A few weeks in photos

Hello all! Apologies for being absent from the blog. It's been a busy few weeks (with more busy weeks to come with exams) and I just haven't been finding myself on the blog much.
There's lots of photos to share but i'll just share some recent ones:
1. The Boundary Street Markets on sunday have now started as a farmers market, and there was an animal petting section. They were so cute (and all looked happy and healthy) and i even got to jump in!
2. Some sunflowers from the Davies Park West End markets, the lady gave me 2 massive bunches as she wanted them gone (didn't want to drag them home with her)
3. Sol West End is being a staple for breakfast! It's an amazing bakery and eatery and we ALWAYS want to go there. This was the day after I got my first Lorna Jane pay and the first day I'd had off from work in awhile, very delicious!
4. This is my ride home from work. The evenings around 5.30/6pm are really lovely and the sky is always pastel pink and blue! I love being able to ride to and from work, saves me time and money and its a great excuse to get outside (being cooped up in a store for 8.5 hours is no fun) and some great incidental exercise.

Be back soon, Hayley xx

Breakfast Addiction

Okay, so after looking through my recent photos on Instagram/Facebook I realised it looks like i'm running a breakfast food blog. All I can say in my defence is that West End has the BEST cafes, every time we are somewhere else (usually in the city) and need to grab some food, we always want to come back to West End because it really has amazing cafes, plus the prices are quite reasonable too!
This morning we went out for breakfast (at lunch time) to celebrate the fact that I have finally landed a job! Yahoo. It's another job with Lorna Jane, which is good because it's where my experience/knowledge area is in retail. It's at the Toowong store, which is also great because it should only take me around 15-20 minutes to ride my bike there (which will save lots of money of fuel/buses/trains). It takes the pressure off a little financially and I am also really excited to start working with a new team + hopefully make some Brisbane work friends.
Here are some photos from lately....

Lazy Sunday

Sunday was a lazy and quiet day for us in Brisbane. We started our day with a sleep in and poached eggs for breakkie (see photo below). We had our weekly food shop to do, spent some time reading and writing and then did an afternoon bike ride. We rode from West end, through South Bank, through Kangaroo point, over the Story Bridge (which is really impressive!), back through the city, through the botanic gardens over the Goodwill footbridge and back home. It was a great ride, took us around an hour and a quarter and the views across the bridge were great! I sadly didn't take any photos as I didn't take my backpack with me to hold my camera or phone.
Here are some random photos from during the week:
1) our breakfast this morning
2) This is where we swim on Wednesday nights, its right across the road (its at a school) and often we are the only swimmers
3) Breakfast we had a few weeks ago at Mondo Organics in West End
4) The CUTEST greyhound kissing booth at the Davies Park West End Markets. Just adorable!

Boundary Street Friday Nights

Tonight we decided to wander down to the Boundary Street Markets in West End. They run all weekend but we havnt been down on a Friday night yet, and it was really really great! The atmosphere was really good, tonnes of delicious smelling food stalls and live reggae music was playing! We each had juices and I got some Malaysian wontons and James had crepes (he felt like something sweet) and I finished the night with a vegan donut, yum! 

Picnic on the river

Tonight we decided to do something different and to save money we also decided not to go out for dinner. We instead made burgers at home and rode our bikes down to a quiet spot on the Brisbane river just down in west end near our house. We went for an evening walk on Sunday along the river and there were lots of people having picnis and bbqs so we felt inspired. It was lovely eating outside by the river and brisbane manages a teeny tiny afternoon breeze which was lovely & cool. 

Hayley & James 

Brisbane River Cruise

The past few days Dad and his partner have been in Brisbane visiting. Yesterday we went on a river cruise of the Brisbane river, which was really nice. We haven't had much time to do much touring around Brisbane ourselves as we have not really had the money so it was nice to do something touristy and see a little bit of Brisbane from the water!

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!

Cyclone Marcia has been visiting us in Queensland for the past 3 days or so. Although thankfully down in Brisbane we haven't been caught in any bad or destructive winds, the rain has been endless!
We have spent Thursday, Friday and this morning (Saturday) bunkered down in the house as its just been bucketing down!
The cyclone has mainly broken up by now, but what is left of it is moving towards Brisbane this morning. The Bureau has predicted heavy rainfalls and chance of severe thunderstorms. So again, we stay inside and wait. I don't really have any photos (other than this one from Thursday night) and a little video i just took outside the door.
We are safe and hoping the rain eases up soon!

Weekend Riding

Saturday was quite a nice day here in Brisbane, not too hot - fairly warm and dare I say it, pleasant weather. We started our Saturday with a visit to the West End Davies Park Market, had some cheap breakkie (potato rosti with eggs and salmon, yum!) and bought out produce for the week. We then decided to go for a ride out to South Bank, we havn't really been out there much and wanted to check it out. It's a lovely bike ride along the river, which is nice not competing with cars for road space. We checked out Streets Beach, which is a man-made beach on the river front (strange Brisbane but kind of cool?!) and rode our bikes around to Kangaroo Point, which was really scenic and lovely. We also walked through The Collective Market in South Bank, which had some really cute things, but not really the type of stuff we have money for at the moment. Afternoon was spent doing study (blegh!), but overall a nice Saturday.

Also, the last photo is a tart/cake creation I made during the week. It was a hazelnut dark chocolate tart (but i used almonds instead). It was SO GOOD. The recipe was from VegieHead.com.au and the tart base was amazing, using ground almonds, coconut sugar, coconut oil, raw cacao and slivered coconut. Delicious!

Saturday market day

Today was a pretty quiet day. James has a lot of uni work on at the moment and I have things due this week. But we still had time to pop over to the Davies Park West End market. Basically just down the road from us (it's quite amusing watching cars circle the block trying to find parks because it's so busy while we just toddle over!) it's so handy and nice to start a Saturday morning with. Got some fresh produce, James had a coffee and I treated myself to a fresh coconut! Delicious. 

Errands and school.

The past few days have been pretty quiet. Yesterday was filled with lots of little errands, like applying for jobs (fingers crossed I might have got my foot in the door at Lululemon!), organising banking, posting things etc. in the arvo, we rode our bikes along riverside drive & went to the State Library, which I wanted to get a membership for and scope it out for scho work. It's a really amazing building right on the river in South bank, pretty impressive. And only a 10 minute ride along the river (which is separate from the road with cars) from our place. 

Today we mostly did school work and pottered around home. 

Also, I bought some icy pole moulds and have been making lots of icypoles! I did mango and today I did mango and plum. Deeeelicious and nice and cold too :) 

Hayley & James x

Swimming & Biking

The last few days have been filled with lots of bike riding. On Saturday, we started our morning at the Davies Park West End market, grabbing as much local produce as possible (and a couple of other things at coles!). We then took a bike ride down through west end along the river, over the go between bridge and all the way to Toowong. It was REALLY hard for me as I havnt ridden a bike in a few years but I'll get used to it! 

On Sunday, we got up early (it was going to be a 35 degree day) and rode our bikes over to Paddington to Ithaca pool, which is a saltwater pool in Brisbane. We got a little lost of on way but found it eventually! The pool was great and we swam for around an hour and then rode home (without getting lost). 

Hayley & James 

And some flowers from the market - so cute!!

Bikes and coffee

Today was an exciting day - we both finally got paid and decided to finally get ourselves some bikes!! Public transport in Brisbane has been costing us a fortune,  when I spent a week in the city for school I think I spent close to $50 on my bus card, which is just crazy. James got a refurbished road bike, so it has a vintage redone frame and all new mechanics. And my bike was new and is more like a hybrid cruising bike (so no high seat or flat handlebars like a road bike).

We also had a breakfast at a really great cafe in west end called Plenty. The food was delicious & surprisingly cheap for how good it was. Plus they had a focus on organic produce and knowing where your food came from so that was also nice. I think we will be visiting there again very, very soon (it's dangerously close, only about a minute walk from our house!!) 

Goodnight, Hayley & James