in the process though. Ovens in Australia just shouldn’t be allowed! At 6.30pm we started the hour drive to Mount Tambourine.



There is a long driveway (a km or so) up a steep hill to the house, but once you get there, the views over the city, and the house itself are totally stunning. The owners – Peter, Ann and their daughter Zoe live there, and built the house themselves. They bought the land in 1999, built the shell in a year and have been completing it for the last 10 years. They have a large amount of land surrounding the property on which they grow a huge variety of trees, fruit, vegetables and keep chickens, ducks, geese. The house itself if open plan (as the majority are here), with beautiful but modern furnishing, with huge glass windows which cover one side of the house with views over the mountain and the city in the distance.



We had a very pleasant evening there, Ann cooked a beautiful meal, accompanied with very nice wine (they are wine connoisseurs) and great conversation. Our marble cake was nominated for dessert and went down well. After dinner we settled down to watch an Indiana Jones movie, pausing it just before New Year. To welcome in 2013 we all went out onto the veranda, and with the binoculars, watched the fireworks going off all over Brisbane, with those in the city, on South Bank being the most spectacular.



After a while of soaking in the view, we watched the remainder of the movie and then all headed off to bed. It’s been a challenging year, especially for the Baker family, but despite this there has been many high points, and I look forward to what 2013 has in store!


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Comments

[Debbie Cull]

Happy New Year
Hi Kate, You still sound as if you are having the time of your life. We have spent the last 5 days in the French Pyrenees ski-ing can you believe it. Jeremy's Brother and Sister-in-law have a house in France so we went over to spend New Year with them with Jeremy's sister Carolyn and her family (9 of us in all). We skied for 3 days in total and had a lesson on each day. It was lovely to be out in the cold and then go back to their house for a quick shower and into our PJ's and obviously a glass of wine or two. I really enjoy hearing all about your trip. Take care and continue to have fun. Love Debbie xx