Lighting up

The Northern Beaches is a very beautiful part of the world, but there are hardly any places to dine that have ocean views.

I often point this out to DD, so when he heard about a new venue opening in Mona Vale Surf Club he grabbed us a table for their second night of service.

We don’t fine dine very often, we prefer casual meals, but it was lovely to sip a glass of bubbles and watch dusk settle over the coastline while savouring delicious seafood.

We had oysters with fennel and lime migionette; kingfish marinated in lemon, coconut, chilli and tamarind paste and wrapped in betel leaves; the most divine roasted scallops in chilli and kombu butter; and smoked tomato and Queensland lobster risotto with fine herbs and lemon oil.

Ooooh, fancy! Nom nom!

But our favourite part of the evening was sitting out on the balcony of the restaurant after our meal, sipping a final glass of wine while drinking in the spectacular view.

The dogs came with me to DD’s – but fortunately not to dinner – so I could have a few glasses of wine and not worry about driving. It felt like a mini holiday to wake up on Sunday morning and walk them to a cafe to grab two flat whites, then head to North Avalon for brekkie, followed by a twirl around Palm Beach Markets and a quick dip in the ocean.

All too soon the real world returned – I am so far behind on my to-do list, so I headed back to my apartment.

And I copied an idea I’d seen online and made my own grass piddle tray for the dogs on the balcony. I used a bread tray, a bag of dirt and a roll of turf. And, after much coaxing, they are both using it!!!!!

I am very excited by the possibilities of not having to trek up and down the stairs to the outdoors four times a day.

It was also awesome timing because it was bucketing down last night, which would have been very blah without my new creation.

I also went to a lighting store to buy fans for all the bedrooms – which are getting very hot at night now summer is approaching – and also new lights for all the other rooms to replace the ugly old ones.

I got one dramatic light that looks like this to hang over the dining table:

The cords are adjustable so I think it will fit in my little place:

However, I woke up in a bit of a panic in the middle of the night, wondering if fans can be installed in apartment ceilings, as there is no roof space.

I also decided during my restless night that I have chosen the wrong colour for the kitchen light … so guess where I will be going next weekend?

I really need a whole extra weekend – make that a whole extra week – to finish unpacking boxes and doing stuff like my tax.

But the work week is beginning, so I’d better get cracking on that.

Hope you had a good weekend.

Song of the day: Australian Crawl “Boys light up”