Le French Martini

The french martini was invented by the good folk who make chambord, in an effort to popularise their liqueur. (Isn't strange how you have to enter your date of birth, just to read about alcohol on the internet).

Anyway, I don't require your date of birth, but your credit card details will be just fine.

Chambord is a raspberry and blackberry liqueur, its relatively low in alcohol (16.5 %) and is lovely straight out of the bottle or mixed into a cocktail.

The french martini has vodka and chambord with added pineapple juice (3:1:2).I'm sure those ratios are flexible and you can adjust to suit. The vodka seems a little strong,but the second one made with vodka 42 below passionfruit vodka was nicer. I'm not the biggest vodka fan but in a nice cocktail its tolerable.  I had mine shaken over ice (the pineapple juice makes it cloudy anyway) though you do get a little foaming. A sprig of summer mint with flower for decoration and you have the perfect accompaniment to an afternoons vacuuming.

I'm Back!

I'm back!! Did you miss me? No? Well at least my cat did. I kept waking up in the middle of the night to loud purring and a cat snuggled up on my chest and the mouse heads on the stairs were obviously a welcome home gift. That's true love right there.

We left in a bit of a hurry and the place was a freaking mess to come home too, I've got a ton of cleaning and washing to do. BAH. Sadly I hurt my toe and can only hobble around the house. I'll have to get Zed onto the housework.

Meantime I'm already trawling the internet to plan our next holiday. A cold windy Scottish isle in autumn 2011. I better start saving again. Kiwi dollar doesn't buy many pounds or euros or anything for that matter!

Gold coast was very entertaining, but if we go back I think we'll head to the mountains, the hinterlands, the rain forest etc. We only spent one day on a random drive to Tamborine mountain, but it was lovely, lots of foodie places, B&B's, rain forest walks and spectacular scenery. Still we had the typical theme park fun

A couple of days with showers meant that the Aussies stayed home, we almost had Movie World to ourselves and were able to go on several rides over and over without queuing. Movie world was definitely the teen favourite, stunt shows and rollercoasters and short queues. Dreamworld is pretty good for all round family entertainment but my favourite was Seaworld, their shark bay exhibit is amazing and I got to see a baby dolphin frolicking about! Another bonus was that all the themeparks have bars, so once I'd had my fill of roller coasters Zed and I could sit and have a beer while the teens dashed about trying to get as many rides in the last hour as possible. Only low point was munting my toe at Whitewater world, but thankfully it was the last day.