Author: Snoskred

Movie Catch Up 11

1 Comment Posted on January 24, 2018January 3, 2018 by Snoskred

LOVED –

My Cousin Rachel

“A young Englishman plots revenge against his late cousin’s mysterious, beautiful wife, believing her responsible for his death. But his feelings become complicated as he finds himself falling under the beguiling spell of her charms.” IMDB

What a beautiful piece of film making this is. A real feast for the eyes. I do not want to give anything away about the story – you just have to see it. I loved almost everything about it, the costumes, the locations, the story, the cast was fantastic. There was only one thing I did not love, a change from the book towards the end, but to tell you would spoil it.

Recently we began watching Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams. The very first episode – The Hood Maker – was by far my favourite. The two leads in that sold the story to me so convincingly, and both of them looked quite familiar but I could not work out where I knew them from. After the show finished I headed to the trusty IMDB and discovered they were both in quite a lot of things I enjoyed. And here Holliday Grainger pops up once again but I did not recognise her!

A Quiet Passion

“The story of American poet Emily Dickinson from her early days as a young schoolgirl to her later years as a reclusive, unrecognized artist.” IMDB

This was extremely well done and the acting was utterly sublime, from everyone involved but particularly from Cynthia Nixon and Jennifer Ehle – who has been one of my personal favourites ever since the 1996 BBC pride and Prejudice miniseries where she played Elizabeth Bennet to the Mr Darcy of Colin Firth.

It is slow at times, and for someone like myself who does not enjoy poetry it could even be considered somewhat boring, however the performances, costumes and hairstyles more than make up for that in my opinion. It drew me in and I lost about an hour and a half somewhere in there, too captivated to notice the time passing at all.

It was strange at first to see Cynthia Nixon in a role other than Miranda from Sex and the City but it did not take long for her to truly inhabit Emily Dickinson to the point I forgot all about Miranda.

The Beguiled

“The unexpected arrival of a wounded Union soldier at a girls school in Virginia during the American Civil War leads to jealousy and betrayal.” IMDB

I saw the trailer for this a long time ago and I was super excited to see it. Nicole Kidman is Having A Moment and wow, does she inhabit this role beautifully.

I loved pretty much everything about it especially the location, but the trailer gave me a wrong idea of what body part they cut off Colin Farrell.

All three of these are great movies and well worth watching if you stumble upon them in your travels.

movies

My Favourite Aldi Products

4 Comments Posted on January 22, 2018January 21, 2018 by Snoskred

Wasabi Aioli

This is my favourite aioli that you can get from a supermarket. It is in the refrigerated section instead of just on the shelf and it is not too spicy, just perfect to add a little heat to our weekly fish and chips. The Wasabi one is light green and not pictured here as they had sold out – and I am totally not surprised. Made in Australia, too!

Foaming Facial Cleanser

I use two items of skincare for my face every single day. One of them is this foaming cleanser from Aldi which I use in the shower while my hair conditions. They sometimes have a tea tree oil version in their special buys which I have used before and liked. Both this version and the tea tree smell great and do what they need to do. Made in Australia.

The other skincare item is moisturizer and I have a few different ones I switch back and forth between, including a cream that I credit with keeping my skin awesome which is actually a slightly up money hand balm for gardeners bought from Scully’s in Berry. It smells amazing.

Luxury Hand Wash

If you like citrus chances are you would love this hand wash. I first bought this scent as a moisturiser when they had it on special buys and it smelled SO incredible, the next time it is in stock I am going to stock up big time. But in the meantime I have this luxury hand wash in the guest bathroom and at least once a day I go in there and treat myself to a big scenty lather up. The scent stays around for a long while and the sage adds a delicious smoky element.

I think this might be one of the best smelling hand wash products you can buy in Australia, maybe Aesop has something to compare but the Aesop one is seriously Up Money at $40 for 500ml. I’ll take the $5 version thanks! Made in Australia.

Foaming Hand Wash

My favourite is the passionfruit and guava but they are all good and I have one container of each flavour available in the house at all times. Both the pumps and refills are Made in Australia.

For those of us who do a lot of hand washing, at $2.49 for 500mls these are excellent value and they smell amazing. A little goes a long way with this product, in fact more so than I realised and I was buying one refill each fortnight alternating the flavours until the other half pointed out I had quite a supply of them building up in the cupboard.

Dishwashing Detergent

More great smelling stuff from Aldi. The lemongrass and kaffir lime is great but the pomegranate and mango one is deeply intoxicating. I love using it. Someone has worked hard on all these flavours and it shows. Made in Australia.

Vintage English Cheese

I went for six months without raw cheese in 2017. The one cheese I wanted and craved the entire time was this one. It is super strong and bitey which is how I like my cheese. It was the only one I bought the minute I decided to allow some raw cheese back into my life. Not made in Australia.

Cheese Kransky

I do not normally like this kind of product but The Other Half loves a kransky or cabana. I actually do like this one and I will eat it without any qualms, just not too often because it is slightly higher in sodium than most foods we eat now. It is a rare treat for both of us.

Brioche Awesomeness

I do not eat hot dogs but I love these buns and this is a rare bread treat I will allow myself, perhaps once a month. I like to poach a couple of eggs and place them inside the hot dog bun, and add tomato relish from The Treat Factory.

Pizza Bases

We buy two of these a fortnight, and we get four pizza meals out of each packet of two. They smell amazing, too. Just keep them in the fridge in the warmer months because there can sometimes be a little moisture inside the packet and we’ve had them grow mould before. Made in Australia.

Overall I am very happy with Aldi as a place to shop, especially considering how much effort they have put into sourcing products from our own country, whereas the other two big names tend to be looking to drop the prices down down by importing products from other countries.

Aldi

Flowery Friday

3 Comments Posted on January 19, 2018January 6, 2018 by Snoskred

photos

The Milk Bar, Berry

3 Comments Posted on January 17, 2018January 2, 2018 by Snoskred

Right next door to The Treat Factory, you will now find The Milk Bar. They have some indoor seating and a lovely covered outdoor deck area. You can sit and watch the cows in the fields opposite, and those cows provide the milk for the gelato, there was also some limited seating inside.

The staff are incredibly helpful and friendly, the place looks great. The house made gelato is pretty amazing, and the milkshakes and thickshakes use it.

On our first visit, we chose the ham and cheese croissant with tomato relish for an early lunch – and you can buy the relish right next door at the treat factory, it is delicious.

They have a lot of options cake wise, plus other food options.

Of course at a milk bar you want to get a milkshake. They do normal milkshakes, thick shakes, and those scary massive treat shakes which everyone loves to instagram. Most of them involve the gelato made right on site. We added coffee gelato to the chocolate thick shake, it was so delicious I grabbed a scoop of that gelato to eat on the way home, because I could.

We love the new milk bar addition and we will definitely go back to try more of the menu and experiment with some of the thick shakes, because they have some set flavours but you can ask them to put in any flavour of gelato you want.

Berry

The Treat Factory, Berry

2 Comments Posted on January 15, 2018January 15, 2018 by Snoskred

Hidden out the back of Berry is a rather fabulous place called The Treat Factory. I only discovered it thanks to a local Facebook group where someone was looking for some pickling salt, and another member suggested to look in the downstairs area of the Berry Treat Factory.

That’s funny, I thought. I did not know they had a downstairs area. It turned out after over 10 years of living here I had never been to the REAL Berry Treat Factory which is way off the main street and hidden away behind the train station, at the very back of some commercial units.

So on a weekend not long afterwards, we made the trek to the Treat Factory and discovered so much awesomeness. Above you see their famed downstairs area. You can find all kinds of magical things here, everything from actual Australian dried apricots to hot sauce.

We have been back several times to buy many of their made-on-site goods, which can also be found at the Berry Markets where they often have a stall and in various shops. I took some photos to share with you.

They have gluten free and regular pastry in rolls and blocks, frozen pasta, cheeses, free range eggs, muesli..

The treat factory has all kinds of goodies for sale, including lots of chocolate covered nuts and chocolate treats, many of which would make great gifts to take home for friends and family. They also have some samples of the things for sale that you can try.

My personal favourites are the lime aioli and the tomato relish. The dark chocolate coated nuts – particularly the almonds – are a regular purchase for us, and the dark chocolate covered coffee beans are must buy if you like that kind of thing. We will continue going back and trying different things until we have tried them all. ;)

They have local honey, too.

The large bags of lollies are excellent value in my opinion at just $9.50. They are super huge!

On this trip we bought tomato relish, dark chocolate coffee beans, belgian chocolate mini frogs, a large bag of dark chocolate almonds and the wicked hot chocolate chai flavour for me, a small bag of the almonds plus some rock and jams for a gift for someone else.

Thanks to a different Facebook group, I found out they had opened a milk bar with gelato made on site right next door to The Treat Factory, we have now been there twice and I will post about that on Wednesday.

Berry, food

Some Like It Hot

4 Comments Posted on January 12, 2018January 12, 2018 by Snoskred

Last weekend was super hot time in NSW. While the weather station claimed it was 35C outside – 25C inside.. (95F/77F)

The small temperature unit in the delicate nirvana was telling a different story.. (41C/105.8F)

The chooks were dustbathing in the shady garden and completely ignoring the fridge-cold water plus an icecube I had just placed in their enclosure. My chickens are strange that way. If you tip out their slightly dusty water they’ll beeline to drink it and ignore the freshly clean water you replace it with. If you give them cold water, they will drink the warm water sitting there while eyeing your cold water with great suspicion. Especially if there is an ice cube in it. They do not understand an ice cube.

The kitties meanwhile were basking in the warmth of the nirvana. They LOVE it hot.

But they also do not understand an ice cube.

kitties

Plant Pot

3 Comments Posted on January 10, 2018January 1, 2018 by Snoskred

Our final purchase for 2017 and hopefully our final purchase for the Delicate Nirvana was wood, potting mix and portulaca seedlings to build a special custom plant pot for the corner of our wonderful paradise. After a quick trip to Bunnings on New Year’s Eve, I started off by giving the area a good vacuum, then we unloaded the wood and potting mix from the car.

I left the other half to build while I prepared dinner. By the time I got back, he’d finished building and also put in a layer of sarlon at the bottom, to stop soil from escaping the pot.

The sun was going down, so we called it a day. The next morning we kicked off by adding in a layer of sand formerly from the chook coop and run, which contained plenty of chook manure.

You can’t do a job around here without Happy the Helpercat. Once the helping was complete, the planter looked like this –

The ferns were in a small self watering pot and we are pretty sure they will take off beautifully in this planter. Since we put the shadecloth in, the ferns are really loving the atmosphere out here and growing very happily. I really wanted a small tree fern to go in the middle corner of this pot however we could not find one. We will keep looking, though.

We’d been planning this planter for a while now and having finished it, we now feel like the Delicate Nirvana has reached perfection. Half the fun has been the journey but we have now arrived at the destination. Time to sit back, relax and enjoy it. :)

Delicate Nirvana

Musical Monday – Amsterdam

3 Comments Posted on January 8, 2018January 1, 2018 by Snoskred

Somewhere nearby in a parallel universe, there is a version of me sitting in Starclass on a Jetstar flight to Hawaii, listening to “Amsterdam” by Coldplay, over and over again.

As we were taxi-ing out to take off, I was loading up songs onto my playlist. There were several different Coldplay albums on my iPhone and somehow I put Amsterdam on the playlist multiple times. There were a couple of live versions, a couple of album versions, and I think somehow I loaded them on more than once each.

I tried to sleep on that flight. Every time I woke up, Amsterdam was playing. It felt like maybe this night went on forever but time was passing without me knowing it. I was managing naps, but because every time I woke up I heard the same song, I felt like I was getting no sleep at all.

Now, anytime I hear that song, I am immediately back on that plane, flying to Hawaii. But I never, ever actually get there. I just keep flying hearing that same song.

I am secretly a bit of a Coldplay fan. Sometimes one of their songs is exactly what you need to sing along to. And while we are talking about them, I really loved one of their filmclips many years ago – for The Scientist. I loved the concept of it, going backwards instead of forwards.

It is interesting to me that particular song was the one that played over and over. My first ever trip overseas by myself was on KLM which is based in Amsterdam, and I did a quick stop over there on my way back from the Isle of Man.

music, travel

Delivery Time

4 Comments Posted on January 5, 2018January 5, 2018 by Snoskred

Supervisor cat will supervise any deliveries. :)

Ordered on Boxing Day AKA 26th of December, this was my last purchase for myself before The Year Of Buying Nothing began. However it did not arrive until the 3rd of January which made it a nice New Year treat for me.

There were three new mesh tops from Boo Radley in white, soft pink and raspberry. This item is still on clearance but at the time of writing there is only one size left. What might happen is folks get it home, try it on, don’t like it or it does not fit, then they send it back with the 30 day moneyback guarantee. Mine are most certainly staying here.

There were 42 items from Yankee Candle. This item can no longer be found on the website. I fear they are not going to restock this brand. I got 18 mini votive candles and 24 melts.

There was one more purchase we bought for the Delicate Nirvana on New Year’s Eve which I will tell you about next Wednesday.

shopping, TVSN

The Year Of Buying Nothing 2018

10 Comments Posted on January 3, 2018January 1, 2018 by Snoskred

For the past couple of years my goals have been fitness related. I think I’ve done pretty well in that area, I’m at my goal weight, I’m running 5kms without stopping now. I am pretty happy with that. I’ve just bought a new piece of fitness equipment to do some toning which is what I need now, along with core strength. So this year my fitness plan = keep going on the current path.

Inspired by No Buy July, I had a thought kicking around in my skull brain about trying a year of buying nothing. YOBN for short, and that is how these posts will be tagged for 2018.

Realistically this is quite impossible, because one has to eat and get clean and live life, so groceries and toiletries and necessities are something most of us need to buy. When I say year of buying nothing, I mean things like clothes, shoes, homewares, that kind of stuff.

There may be times when I do NEED something. After a couple of solid months of running in 2017, all my sports bras which were initially clipping on the first set of closures are now on the last set of closures and I expect that after another couple of months I will need to go and have a new bra fitting. I will happily buy these when required and I will not skimp in this area.

The Other Half and I have had a quick chat about the rules. We’re not going to be super militant about this, the plan really is to make us think before we get out the $$$ and hand it over. We need to take some time and ask ourselves questions. Do we need this, or do we just want it? How is this item going to improve our lives?

For some years now we’ve had a “bargain” rule in place – if we were out somewhere by ourselves and found something that we felt was a bargain, we could buy it and the other one would be ok with it.

Many times in the early years of the bargain rule if it were me, I would take a photo and send it by our free messenger program (Kakao talk) and ask if The Other Half agreed with my buying it, but as time went on I tended to go with a modified version of the Nike rule of “just buy it”.

I feel like we’ve got everything we want or need, at least for a while. So it is time for us to focus on enjoying the things we have and not buying more things.

The Current Rules –

1. If we both agree that we NEED something, we will buy it. This will be good for us to separate “want” from “need”.

2. Items purchased from Aldi, Coles and Woolworths will not count as these are mostly groceries and toiletries.

3. Items from Aldi special buys WILL count if they are not groceries or toiletries.

4. Items which are not groceries or toiletries will be documented and posted on the blog once a month to keep track of any “shopping incidents” that occur.

I will reserve the right to add extra rules as we go, if we need them! At the end of each month I will post an update here on the blog. I may do a “what I would have bought” from time to time or I may just add that into the update post.

So, we will give this a try and see how it goes. At the very least it will be an interesting experiment. :)

2018yobn