WYSIWYG

What You See Is What You Get. This is a journal blog, an explore-blog, a bit of this and that blog. Sharing where the mood takes me. Perhaps it will take you too.

MenOZiscences; reviewing the Down Under Parts

Another lunch outing. My second cousin Sally and third cousin Denise. Sal lives on Scotland Island (remember my visit last time over?) but Denise lives South of Sydney, so we tend to meet up at points roughly equidistant to us all (see here for the previous one). On this occasion, we settled upon an up-market garden centre and bistro known as Eden Gardens.



















It's an 'arty-farty' kinda place... the menu quite limited, with only one truly vegetarian dish; but as all the produce is from the gardens themselves, it was as fresh as could be. It was roasted Jap pumpkin (two big slices), soused sultanas, candied walnuts, rocket and watercress salad and a honey-mustard dressing. Very delicious and energising. Sal had the salmon on crushed heritage potatoes and tomatoes and Denise had the beetroot and goats cheese tart with salad. Simple food, well prepared and each ingredient standing up for itself! The surroundings were interesting. That's a large piece of NSW sandstone made to look like an apple with a bite out of it. The lighting was architectural in scale as well as design, and the recycling of the old ute somehow made complete sense... yes, that eucalypt sapling IS growing in the back!














































I had taken the bus from Hornsby to Macquarie Park, where this place is to be found; it was about 50 minutes of very scenic suburban viewing. After lunch, though, Denise took off, as she had the furthest to travel home, and Sally and I headed up to Hornsby again, where we sat for another couple of hours with an iced chocolate and friand. ... and experienced the sudden attack of an Ice Bomber of a storm. We were under glass and felt very vulnerable, but thankfully no damage done. Fist-sized chunks of rough ice fell from the clouds and hit the surfaces with the force of cannon shot. You will see the glass 'bridge' where we were sitting at the end of tomorrow's views page.

Thankfully we were safe. There was a lot of damage down with that 10-minute sky explosion; hundreds of cars written off, homes damaged. The sort of thing which is becoming rather more frequent and - almost - normal all over the world. A rather shaky end to what had been quite a pleasant day.

9 comments:

  1. What a beautiful area....and such a nice visit and lunch!
    Ice Bomber? What in the world...that was scary.
    Hugs madi and mom

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  2. Love the apple and the car.
    Some storms can be so scary, even if they only last a few minutes or possibly because they only last a few minutes!!

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  3. The cafe is the perfect place to visit. Glad you were safe during the storm. That sounds scary.

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  4. Crikey Aunty ...... we are supposed to be in the path of one of those ice bombers today. I hope it's not was bad as they are predicting. There is NOWHERE here to get the car under cover. Oh Dear!!!!!!!!! A lot of NSW is affected by damaging storms today. Very scary!! I'll just sleep through it. Storms don't worry me but Mum worries for all the dogs that are paranoid in storms.

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  5. Sounds like a very scary storm - glad you are OK
    hugs
    Mr Bailey, Hazel & Mabel

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  6. Over the course of our marriage we have had two homes where hail damaged the roofs to badly insurance replaced them. Always sort of scary! namaste, janice xx

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  7. I love this place and I love the food... I'm drooling that is a wonderful combination what fits so well together...

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  8. Bah to the storm, but how wonderful to have relatives all over the world. I suppose we all do, but don't know of them.

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  9. What a fun post! And a fun event.
    The truck is an amazing planter. I love it!!!!

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