The French Corner, Newmarket

I was meeting a friend for coffee who lives on the northside of Brisbane, so we decided to meet at The French Corner, 240 Enoggera Road, Newmarket.  I had driven past the shop a couple of times and had wanted to have a look inside.

This is out the front of the shop.  Look at those beautiful lanterns.

Want to come inside?

Beautiful table displays.

So many lovely decor pieces.  There is just so much stock in the shop.

French armchairs

Cushions and pillows

The most amazing lights.  There is a whole room full of lamps and chandeliers.

and French style furniture.

I would love to tell you about the people who run the shop, but the whole time I was there - a good 5 minutes, I didn't see anyone.  I could hear somebody out the back, but nobody was in the shop.  In any case, if you're on the north side of Brisbane and love all things French, then it's well worth a look.

If you're after a coffee, walk down to the hardware store, only 100 metres away and follow the painted footsteps to the back of the store.  There you will find a quirky little gift shop that sells cakes and coffee.  My friend and I sat on the back balcony.  You would honestly never know it was there.

PS - Sorry the photos are small.  For some reason Blogger will only let me change the size of the first 2 photos, then I can't change the others.  Who knows?

The Foxy Drop

I want to share a little story that happened on the weekend.  It was Lucy's 40th birthday party on Saturday night.  She decided to have the party at The Pink Piano in Spring Hill.  It's a bar with a hot pink grand piano.  A guy sits at the piano bashing out songs, and everybody joins in with the singing and fun.  Well the night before Lucy's party, the patrons must have had a bit too much fun, and the council was called because it was too noisy (hello - it's Spring Hill, hardly quiet anyway).  The council banned the music and said it could only be background music.  That's not the kind of party Lucy was hoping for.

Lucy was devastated, but The Foxy Drop saved the night!

The Foxy Drop is the wine bar extension to The Foxy Bean coffee shop on Stanley Street East, Woolloongabba (next to The Green Papaya).  The owners have only just renovated the building and the wine bar side was not 'officially' open yet, but agreed the host the party with only a few hours notice.

The renovation is amazing.  I was in wine bar heaven.  Subway tiles, rustic timber beams and pressed metal.  What more do  you need?

Well a fox of course.  This is one of my instagram photos.  The other photos are from The Foxy Bean facebook page.

Love these old leather lounges and the timber walls.

And this is the garden out the back where you can have breakfast.  For the party they filled paper bags with coffee beans and put tea lights in them.  The food was delicious.  Cooked in their brand new kitchen.  All this with only a couple of hours notice!

So if you find yourself at Woolloongabba, why not drop into The Foxy Bean for a coffee (look out for the coffee beans set in the concrete floor) or call in for a wine at The Foxy Drop before a game at the Gabba.

This was me before the party - the theme was a touch of pink because it was supposed to be at the Pink Piano, but The Foxy Drop is the new place to be!

You can find the Foxy Bean website here.

Interesting Shop Displays

I love visual merchandising and wonderfully creative window displays.  All the shop keepers in our local high street in London would regularly change their window displays with the seasons.  Christmas windows are the best.  Some of them were truly amazing.  Anyway during a recent day out in Brisbane I noticed a couple of interesting displays that I thought I'd share with you and snapped them with my phone.

This is a little clothing alterations place in Tattersals Mall.

The front window is lined with vintage sewing machines.

and vintage advertising signs

I love this old timber counter with the drawers. 

See the vintage irons on the right side by the door.

A dressmakers dummy and a chalkboard sign pointing to the fitting room.

Then I went into Asop to buy my sister some hand cream, and I loved their display of brown bottles.

A mass display of brown bottles.

All the bottles of lotions and creams with a large industrial sink.

This is how they wrapped the hand cream.

And I had to go to The Shingle Inn for a coffee and passionfruit cup cake.

I am always looking to find other shops that have interesting displays. 

Anybody seen some good ones lately?

Grocery Shopping Chinese Style

It was Chinese New Year on Monday 23rd January.  We cook a lot of Chinese and Asian style food, so I often head to Chinatown to buy groceries.  The official Chinatown is in Fortitude Valley in the city, but I go to Sunnybank on Brisbane's southside where there is a large Chinese shopping centre.

Sunnybank is great.  You will find Chinese butchers, a large Chinese supermarket and seafood.  It's so interesting and diferrent.  The kids love it.

This is the sign in the butcher.  I ordered half a peeking duck which was $14, so maybe it was the fourth item on the list?

Did you know there was more than one type of dried shrimp?

 and how's this for a selction of mushrooms?

It's always fun to go out to Sunnybank and try new things.

The Brisbane International Tennis

I'm still in holiday mode, so no decorating posts just yet.  On Monday we went to the Brisbane International Tennis.  If you haven't made the trip out to Tennyson, you really must.  The facilities are excellent and they worked hard all year to repair the damage caused by the floods in January 2011.  This is Pat Rafter Arena.  There really isn't a bad seat - you can see clearly from anywhere.

And this is who we saw play

The Brisbane International is now a premier WTA tour event and with prize money set to increase to $1 million in 2013, it's sure to attract some of the best names in women's tennis.

Ivanovic was my son's favourite - hmmmm, I wonder why?

and we saw the powerful Sarena Williams.

Talk about up close and personal

and finally Queensland's own, Bernard Tomic

Monday was also Kids Day at the tennis.  We registered our son and he was able to join in all the activities.  He played on a mini grass court.

and had his service speed measured.

It was such a great day, and we're going back tonight to do it again.


Thought I'd share this with Sarah from A Beach Cottage .

Brisbane - Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

Censational Girl is hosting a party to show and tell a favourite thing in your home town.  Brisbane has many great things but once place I really like to go, especially when we have international visitors is The Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.

How cute in this koala?

In February this year some friends from London came to stay with us for a week during their 9 month holiday around the world.  They wanted to see a koala so we took them to Lone Pine. 

I like Lone Pine.  It's a little old and dated, but it is simply charming.  It's not over commercialised like some of the more famous zoos in south-east Queensland.  Whilst you do have to pay to have your photo taken with a koala it is not ridiculously over-priced like some other venues.

My husband and I holding a koala

You can also buy a bag of food for $1 and hand feed kangaroos. 

I love that you can get up close and personal with the animals.

They don't just have koalas and kangaroos.  They also have other Aussie animals:

and a cattle dog show with live sheep shearing demonstration



They have built a new platypus enclosure so you can see these cute billed marsupials in action.  They even have a live web-cam. 

Throughout the park there are birds and native water-dragons everywhere, especially along the banks of the Brisbane River.

So if you are ever in Brisbane, The Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary would be one of my favourite places to visit.

For more information on The Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary visit here

Victoria and Steve (our friends from London) went on a 9 month worldwide adventure with their 3 kids.  You can read all about their gap year trip at Victoria's blog - It's A Small World After All.