In case you missed the news, Charleville was mostly under water about a month ago. The rain started about a week before the wedding date, and didn’t let up. We were due to drive the 900km or so from Brisbane the day before the wedding, but by then the roads were well and truly cut, and we ended up flying. Along with one other wedding guest, we were the only passengers on the tiny plane who weren’t disaster relief workers of some kind. In fact, the little Dash-8 was so full of the Red Cross’ medical supplies that there wasn’t room for our luggage, and we arrived in Charleville with only the clothes on our backs and a small suitcase full of smoked salmon.

The floodwaters had peaked the day before our arrival, putting several metres of water through most of Charleville’s ground floors. Fortunately, the wedding venue was on a hill, and while beset by sandflies, mosquitoes, equatorial humidity and an actual biblical plague of locusts, remained dry. The wedding went to plan, although the festivities were cut a little short by the need to strip the contents (and carpets) of the family home for an insurance assessment.

The following weekend was Steph and Joel’s wedding, at a surf life-saving club in the beachside village of Copacabana. Hannah, Dad and I flew into Sydney late on Friday night and drove a hired car up the coast, finally arriving at the beach house sometime after midnight. The wedding was the following afternoon. It was almost the opposite of Mum’s – large, loud, and with a mariachi band instead of SES personnel. It was the first chance I’d had to see some members of my extended family since before I went backpacking, and was a lot of fun. I also finally got to meet little Vincent, which was awesome. All in all, a lovely wedding. There was a wedding photographer focused on the couple, so I mostly just took shots of the crowd.

In other news, I got into a clinical experience program at the Mater hospital. Had my first shift on Friday – lots of blood, broken bones and finally, the chance to get good at injections.

Moroccan poached eggs. Serves two.

• 1½ tsp whole cumin seeds
• virgin olive oil
• 4-6 shoots green onion, sliced
• 4 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
• 4 large, ripe tomatoes, chopped, or one 400g can
• 1 cup stock or water
• 1½ tsp sugar
• 4 large eggs
• handful each of fresh continental parsley and chives, roughly chopped
• grilled ciabatta or sourdough, to serve

Heat a heavy skillet or sauté pan over medium flame, and dry roast the cumin seeds for a minute, until they’re beautifully fragrant. Add green onions and garlic, and sauté in olive oil until soft and beginning to brown. Add tomato, sugar and stock, and simmer for fifteen minutes, stirring occasionally, until the tomato is beginning to break down and the mixture has thickened a little. Season. Make a few depressions in the surface of the tomato sauce, and break the eggs onto them. Poach for another few minutes, until eggs are done to your liking. You might need to add a little more stock, if things are in danger of burning. Top generously with parsley and chives, and serve with grilled bread and a drizzle of olive oil. Yum.

Edit: just remembered that this recipe is mostly inspired by a breakfast in Casa Moro: the second cookbook, by Sam & Sam Clark.

Tea eggs are super easy to make – as simple as boiling eggs, cracking the shells, and re-boiling them in a darkly-stained broth.

Chinese tea eggs

• ½ doz. free-range eggs
• 1 tbsp black tea leaves
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp Shaoxing rice wine
• 1 tsp Chinese five-spice

Hard-boil eggs in a medium-sized saucepan. They should be ready five or six minutes after the water comes to the boil. Remove eggs from water and leave until cool enough to handle (or run them under cold water). Once you can touch the eggs, gently crack them all over by rolling on your benchtop or tapping with a teaspoon. Return the eggs to the saucepan of water, along with tea, soy, rice wine and five-spice powder. Simmer gently for half an hour, then allow to cool. Refrigerate eggs in the broth for at least 24 hours before serving.

I spent last weekend in Townsville, partly to see Dad, and partly so that I’d make it to Althea’s 21^st. It’d been raining for quite a few days before I got there, but on my last day, just before I was due at the airport, we drove to the top of Castle Hill and enjoyed the sunshine.

Back in Brisbane, I’ve been renovating furniture, repairing my bicycle and shooting headshots with Anna:

… and in the biggest and best news, my cousin Mary and her husband Andrew had a beautiful baby boy, Vincent. I can’t wait to meet him!

We did lots of the usual couple things we’ve been unable to do for the ten months since I moved to Brisbane: dates, movies, falling over in the snow. We’ve built snowmen, cooked meals together and gone hiking. We even made it to London for a long weekend in the big city:

Britain isn’t getting any warmer. I left Edinburgh at five in the morning, trudging through half a foot of snow and -10°C temperatures. Thirty-eight hours later (via Dublin, Abu Dhabi and Singapore) I emerged into a balmy 30°C Brisbane morning, still wearing thermals and a coat. Oops.

I’ll miss the snowmen:

(and the snow in general, I guess),

I’ll miss my beautiful city:

But most of all, I’ll miss my Hannah:

Five weeks and counting ’til she’s home.

I’ve learned my lesson about leaving cover without an umbrella. The Irish rain takes no prisoners.

Dublin’s a friendly city. Strangers have been wishing me a good morning – although I’m not sure whether this is due to the innate hospitality of Dubliners or simply because I smile them down until they say something.

Apart from some strike action that rendered most of the city closed yesterday, I’ve been having a great time. I follow my usual tourist tactic: rambling through inner-city streets until something catches my eye or I get hungry. Despite my best efforts, I’ve yet to get completely lost. Highlights so far are the Caravaggio room in the national gallery, swans at Stephen’s Green, and a pint of Guinness at the top of the Guinness brewery.

Catching the train to Galway in about an hour.

Dinner party a moderate success. Noted high correlation between vegetarianism and absenteeism.

Just about to jump on a plane!