You could be forgiven for wondering if this Blog had been discontinued but due to popular demand (mainly my dear Mum) I thought it well about time to provide an update since the last one back in August – a staggering 6 months! It’s certainly been a busy 6 months and for fear of losing anyone before the first paragraph is out, I’ll provide an executive summary for the time poor among you.
Executive Summary
- We enjoyed a fantastic trip back to the UK and thoroughly enjoyed catching up with all our friends and family;
- We have been running the Drunken Admiral for 16 months now and have looked after 61,000 covers over that period;
- Brierlie and I are now engaged to be married!! We have set the date and venue : Saturday the 23rd of February 2013 at Quamby Estate, Tasmania;
- Wiki celebrated his first birthday;
- We have been spoilt with visitors which has been a great deal of fun – two deserve special mention for the distance they travelled to stay with us : Natalie and my bro Oliver;
- I am currently recovering from knee surgery – some bone had to be removed where a shard of glass had perforated my left tibia (which was a little bit painful);
- Phase 1 of project “Garden” has completed to time (if not cost);
- Brierlie’s foray into the Hobart cake scene is proving to be oven-hot!
- All booked up for our next visit back to the “land of the Angles”(Engla land) in April;
Our European Adventure
In August 2011 we took our first big break from the restaurant and headed back to the UK for a couple of weeks to catch up with our greatly missed friends and family. We had a really enjoyable trip and packed lots in – including a party-hard getaway to Ibiza together with Ollie, Sam and Stephanie.
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| Enjoying the delights of the New Forest |
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| Bora Bora Beach, Ibiza Baby! |
It was kind of trippy to be back in Putney, feeling very much like we hadn’t been away for enough time for a monthly travel card to expire, staying in the flat I know so well, yet at the same time to be a guest in my old home and to know that I had another life (kind of on hold) all the way round the other side of the world. I was a little nervous about how I might feel about leaving for Australia again but aside from the obvious emotional roller-coaster of saying goodbye to some of the most important people in my life, overall I was ready to head back to Hobart and get stuck back into the not-so-new life that we have been building over here. And it certainly didn’t hurt to be stopping over in Phuket on the return journey where we enjoyed an action-packed adventure scuba-diving and island hopping round the Phi Phi islands.
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| Maya Bay, Phi Phi Islands |
The Drunken AdVenture
So we are now 17 months into taking the helm at the restaurant and I am pleased to say that we are really enjoying ourselves. Obviously there are some ups and downs along the way that are part and parcel of the hospitality industry – difficult customers and high staff turnover being the first couple that spring to mind – but all-day “workshops”, PowerPoint presentations, picking sandwich crumbs from between laptop keys following another lunch at my desk, rush-hour on the tube and an Outlook inbox that was impossible to keep up with are not aspects of working life that I miss terribly if truth be told.
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| New Year's Eve at the Drunken Admiral |
The restaurant itself is going strong – we’re back in the middle of the summer season, Hobart’s population has temporarily swollen in size for a few months and it’s been a busy time for us all, particularly amidst having guests to stay, the “silly season”, wanting to take some time off for ourselves and staff shortages. That said, we are very pleased with the current team and long may that continue!
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| Drunken Admiral Staff Party - Australia Day 2012 |
A Decent Proposal
As many of you will know by now Brierlie and I are engaged to be married. I popped the question – which was a complete surprise to Brierlie – whilst we were away together soaking up the sun-drenched paradise of the Whitsunday Islands in November. In terms of the proposal itself, suffice to say it involved Whitehaven Beach, a helicopter and a 40m long “Will You Marry Me” banner and a small item of jewellery.
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| Whitehaven Beach, Whitsunday Islands |
As you might imagine, I was delighted that Brierlie accepted my proposal. Even if it did require two attempts as Brierlie was in shock for my first go – perhaps a direct result of the helicopter screaming round in a tight little circle for us to have another look at the banner (which she assumed was for someone else!) on the beach below as I broadcast my offer of engagement over Queensland radio airspace for all and sundry.
Since that time, it’s been a whirlwind of planning and decisions – most importantly setting a date and booking a venue. Knowing that Brierlie would want at least a year’s run-up, we have set the wedding for Saturday the 23rd of February at the Quamby Estate in Tasmania. It was a tough decision, particularly given how many of our friends and family are on the other side of the world. But having also seriously considered a UK wedding and a “destination” wedding, we fell in love with Quamby when we visited and it just felt right for us.
Hotel Glebe
We have been very fortunate to have some very special friends and family to stay with us over the last couple of months – in our newly renovated “guest bedroom” (complete with an antique four poster bed!). As well as thoroughly enjoying spending time with them, it’s also a perfect excuse for us to take time to explore more of this amazing island.
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| Wine Glass Bay |
Whilst Oliver was here with us we road-tripped around the west coast of Tasmania – a truly remote part of the world with spectacular scenery to match. It is quite incredible just how diverse, dramatic and varied the landscape is within what is actually a relatively small space : 364 km (226 mi) long from its northernmost to its southernmost points, and 306 km (190 mi) from west to east. It is about the same size as Switzerland but whilst there are roughly 500,000 people in Tasmania, compare that to the 7.5 million in Switzerland and you get an idea of how wild and uninhabited the state is.
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| Touching down on the Gordon River (just before we lost the front of the propeller!) |
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| Amity & Jeremy's wedding day (Peppermint Bay) |
A right ol’ knees up!
To add to my growing list of restaurant-related injuries, I had surgery last week on my left knee to remove a shard of glass that had perforated the tibia bone. It was a shame in a way as I remember the accident itself where I knelt in some broken glass (very small pieces left over from an earlier breakage I suppose), cleaned up the wound and carried on.
It would seem that the wound healed perfectly thankfully – that is until about 4 weeks later and I knelt on that same part of the knee and it felt like someone had skilfully skewered my knee with a knitting needle. Other than the intense pain which soon subsided I didn’t think too much of it at the time but to cut a long story short, that kneeling moment simply drove the shard of glass lying quietly beneath the skin into bone and the rest is history. The surgery itself involved chipping away the bone where the “foreign body” had lodged itself – all through which I remained perfectly conscious (whilst sedated) which was a surreal experience as I saw the surgeon take the hammer to my open knee. Since then, it's been crutches and dramas in the shower. That is until someone called in sick to the restaurant at the last minute and I had to cover 4 days after the op. As you can imagine, the crutches were soon banished.
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| Pretty I know |
Phase 1 Project “Garden”: Complete
Since my last blog, myself and Wiki have spent a considerable amount of time in the garden making a terrible mess. A mess so consuming that visitors to the house would took a look at the apparent crime scene in the garden and you could see genuine concern (for either my mental well-being or Brierlie’s patience – or both) flash across their faces before attempting to offer some encouraging words.
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| A definite case of which mess to clear up first??? |
However, roll on a few months and I am pleased to say that phase 1 of the effort is now complete – just in time for our engagement party on Boxing Day (which was a major concern in the household I can tell you). Perhaps even more disturbingly, I have genuinely enjoyed the journey and I’d like to think that I have learnt quite a bit along the way.
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| Enjoying the fruits of my labour |
Despite getting quotes for a professional to undertake some of the work (like the digging and paving, or the turfing for example) I ended up doing the whole lot myself and by hand. Yes, that might well be because I became increasingly aware of the escalating wedding budget or maybe even a factor of the garden’s aspect making it virtually impossible to manoeuvre machinery into the equation. Needless to say I had very little need of the gym for a good couple of months.
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| A real-life game of Tetris |
The Queen of Tarts
No, I’m not being in any way unpleasant about Brierlie, this is her new pseudonym here in Hobart as she takes the cake world here by storm. I can only say that I am in awe of her latest creations – she’s a true artist where slabs of chocolate mud-cake and fondant icing serve as her canvas and paints. Not only is she exceptionally good at what she does but she seems to revel in her edible passion. The KitchenAid I bought for one of her last birthdays doesn’t seem like such an extravagant kitchen gadget any more.
Queen of Tarts Facebook Page
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| The Queen of Tarts in action |
…So that brings you pretty much up to date with our news. We will be back to the UK in April (just a couple of months away now) for my sister Sam’s wedding which we’re very much looking forward to. (No prizes for guessing who’s doing the cake!) For those of you around and about the UK during the second half of April, I very much hope we can catch up with you then…
Some more random photos
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| Happy Birthday Wiki! |
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| The Lesser Spotted Dook |
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| Who needs a ute? |
