Raindrops on roses...

2014 snuck up on me. Big time. So now that the champagne has been drunk and the party streamers cleaned away, I want to look back on some of the things that made 2013 what it was and take all of it’s crunchy goodness into 2014 with me.

So, here’s a list of some of my favourite things from 2013.

Favourite category romance: Kelly Hunter’s The One That Got Away. The honesty in this book blew me away—the story is so raw and emotional. I have a thing for secondary characters too and they played such an important role in the story.

Favourite single title romance: This is a draw. The first is Charlaine Harris’s Dead Until Dark. This was my introduction to the Sookie Stackhouse series and I LOVED it. Glommed the lot. The other is Jennifer Crusie’s Faking It. Really, do I need to say more? ;-)

Favourite non-romance book read: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. This features a romance too. I love the voice of this character. I loved the issues it explored. This made me feel the world was a good place even when bad things happen.

Favourite new experience: Munich!!! Visiting Munich was amazing. Seriously, travel is the best.

Favourite new song: Look this is an old song, but I haven’t been able to listen to it often enough. King of the Road by Roger Miller

Favourite new recipe: Tater Tot Casserole. Click here if you want the recipe.

Favourite movie: This wasn’t a 2013 release but I didn’t catch it until this year—The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. So much heart and soul.

Favourite (new to me) TV program: Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. Series 1 was a bit of a slow burn, but Series 2 has hooked me.

Favourite piece of materialistic nonsense: These sneakers. Aren't they the best? I snaffled these in Munich. They make me smile whenever I look at them. :-)

Favourite highlight: 2013 was really good to me. I had lots of highlights. I enrolled in a PhD (OMG! Am I crazy?), The Nanny who Saved Christmas won the Book Sellers Best Award, but there are two other things that really stand out for me. The first is meeting my editor face-to-face when I was in London and being taken out for a very swish lunch at Rocks and Roses where my very generous editor introduced me to mojitos (oh, dear lord, yum). The other was meeting some of the UK Romance/Sweet authors for lunch in Covent Garden. We had the BEST time. :)

From L-R (ie, down the table and back): Sophie Pembroke, me, Fiona Harper, Liz Fielding, Jessica Hart,  Caroline Anderson, Nina Harrington and Kate Hardy

So what about you? Any highlights for the previous year? Marvellous books read or materialistic pieces of nonsense that made your heart sing? Any crunchy pieces of goodness you're taking with you into 2014?

Munich: Part 2...

Last month I told you about my first gloriously messy day in Munich. Today I’m going to tell you about 2 other truly exciting days that will remained marked in my memory for evermore. :)

DAY 3
Today the DH and I strode out to pay homage to two very different monuments. Our first stop was Schloss Nymphenburg (btw schloss is German for palace). This was the summer palace of the Bavarian rulers. Now I’ve visited the odd schloss before (sorry, I love that word. I developed an odd verbal tic where I kept saying it out loud over and over), but I hadn’t done any research so when I first clapped eyes on the place, I just stood there with my mouth open catching flies.

Maybe you’ll sympathise when you see it. This first pic is from the long avenue leading up to the schloss.

This one is closer, obviously, and of the main part of the palace (there are wings to either side, identical...and endless :-) )

This is looking back the way we'd come. Not a bad view, huh?

So the palace is modelled on Versailles, which I haven’t seen, and is utterly amazing and decadent. But then there were the gardens. I swear I could’ve spent all day exploring those. In fact we explored so hard we had to stop at the café to fortify ourselves before our next adventure.

This is the main garden avenue, but off behind the trees to either side are more avenues, less grand, but leading to wonderful things like chapels and pavilions (and a coffee shop). The woods were lush and lovely...and cool for this very warm day.

And this is the view looking back at the schloss. The garden borders and statues were wonderful.

Our second stop for the day was Allianz Arena, which, according to the DH is home to one of the mightiest football teams in the world—Bayern Munich. I like football so I was more than happy to walk for kilometres to get to the arena and then climb stairs to view the arena…and eat ice cream before heading back to the train station again. But check the arena out. I think it looks like a giant UFO.

DAY 5
I’ve always wanted to be in the middle of big mountains. I mean BIG MOUNTAINS. And seriously they don’t get much bigger than the Alps. So on our last afternoon in Munich we caught a train to Garmische-Partenkirchen (I developed a bit of a verbal tic over that one too). It took an hour and twenty minutes and we passed the most beautiful lakes. Sigh. Not to mention forests full of Christmas trees!

So we reach the end of the line—Garmische (for short ;-) )—and we went for a stroll and I did that whole mouth-open-in-awe thing before a grin plastered itself across my face and refused to leave. The winter Olympics have been held in Garmische and it’s home to Zugspitze—the highest point in Germany. One can catch a cable car to the top, but we didn’t bother with that. The point wasn’t to go to the very top, it was to experience the feeling of being surrounded by mountains and while this coastal girl lapped up the experience, I have to say it felt very odd.

It was so warm there wasn’t a speck of snow on even the highest peaks. I couldn’t believe how wonderful it smelt either—a faint mix of cut grass  and lavender. We found a beer garden where we ate black forest cake, drank beer and lapped up the view. Amazing. Utterly amazing.

I  don't know how to mark a photo with an X but Zugspitze is in this photo.

I fear one loses the grandness and majesty of the scale in photos. But it truly was an awesome sight.

I've never been at this high an altitude on land before. My fingers and feet swelled up.

Love, love, love these chalets! The entire street was lined with them.

This is the town hall...with mountains in the background. :-)

Happy sighs.

Can you see how happy I am that I had the chance to spend an afternoon in the Alps?

Promo alert! My latest release, The Redemption of Rico D'Angelo is out this month and it's set in another spectacular location -- Tasmania. So, tell me, what's one of the most spectacular sights you've ever seen?

Travelling Cat...

As an awful lot of you will know, I’m just back from two weeks in Europe. Europe fascinates me and the trip was amazing. We had five days in London, five days in Munich and then back to London for four days. When we passed the security checks and were asked, “Are you here for business or pleasure?” the DH always answered, “I’m here for business and she’s here for pleasure” with the obligatory eye roll. Mind you it always raised a laugh and we were let through without further ado and that’s the main point.

Anyway, I’m very good at *doing* pleasure. ;-)

Unfortunately, if I tried to share all of my trip with you we’d be here until the middle of next week, so I thought I’d just share just a little bit of it—Munich, a place I’d never visited before.

Day One: The DH had to go to a conference so I sallied forth on my own with my tiny smattering of German, a map (what on earth? I can’t read maps) and the camera. And this is what I found – beautiful buildings. I mean, really beautiful buildings. We don’t have this kind of thing in Australia and it always takes my breath away.

This is the Residenz, which is the former royal palace of the Bavarian monarchs. It's HUGE with multiple buildings and over ten courtyards. And have I mentioned beautiful?

And then I walked around the corner and saw this…

and this...

...at which point I said out loud, “You have to be joking me?”

And then I walked for a long time. It rained on and off so I ducked into a café and ordered a coffee…in German! And then I set off again. I was looking for the English Gardens—one of the world’s largest urban parks. Of course, as I can’t read maps, I was walking several streets parallel to it. Because I can’t read maps the fact I managed to wend my way to the park is in fact a miracle. And I’m very grateful to that miracle. Look see:

Have you ever seen a more beautiful, beckoning path in the world?

Okay, at this point I’d been walking for three hours. I needed to find the public amenities. These gardens are big but Yay! Public Amenities found. Oh dear, they’re not sign posted with Frau or Mann but something I don’t recognise at all. Where are the pictures of the little man and the little woman?! # Umm, 50/50 chance of getting this right, right? Guess which one I picked? I slunk off with a very red face and no doubt with stupid tourist written all over me. Oops.

Walked off the shame remarkably quickly to stumble onto (not into) the River Isar. Oh dear lord, how much beauty does one city need?

Let me just mention that the bridges are amazing—they always have the most amazing vistas/monuments/buildings. I’m hoping not too much detail has been lost in shrinking the photos down.

Because I can’t read a map—and therefore got lost—I was 40 mins late meeting the DH who was wondering if he should send out a search party for me. After over 5 hours of walking, though, I needed a rest. And so did he. So we rested before heading out for dinner…to a beer hall!

If one is what they eat then if I lived in Munich I would evolve into something halfway between a pig (pig knuckle and potato dumpling, roast pig with bread dumpling, pulled pork or bratwurst, anyone?) and a brewery. You don’t need to know how much beer I drank. I will tell you, though, that the Germans do a very nice brew. :-)

Oh dear, this blog has gone for much longer than it should. I haven’t shown you the monuments Day Four revealed—Schloss Nymphemburg (OMG!) and Allianz Arena (stadium of the mighty FC Bayern Munich). I haven’t shared the Gothic splendour of the New Town Hall or it’s amazing glockenspiel or the medieval town gate that was outside our hotel window. Oh, and there was my afternoon at the Alps! Hmm…should I perhaps blog about these things next month? What do you think?

Have you been anywhere new recently?