Wednesday 10th July 2024

Let me start by saying a huge Happy Birthday to my gorgeous Twinkles, Grantley & Georgia! 25 today. 🎉🧡

It was also my beautiful Rebecca’s birthday yesterday! ❤️

It’s a busy month for birthdays in the Marginson-Swart/Wills/Mann family. 

I know it’s been a while since I last posted. 

I was hoping to post with some positive news on my apartment sale, but alas that is not to be. This is due to the completely ridiculous conveyancing system we have in the UK coupled with the unbelievably slow & pedantic way my buyers Solicitors have conducted themselves. We were due to exchange contracts last Tuesday but at the last minute my buyer realised she hadn’t in fact organised the rental of her other home (or some such bollocks!) I have been assured that all parties want to proceed and things are moving, albeit at a glacial pace! 

Things only got moved along to this point after the intervention of the indomitable Patricia Ling! 😍 Who is a legend and another birthday celebrant this week. Cancerians are Fierce! ❤️

The weather here continues to do its best to counter any homesickness by imitating the British weather remarkably well. Rain, cold, storms, a little bit of sun every now and then, just to keep you from losing the plot completely! 😂

I’m still searching for the perfect Coffee Shop. I’ve tried a couple more, but no winner yet. The biggest issue I have is the weird lack of WiFi. This means writing my blog is ok, but posting isn’t. 

There is a little family run corner shop by Rebecca called Mangles Corner Shop. They sell a limited range of supermarket items, but they do lots of hot & cold food for takeout, sandwiches, pie’s, salads, chips, homemade cakes (my favourite is a Lemon Melting Moment) They also do delicious coffee! 

What they need to do is crack on a build an outside, covered seating area! This would then be the perfect place to go, I wouldn’t even mind if they didn’t have WiFi. 😍😍 I’ll mention it to them next time I’m in! 

Rebecca continues to enjoy her new job, she has also now done 2 shifts with the Ambulance Service, which she really enjoyed. So proud of her involvement with this. 

Chris has also started a new job today! He is going to absolutely smash it! 

It has been quite the month here with so many changes and a fair amount of ups & downs, uncertainty & stress! 

With this in mind and after feeling a little frustrated about the apartment I booked myself a cheeky little Wine Tour down in Margaret River. 

I decided to also book a hotel for a couple of nights and make a weekend of it. 

I booked the tour with a company called “Margies Big Day Out” It was meant to be! For those that don’t know, my nickname in Newquay is “Margy” 😀

I drove down in Chris big ‘Ute’ as this was deemed to be the safer option as it has bull bars for any Kangaroo incidents. I love driving the ‘Ute’ it’s big, it’s manual and it looks a bit badass! 

I drove down on Friday, in some gorgeous sunshine 🌞 I had a little mooch around Margaret River Hight Street. Grabbed lunch at a fabulous, recommend burger place called ‘Normal Van’ for many years they operated out of a mobile van, but have become so popular they now have a fab place in town. My burger was delicious! 😋 

The sun continued to shine so I drove out to ‘Surfers Point’ at Prevelly Beach. It’s stunning. Gorgeous sandy beach’s right on by the mouth of the river. It has some huge waves which makes it the number one surfing location In Margaret River. Unfortunately I didn’t see any surfers out. It was a fabulous place to chill and watch the ocean. 

From here I headed to my hotel/B & B/Lodge A really gorgeous place called “Karriview” I’d found it on Booking.com and it was a really good price and within the pick up area for the wine tour. I was so pleased with it.

I was greeted by the owner, Richard, who was lovely. 

My room was massive, like the bed!

I had a big terrace overlooking the grounds. 

I was treated to my first up close sighting of Kookaburras!

The Lodge has substantial grounds bordering the National park, so 

I had a walk around the grounds and saw more Kookaburras, parakeets, galah’s and a couple of huge kangaroos! It was simply a beautiful, peaceful place to be.

One of the reasons I chose it was because it had a restaurant which meant I didn’t have to drive around at night trying to find somewhere to eat. 

The restaurant was offering a limited menu, but luckily for me one of the options was a risotto!! 

The one on offer was pumpkin & chorizo, but Andrew the other owner and Chef kindly offered to swap the chorizo for bacon and I have to say it was delicious! 😋 Not as good a Jaques, but definitely yummy. 

Andrew and I were chatting and it turns out he lived in Newquay for a while and worked at The Mermaid in Porth! Small world. 

I slept like a log in my enormous bed and woke to a glorious sunrise! 

After a light breakfast I was picked up by the lovely Russell, in his trusty minibus which was blasting out 80s tunes! 

I chose a seat across from the door, big mistake! The door was a tad draughty the weather was very cold and windy and I was the first pick up. This meant that I sat on the bus in a draught with no heating for the next 90mins! 🥶 

The bus filled up with lots of lovely people, mainly couples and pairs of friends. 

We arrived at our first winery, Javis Wines. A small boutique winery. I was very excited, mainly about getting off the freezing bus and into a nice warm building. Unfortunately this was not to be! The winery had just opened and the guy doing the tasting hadn’t put the heating on! Fuck! He was so cold that his hands were shaking (either that or he’d had a very heavy night!) 

The wine was good, the emphasis is mainly on the reds, which are not my favourite but were very pleasant, and helped to warm me up. 

Before returning to the bus I offered my double seat to a couple who’d had to sit on the single seats, they were very pleased & grateful. My cunning plan worked! I was now sitting away from the door & the bloody draught!! 😂

Next stop was another boutique winery called Peacetree. We did the tasting at their shop in a quirky little town called ‘Cowaramup’ where it would seem that wearing cow themed onesies was a thing! There were also lots of statues and cow themed stuff…weird. 🐄🐄

Peacetree and our host Josh were fantastic, as was the cute dog, Jasper. 

The winery is a small family run, organic estate so the wines are low in sulphites and tasted delicious. I liked their Rosé which was dry and light. I also liked their Syrah Pinot Noir, both of which are whole pressed, meaning the grapes, seeds and stems are pressed all together.

The Margaret River area is renowned for its Chardonnays and I have to say they were very good. 

By the end of this tasting everyone is a little more chatty and friendly. 🍷🤪 We even persuaded Russell to change the music from 80s to more recent party tunes! 

Next stop a funky Brewery called ‘Cheeky Monkey’ we all had a drink and this was also our lunch stop. Most people sensibly ordered pizzas which came out very promptly, I ordered chicken tenders which arrived pretty much as we were leaving. Luckily they bought an extra pizza which I had a couple of slices of, It had been a while since breakfast and I was starving. 

Off we went to our next Winery, ‘Knotting Hill Estate’. I have been here a few times on previous tours, it’s a lovely estate, especially when the suns out, sadly not today. The wines were good, but I definitely preferred Peacetree. 

Our final stop was CBCo Brewing. Again a fabulous spot in good weather, it had lakes, a driving range, ducks! However, by now the weather was terrible, really windy and chucking it down. A few brave soles went outside to play golf but the rest of us got drinks and stayed near the fire!! 🔥

I was convinced I would be the last drop off, so was preparing myself for a long, draughty drive back. Luck was on my side and I got dropped off first! Result. 

The whole day was great fun, the wineries were lovely, the company was good just a shame about the weather. 

My final night At Karriview was lovely, being nice and cosy listening to the gathering storm, which blew all night. 

That’s pretty much it for now. 

I haven’t made any further plans yet. Fingers crossed I’ll hear positive news this week. 

I haven’t even read that much, shocking! 

Yellowface by Rebecca F Kuang. I enjoyed it, it was an interesting read and also interesting to read a book where you don’t actually like many of the characters! I would recommend it. 

The Ruin by Fervla McTiernan. An Irish detective story, the first of a series. Enjoyable. 

Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez a fascinating book about Gender data bias and how this impacts and disadvantages women in all aspects of life including, healthcare, education, the workplace and policy making. I haven’t finished it, but I would highly recommend. 

Happy Wednesday everyone.

❤️💚🩵💙