Hello Four Day Weekend. The Last Friday of 2011!!!!

Thursday was my Friday this week and thank goodness for  small mercies!

Hello, Four Day Weekend.

You couldn't have come along at a better time.  It might only have been a 3 day working week but somehow I've managed to have a whole week's work (and then some) compressed into those few days.  I'm definitely back in the real world.  Four Day Weekend, I'm going to need you just to recover from returning to work.

The weather here in Sydney is finally getting its act together and behaving like a summer should.

Remember the free dress that came with January 2012 marieclaire?

Dress - freebie with marieclaire, tank - Costco, skinnies - JBrand, necklace - SSG by Red Phoenix Emporium, cross - T&Co.  Newly done hair!

It's actually more the length of a long T-shirt.  Which made it the perfect summer top to wear with my skinny jeans today.

I believe good colour schemes transcend the gap between fashion and food so I went with blue and red in my choices of fruit today.  Hasn't this been a spectacular strawberry season?  They've gotten so cheap in recent weeks I've been eating punnets on a daily basis after dinner.  Blueberries seem to be coming in from New Zealand at the moment.  They're very plump and zingy right now.

A mountain of housework has accumulated at SSG Manor this month.  I've been away or working so often over the weekends, things just never got around to getting done.  I finally got my act together this morning and got cracking.  Starting with the most important things like the bathroom cleaning the SSG wedding gift crystal champagne flutes in preparation for celebrating the start of 2012.  I don't  now about you but I can't see the back of 2011 soon enough.

Then there was the annual clearing of the dining table for a bit of a clean and condition with some O'Cedar Premium Revive Wood Polish.  I'm biased  but I think that table top definitely looks revived and well rested now.

Speaking of wood, I forgot to show you the newest resident of SSG Manor.

Wombats have a special place in Wolgan Valley.  Wombat Hotel is a series of wombat tunnels at the perimeter of the resort where the local wombats meet and crash for the day.

Wolli, the huon pine wombat.  At Wolgan Valley, Wollis sit on the bedside table and are used to help indicate if you need a fresh change of bed linen daily (put Wolli on the bed) or are happy with the resort's eco friendly second daily policy (leave Wolli where he is).  Each Wolli is hand carved by a local artist, Ole Nielson and the best part of this is that you can actually bring a Wolli home with you.  Not exactly clones but each piece is hand carved by the artist and bears his signature under the front paws.

Wolli contemplating the words of Mr Iyegnar at SSG Manor  as he inhales the scent of Mr SSG's Acqua Di Parma.  It's my turn for Wolli on my bedside table next week.

Both Mr SSG and I fell in love with Wolli and decided we had to bring his likeness home with us.  As luck would have it, we scored the last Wolli at the resort store.  There is usually a waiting list and back orders for Wolli but we were fortunate to be able to take our wooden wombat home with us.  Wolli is now officially the most expensive and only hand crafted art work at SSG Manor.

On other exciting news today, I went to the hairdresser.  I hardly ever get to go on a Friday.  It was crazy but the good thing is that my favourite coffee place down that end of town was open (it's shut on weekends).  Does anyone else love 2 Black Sheep in the Pavilion on George Street?  Great coffee and very lovely staff.  I also love their funky use of the sheep motif.

Here's a large black sheep on the side of my skinny cap.  You can tell its large because the writing says so.  In November, the staff put on moustaches and deck the sheep out with mo's as well for Movember.  Just a random fact I thought I'd throw in.  It's the weekend (for me), after all.

It was all good on the hair front.  My hair is finally growing out in a vaguely tidy manner and the stylists were all deeply relieved that their beloved Japanese henna hair treatments have returned.  This will sound trite, I warn you.  In the aftermath of the horrors of Japan's tsunami and nuclear power plant melt down, exports of Japanese hair treatments ground to a halt and have only just now resumed.

Celebrating Christmas with the wall of a ginger bread house and a cup of  Byron Bay loose leaf tea one weekend and saying good bye to the year that was (and wasn't) the next.

I can't believe that this is the last Friday of 2011.  I say this every year, but the older you get, the faster time flies past.  This time of the year is usually a time of reflection for me but it feels like I've been reflecting all year long this year.

I'm trying to bottle the serenity vibe of the Blue Mountains and make it last though 2012.

So with much of the reflection down already, I'm going to spend this weekend chilling out and looking forward to the good times I know the future holds and preparing myself for the happiness that they will bring.

Happy New Years Eve Eve, everyone!  Enjoy your weekend.