Max at the Mandarin Oriental

Rachael came over and spent a whole day helping Zebedee with his Homework, she was brilliant with him!  He has a lot to do and with everything that's been going on with my Mum this summer I just haven't had the time to take it on and aside from his Art homework, getting him to do everything else is like pulling teeth!

I am still trawling through things, letting go... Yesterday I threw out all my diaries from 1978-1986... I wouldn't have wanted anyone else to read them and I just felt it was time to let them go, when it came to it it wasn't very hard really... Going through a box of my things from when I was a kid, old jewellery, ornaments, postcards etc....  Stationary... We have so many envelopes! There is so much to do...

In the evening Max and I met Rachael and Kevin at the Mandarin Oriental!  They are going back to Perth on Monday and wanted to have a special dinner with us, we had amazing cocktails , I hadn't heard of any of them but all incredible!

Then DINNER by Heston Blumenthal! Wow!! An extraordinary menu of dishes dating back through the ages, some as far back at 1370!  I had the best chicken liver pate ever, more like a mousse, served in what looked like a mandarin, I don't know what they'd done to it but it was delicious and the toast was incredible.
Then I had a pork chop with apple, fennel and carrots, sublime!  
Followed by Goats cheese cheese cake with figs!
Other food I sampled from my friends included snails and bone marrow, blood pudding and powdered duck and the most succulent steak ever!  
What an incredible meal!
Kevin chose the loveliest Australian wines with dinner followed by dessert wine and then ice wine from Canada, the grapes are picked and crushed when still frozen, it was such beautiful flavour!

Back to the Taj for drinks but Max and I could only manage a mint tea!

It's been amazing to see them all over here again this summer, we've had some fantastic times together, we've laughed so much, it's been an absolute Godsend for me and has kept me sane during a very sad and challenging period.

Until next year!!