Shock and awe

Yes, shock and awe works pretty well for me as a post title. I've just been examining my blog's statistics and I am quite amazed at who is looking at my blog, how they come to my blog (via Google mostly) and what words bring them to me (I must avoid "breasts" and "Nigella Lawson").  It makes quite fascinating reading, but is also a little disconcerting, in a manner I can't really explain.  

The other shock for the week is that we are not in Vanuatu, as we are supposed to be but instead, ended up at the hospital extracting mum from the coronary care unit after she decided to have a heart attack, 16 hours before we were due to fly out.  So, we cancelled our holiday and instead, we're enjoying the pleasures of northern NSW during winter.  It's actually been very pleasant and relaxing, though it's a full-time job corralling mum who wants to get into her garden and dig up some shrubbery.  She called the cardiologist's office yesterday to make a follow-up appointment and told the dour secretary that she was going for a jog on the beach!

We had brunch on Sunday at The Beach Cafe at Byron Bay (this was the view) to cheer her up but unfortunately, there weren't many "heart healthy" items on the menu really.  Well, nothing that looked as tasty as the bad stuff.  Isnt' that always the way?  So, with heart disease now evident on both sides of the family, I guess I'd better start kissing goodbye to cheese and ice-cream myself - and keep up the running!  

Mum is threatening a 100% pure carrot diet for her heart health but I'm sure this is just a knee-jerk reaction.  I've seen it before.  Spud was stented himself about eight years ago and I haven't seen him eat a raw carrot since!  Instead of Vanuatu (currently 26 degrees C) we are going to fly down to Melbourne (currently 9 degrees C) for a few days.  We love Melbourne and really, with my skin cancer "issue", it's much better to be fully clothed and out of the sun, don't you think?  Can't wait to be in Melbourne again as it has been several years since we were there and it will be great to have a little bit of a holiday before uni starts again next week.  

This wattle is in mum's garden - together with black cockatoos flying overhead.  Fabulous!

Ahhh-ha.  Mum has just woken up and is in an all together different frame of mind this morning. Instead of thinking her heart attack is all a bit of a laugh and adventure, she is starting to be worried about it, thinking she is having another attack.  I think she's moving into the next stage.  We were wondering when she would stop being so relaxed about it all.  Luckily my sensible brother has arrived from Sydney and he will straighten her out.  

I made these French macarons yesterday.  Yes, they are macarons - not geological specimens from the Simpson desert!  They are my first attempt and they were utterly awful.  I think I over beat the egg white so when they cooked, they seemed to separate.  They were so chewy that our jaws ached.  Priority Number One in Melbourne is to find a decent macaron. After that, it's off to the Napoleon exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria.  

Just had to post this photo, taken at the local BWS store, attached to the supermarket.  Yes, that's a bottle of Grange for $699.  And it's right by the automatic-opening doors, so it can have lots of lovely temperature changes throughout each day.  I am not a "wine wanker" but I know this is some fancy wine and shouldn't fancy wine be kept in a fancy 'fridge so the delicate (expensive) flavours aren't ruined?  By the way, isn't red wine good for your heart?