10 things to do in Yallingup without going to the beach! - Western Australia

Some people would think it would be impossible to go to Yallingup without going to the beach. But trust me you can.

The Yallingup-Margaret River region in Western Australia's south west corner is well known internationally for the great surf.

In fact in April  "The top 32 ranked male and top 18 ranked female surfers in the world will descend upon the Margaret River Region to surf its world-class waves in April for the Drug Aware Margaret River Surf Pro. The event is expected to see thousands of spectators flock to Surfer’s Point in Prevelly to watch the world’s best surfer’s take on the famous Margaret River Mainbreak". Click here to read more -  Margaret River Surf

But what if you are not into surfing? I know I’m not. I never did master being comfortable in big waves. Give me a quiet sheltered cove like Meelup Beach any day.  

Please click on "read more" to keep reading and seeing more

The fruits of summer

I love the fruit this time of year, especially the beautiful stone fruits that we can buy locally grown in our area - peaches, nectarines, plums. The plums with the dark red flesh are my favourite. I used to always buy satsuma plums, but now they are hard to find, so I buy a "rosa" plum variety. Evidently the red flesh varieties are very high in anti-oxidants. 

According to the Department of Agriculture and Food "The south-west region has a temperate Mediterranean climate, suitable soils and availability of good quality, irrigation water which favours the production of high quality, flavoured and well coloured stone fruit". So how lucky are we!
Mixed in with that we also have strawberries, blueberries, grapes, cherries, rhubarb, bananas, apples.... No wonder I love the fruits of summer!

hmm...where are the strawberries! We haven't grown strawberries for years. At one time we used to go out to a strawberry garden just out of Bunbury where you could "pick your own" (tastings allowed). We used to pick a few kilo, eat them fresh and make strawberry jam - so delicious straight from the vine.

We only have a small back garden, but we have an apricot, lemon, and orange trees and two grape vines. And during summer a few tomato plants. Below you can see our trees. On the RHS of the top picture you can see the net "structure" made from irrigation pipe that we put up over our apricot tree so that the birds don't take all our fruit. The apricots are usually finished by mid-January, so then we take the net off and put it over our grape vine (LHS). It is the only way we can keep the birds away, but still they manage to find little holes to come through.

So from apricot flowers to fruit - 

How about a beautiful apricot dessert -

This one has Tiramisu  mixture on the top - 

or a delicious apricot and almond dessert slice with cream. I made this with home bottled apricots, you can see them in the background.

Recipe compliments of Tartlette - go here for the link - Apricot & almond tart

Or how about a simple fresh summer fruit bowl with yoghurt or for breakfast with musli? I don't know why I don't have a breakfast like this every day this time of year!

And of course you can't forget the jam making

So there you have it. The fruits of summer. Do you have fruit trees growing in your back yard?

Next week I will come back and tell you about the grape jam making - it is a tradition in our family.

Until then...... I'm having breakfast on my patio with the travel section of the newspaper while I dream about our next holiday.  Have a wonderful week. I look forward to hearing from you. 

I am linking up with Mary and the other wonderful contributors at Mosaic Monday at Little Red House and Our World Tuesday. Please click here on the links to see their contributions...... 

Mosaic Monday

Our World Tuesday

You might also like - please click on the links -

Lemon Tart

Summer tomatoes

Blueberries for breakfast

Blueberries for breakfast

I really struggled with the bright morning light and the moving shade of my patio this morning. It would have been much better with cloud - but it is summer - so deal with it I guess. But in a way the moving shadows of the palm leaves, and the shadows caused by the pergola battens added another dimension and certainly a challenge!

Anyway, I made pancakes with blueberries. I wanted to put the blueberries "into" the pancakes, but they are sooooo expensive! as they are imported from New Zealand - and I wanted to use them for styling - so have put them on the side and in the bowl.
Pancakes for breakfast anyone? with honey drizzled over?

Thank you Tartelette for the inspiration. I can only dream of being a photography like Helene and her book "From Plate to Pixels" about food photography is wonderful.  You can see her amazing work here - Tartelette

 Here you can see cutting into the pancakes

 And just the blueberries...............

And for my submission for Kim's Texture Tuesday - I have added Kim's texture "happy heart" to my blueberry pic - per the brief.  It has put just a bit of additional texture onto the wood. I love these old boards which I bought really cheaply from a salvage yard. They make a great table top for my photography. I put them onto a table with wheels that I have which I can move around chasing the light.

Texture was applied multiplied, and then I wiped off a bit on the edge of the bowl and the handle of the spoon and the blueberries in the middle of the bowl. I "picked" the colour of the writing by pointing to the blueberries.

To join in the fun at Texture Tuesday - click here - www.kimklassencafe.com/thecafe

 Thank you so much for looking. I really look forward to hearing your thoughts as they really help me to improve. Thank you in advance!

Wednesday am -  I'm back! Kim's latest edition of her "Beyond Layers" e-course was about conversion to black and white and then bringing back some colour, and about making "brushes" in Photoshop. 

So I have decided to convert this blueberry pic to black and white and then rubbed off the B&W over the berries to reveal the blue of the berries. 

I have also learnt how to create a "brush" tool with my watermark signature, and also a brush tool with a little Eucalypt logo I use on the back of greeting cards. You can see it up next to my name, and I have also stamped it onto the white of the bowl so you can see it. So many new things to learn!

Texture Tuesday

I never intended to photography eggs today, but I saw this beautiful morning light coming in through my dining room window - serendipity really.

 This version is textured with 2 layers of Kim's "felicity" texture, which I have done for Kim's Texture Tuesday.
www.kimklassencafe.com/thecafe

Also seen on my Flickr site -  Jill on Flickr

 and here is the original unprocessed image below - just cropped off a bit of the bottom of the image. The light to me says "good morning".  I just wish I had some straw and a hen feather to make it look like I had just collected them from the laying boxes.

So how many eggs would you like for breakfast?