French Farewell

Our two lovely french girls are leaving tomorrow, so tonight is a little sad! We get very attached to our backpacker helpers and it's always hard when they leave. Marie and Louise-Marie have been with us for 3 months. Most of our backpackers stay the three months and the majority enjoy the time and the experience. It's a win/win, as we get to enjoy the company of some great young people, and they get to learn about the Aussie way of life and also a little about living a sustainable lifestyle.

These two girls both received parcels from home while they were with us and these included some things that we had tonight as part of a farewell dinner. Foie Gras, rillette, champagne and some red wine. I was very unsure about the Foie Gras, as I really don't like the way it is produced. I was so prepared not to like it! But....I did....it was creamy and soft (and firm at the same time) and just the faintest of liver taste. Marie made ginger bread and Florine (another French backpacker) made some onion jam, which is one way to eat it. We had three types of rillette - sardine, prawn and tuna. All were quite good (although I think I do prefer pork rillette). I made a loaf of garlic herb bread, which I cooked in the camp oven. I had promised a camp oven meal, but it never happened! The bread was great with the rillette.

I cooked a good old Aussie stew for main course (goat, which isn't typical, but nicer than lamb!).

The girls did desert, but couldn't decide what to do, so Laura (English backpacker) made a cheese cake and Marie made chocolate brownie. I'm saving the brownie for tomorrow, because one desert is enough for me!!(everyone else had a bit of both AND icecream!) The cheesecake was delicious, especially with some local Yeppoon strawberries.

Our "family" will be less two tomorrow, but we still have four helpers, so all's good! Edmund took this photo, so he's not in it, but we have Maitland at home as well, so it's a full house!

I haven't been posting very often, as we have used all our download (a week ago) and we still have a week to go before it resets. It's taken me nearly an hour to do this post! Sometimes it's frustrating living in the bush and only being able to get a maximum of 25 gig!