Melbourne and Julia's 40th

The Jamieson's with Julia's stunning bday present behind them

Tess, Maggie and Ryan

We've had the most glorious week weather-wise with the temperatures rising and rising and a predicted 23 degrees on Saturday so I was very nervous about how cold we were going to be down in Melbourne celebrating Julia's 40th.  However, we arrived on Saturday morning to very un-Melbourne weather - bright blue skies and temps of 19 degrees - very reasonable.  


Julia was there to meet us at the airport and after putting Jules, Craig and all the kids in a maxi taxi to join up with Michael, Ryan and Maggie, Julia, Lisa and I headed down the freeway for Daylesford where we were having a special birthday lunch at The Lakehouse which is one of Australia's top restaurants.  As the name suggests it is perched above a beautiful lake surrounded at this time of year by trees in glorious autumnal colours.  The restaurant showcases local produce and the last 3 pages of the menu are dedicated to explaining where each item of produce comes from - who grew it, who picked it, who delivered it (ok, perhaps not the last one!).  The food was amazing and my duck liver parfait starter will be one of those dishes that stays with me for a very long time.  


After a very leisurely lunch we headed back to Melbourne to find the house ready for a surprise party complete with a lamb spit roast in the backyard - this was clearly going to be a typical Michael Jamieson party!  One of Michael's brothers (he has 5) was on bar duty mixing mojitos and long island iced teas, another was on the karaoke machine ably assisted by all the teenage cousins and all the other family members had brought an amazing array of salads. The night was a huge success and even Julia had a turn on the karaoke machine!!  We finally fell into bed at around 2am, were woken by Tom at 3.15am and then again at 6.15am when he decided that it really was time to get up - groans all round!  


We lazed around in the morning drinking cups of tea, coffee, eating bacon and egg sarnies and making a vague attempt to clear up after the party.  It also gave us a chance to look around Julia and Michael's new house and hear about the decorating/renovating plans etc.  For lunch we headed up to the local pub where we sat by a warm fire (it was marginally colder today) and discussed the previous days events.  After lunch we played 2 very competitive rounds of pool, boys v girls which finished up 1 all so we'll be going down soon for the decider!  

Tom, Tess, Grace and Harry

Our other exciting event this week was a double play date on Friday where I decided to pull out all the stops and baked cupcakes for the kids to decorate.  They had a ball, ate far too much sugar and then ran around in the garden for the next hour so I was left in total peace to tidy the house and have a cup of tea - marvellous!