My neighborhood

It would be an understatement if I said I LOVE where I live

it really is a beautiful location & a great neighborhood.

I walk most mornings & these are the sights I see around my neighborhood.

Tree lined streets

Farm land along the river

This house sits at the end of our street, my kids call it "The Haunted House"

It looks especially spooky surrounded by storm clouds.

The Hunter River

Beautiful lane ways

These are just pics from my iPhone that I take whilst I walk.

Such a beautiful way to start the day don't you think?

CHEERS

Trish xx

Holidays

Well the school holidays are over & we are rested up & ready for another term of rushing around & trying to maintain some sort of routine.

I feel rather fortunate that none of my kids have chosen to play a winter sport , leaving our weekends free for rest relaxation or whatever we choose...YAY!!!

Through out the holidays we opted to stay home again & just enjoy the things on offer in our local area. I get the kids to write a list of the things they would like to do & we work our way through it!

We did a little fishing at the Hunter River, which is only about 2km from where we live

the kids love fishing & building a camp fire

we stayed here until after dark & had a bit of a picnic afternoon tea with my sister & brother in law

it was lovely weather & a nice way to relax.

My neighbor & I took the kids to The Hunter Valley Zoo. Its only a small zoo which is perfect for small children

 You can feed a lot of the animals & every hour there is some sort of educational display & the opportunity to pat some of the animals that are normally untouchable

We spent a bit of time working on our block of land.

The kids love to sit by the chiminea in the evening & have a bit of a picnic or do some drawing!

We baked cup cakes to celebrate my mums birthday

Maitland is packed with old historical buildings & the Hunter River runs through the centre of town, so they have created a really lovely river walk that is always fun to do.

(excuse my bad hair, it had rained on us a litle bit)

Its also a good path for riding scooters!

We trekked off to Hunter Valley Gardens for an afternoon out, with my brother, sister in law & 2yr old nephew

The story book garden is always a hit with the kids...

It really was a fun & relaxing holiday, my two older daughters spent the holidays in Bathurst with their father.  Dream child no.1 did a weeks work experience as a photo journalist at the Western Advocate Newspaper & loved every minute of it. This was a great opportunity for her & has helped her make a definite career decision. She will now apply to universities to study to be a photo journalist. I think this is the perfect career choice for her, she is very creative, a fabulous writer & loves photography, perhaps she will get lucky enough & become a travel writer, what better way could there be to see the world!

I hope everyone else had a FANTASTIC Easter  break!

CHEERS

Trish xxx



all photos are my own!

Autumn Fog

I'm not sure you can really say autumn has arrived here in The Hunter Valley. Our days have still been very hot & humid & we are still able to be outside in summer clothes well into the night.

I'm not complaining, after spending the majority of my life living in the Blue Mountains, where the air is crisp year round,

 it has been known to snow there in December, you know in the peak of our Australian summer!

I took these photo's of the early morning fog last week because it reminded me of the weather from my home town, we don't often see fog here & it did look rather pretty with the sun shining thru.

Are you still enjoying summer weather at your place?

i know all of my lovely readers on the other side of the world are enjoying the first signs of spring, it really is the best time of the year, seeing all of the blossoms on the trees & the spring bulbs bursting open, I enjoy all of the spring time posts I'm reading at the moment!!

Who knows, perhaps in a month or two I will be able to take some wonderful autumn leaf photos with my fancy new camera!

Enjoy your week everyone

Thank you to all of my lovely followers for stopping by to read my little blog

&

a BIG thank you for the lovely comments you leave,

I really do appreciate that you take time to include me in your busy days!!!

CHEERS

Trish xxx





Expensive property doesn't necessarily mean stylish property!!!

I was looking to the local real estate market for inspiration for my post today & thought I might write about a really beautiful home in my area, so I began my search for properties over the million dollar range. Now one would expect to be swooning over every property, well it wasn't the case.

Here in The Hunter Valley of NSW, Australia, there is an incredible amount of property for sale well & truly over the million dollar price bracket, but as they say, Location, Location, Location.

The Hunter is prime farming country, with large areas used for cattle farms, horse studs & vineyards. It is also one of the fastest growing regions in Australia due to the amount of industry, coal mines, vineyards, tourism, horse racing studs & proximity to the ports of Newcastle. Its safe to say we have it all here, which bumps up land values.

This is why I was able to uncover some fairly unflattering decor in my search for the perfect million dollar home...

You judge for yourself!!!!

I would call this style eclectic, perhaps....

I'm not so sure that canopy is safe....

These last 2 pics are from the same house, a very colourful house...

I love a white kitchen myself....

Perhaps The Hunter Valley needs a few stylists to start marketing to the local Real Estates....

A coat of paint, some rearranging of furniture & curtains the correct length for the windows would go a long way.

We all want to create a WOW factor, but most of these images had me saying OMG!!!

What do you think?

Perhaps all of the beautiful images I see in blog land everyday have given me a false sense of reality!!!