Shahs in Oz: A lovely relaxing weekend with a VERY old friend!

Before I tell you about our fantastic weekend in Millthorpe, I want to give you a bit of history about my friendship with Jvala as she hasn't appeared in the blog before, but anyone who knew me as a kid will know of her!

Her family moved to Kingsbury in 1986 and she joined my class (2J) at Roe Green. On her first day, the teacher picked me to look after the new girl, show her the ropes etc.... it turned out that we lived about 300 metres from each other so we ended up being inseparable throughout primary school! We would walk to school together and play at each other's houses after school. I wish we had pictures of us from back then - I reckon we were pretty cute little 8 year olds! We then went to big bad high school and even though we went to the same school, we lost touch. We were in different sets and had different groups of friends.

Fast forward 25 years and add in the power of Facebook - the only way to 'keep in touch' with 'friends' you haven't seen or spoken to for decades! Jvala knew through mutual friends that I now lived in Sydney and when her husband Terry and her decided to road test Sydney for a couple of year, she dropped me a message to say it would be nice to meet for a drink. The rest, as they say, is history! We now see Mr and Mrs Nolan quite often as a couple, the boys play golf together almost weekly and Jvala has joined in with a couple of our girls nights out.

So a few months ago, we started talking about organising a weekend away... we were going to try our hand at camping, but the weather is a bit unpredictable in Autumn (not as unpredictable as the London Spring, apparently!) so we decided to play it safe and booked a weekend in beautiful Millthorpe - A tiny town three hours North West of Sydney, close to the pretty wineries of Orange. When we booked this trip, I was very excited about the wine tasting... by the time we went, I was 11 weeks pregnant so ended up being the designated driver!

The ANZAC Day public holiday was on a Thursday this year so we took full advantage by taking the Friday off too.

We drove over in separate cars and the Nolans arrived just long enough before us to get the fire going!

The house was sooooo pretty - a cottage with everything you could need for a break from the city - and a few really cute personal touches like his and hers bathrobes, a cheese platter and lots of biscuits and chocolates!

We had planned meals with military precision - dinner on Thursday was prepared by all of us (the boys in charge of the BBQ and the now infamous 'paprika potatoes') and the girls in charge of all prep, salad and indoor stuff! Team Shah did a fry up breakfast on Friday (I actually needed a nap after breakfast cos we ate so much!) and Team Nolan prepared a lovely healthy breakfast on Saturday.

All other meals were while we were out and about touring the pretty wineries of Orange. We did also manage a lovely dinner at Tonic.

The weather was absolutely perfect for us - crisp sunny autumn days and chilly evenings perfect for eating cheese and crackers and drinking wine (no wine for me!) and chatting.