Okay, we have a lot to get through this week so without any (let alone further) ado, the weekly wrap…
Red Sunrise
Okay, the reason behind this didn’t make me smile, but the colour was fantastic.
This red sun was a result of massive bushfires at Peregian, a beach suburb up the road. The fires were allegedly lit by teenagers and caused the evacuation of entire suburbs, the loss of one house, bushland and native animals.
It did, however, bring an entire community together to thank the massive efforts by firefighters who kept the losses to such a minimum.
Check out this amazing photo taken on Monday night
and this other one of the water-bomber dumpling fire retardant.
Making granola
I’m in Sydney for the day job later this week so made a batch of this granola up to keep Sarah going while I’m away. It’s mostly oats, coconut, seeds, almonds and some cranberries. If you’re interested this is the recipe I sort of use.
Date Night
The hubster and I did a 5 course French-style tapas tasting over at The Piano Bar in Maroochydore on Tuesday night. At $49pp including 2 glasses of wine, it was a great deal. Plus, being tapas, we pretty much just had tastes.
The music was great, the vibe was buzzy and the food wasn’t bad either.
Stepping
Another big week on the stepping front which, given I was in the car for 5 hours on Friday and Sunday, took some effort. Being in Sydney this week will bring these numbers down quite a bit.
Bake-off FOMO
Great British Bake-off has started in the UK and I’m loving the memes and the reviews that are all over Instagram, but it’s still going to be months before we get it here in Australia. Sigh.
Knock-off sundowners
Not content with date night on Tuesday, Grant and I checked out the newest bar at Mooloolaba’s Wharf – The Savvy Squire – on Thursday evening. While not entirely new, it’s been extensively renovated and is the perfect place to end the working week.
A whirligig
As seen at the roadside stop somewhere near Maryborough on Friday… I know, pretty lame, but I haven’t seen one in ages.
The biggest brown snake I think I’ve ever seen
Okay, this didn’t make me smile and I wasn’t stopping the car to get out and take a photo of it for proof, but trust me, this thing was a huge, as my Dad would say, Joe Blake. It was doing it’s slithering thing across the road somewhere on the way down to Agnes Water on Friday. Ugh.
Paradise Found
We spent the weekend “glamping” at Agnes Water – on the coast about 400kms north of where we live. They call it the Discovery Coast up there – on account of how Captain Cook called in here in 1770 – but I’ll tell you more about it later in the week.
Kangaroos on the beach
These were on the top of the dunes on Saturday morning, but we could see their tracks on the beach as well…
Reading
“Crazy Rich Asians” by Kevin Kwan. I love love love the movie and I’m feeling the same about the book.
And yes, there are water drops on it from my first ocean swim of the season – at Agnes Water.
Writing
It’s all go on the writing front and yes, it’s all being juggled with the day job.
I’m getting my covers re-done for Baby, It’s You and Big Girls Don’t Cry so I can launch them onto Kobo and also get them into print.
As an aside, Wish You Were Here and Happy Ever After are now available on Kobo.
The link for Happy Ever After is here and Wish You Were Here is here.
I’m also almost finished my rewrite of Careful What You Wish For and should have it done by the end of this week. It can then go off for copy-edits.
Escape To Curlew Cottage has come back from structural editing and I’m looking forward to reading through the notes and getting stuck into that.
Okay, that was my week…how was yours?
And Anyways... 
Oh, loving the progress on the writing front (and idea of new covers) but Agnes Water looks lovely. My aunt and uncle go there quite often to stay with friends who have a beach house there somewhere and they just potter around and go fishing. It sounds relaxing.
It’s so beautiful. I’d love to stay for a week and just write, walk and cook. Sadly Grant couldn’t – he needs things to do – but for me it’s heaven.
Another great week for you Jo and I’m glad the books are all progressing well. I was a little jealous of your glamping trip – I might have to do one of those sometime before I die (it counts as camping doesn’t it?) I didn’t miss seeing the snake pic and I would have stayed in the car too!
It absolutely counts as camping in my book lol!
Hi, Jo – That’s a very big week! I will definitely try out your granola recipe.
And about that big brown snake. I definitely think that you should have tried to snap a photo for us — all in the name of blogging! 🙂 🙂
I was SO not getting anywhere near that snake – not even for you guys lol.
🙂 Somehow I thought that you would say that!
OHHHHH beach images – love the looks of these scenes. Can’t wait for summer…
Summer will be here before you know it… thanks for dropping by.
Fabulous ‘stepping’ Jo! I’m wondering how accurate my iPhone is for recording the distance against the number of steps. On Saturday I did just over 13,000 steps, but it took 9 kms of walking to do this. This takes about 1 1/2 hours, so a lot of time is involved in getting more than 10,000 steps a day in for those of us who are past running. Spectacular photos, though yes, with a tragic background to them.
I have a completely sedentary job & work from home so if I don’t actually go for a walk I can end the day with a total of around 2500! I walk for an hour each morning – that gets me about 6000 steps. Then I take the dog out at lunchtime for another 30 mins and then when I knock off I’ll try and go for another 40-60mins, although I don’t do this every day. Last weekend we did a couple of bush trails which got the numbers up.
What a wonderful week (bushfires and brown snake excluded!) Your weekend away looked fabulous, can’t wait to hear more about it. And how good is Crazy Rich Asians?! I can’t wait to read the rest of the books in the series.
I’m really enjoying the book – and just need a little more downtime to keep reading lol
Another amazing week, Jo! Thanks for sharing it with us here. I love that Great British Bake Off promo, it’s very clever!
SSG xxx
Love the catch up. Not the brown snake. They are the worst. We had a few back in our country teaching days….and B dispatched a couple…say no more. Loved the recipe for the granola. Yum. I am learning to eat more with textures now as my mouth heals a bit but probably not quite at all that crunch stage. Sydney is not behaving consistently with the weather. It was a shock on Tuesday for me to drive on M1 to and from…but I did it and no-one was being silly.
Thanks for a linking up for Life This Week. Next week’s optional prompt is 38/51 Your Go-To Easy Meal. 23/9/19 and I hope to see you there. Denyse.