Around here - Escape to the Chateau Evening in Brisbane

I mentioned back in August how I had booked to go and see Dick & Angel from Escape to the Chateau fame when they were touring Australia and New Zealand.  It was on Wednesday night this week and I loved it.  It was a basically a talking evening with them sort of doing a "This is your life" on their own life with how they came to meet each other and how in real life they their worlds collided to come across each other.  For a start Dick is 19 years older than Angel which today that doesn't look like anything but put a photo of Dick being a 19 year old in the Army and Angel in a nappy as a baby they wonder how they should have ever met.

Angel's parents live in the coach house at the Chateau and they came on tour as well along with the kids.  The kids and Angel's Dad came on stage for 10 minutes at the beginning and then they left with Dick & Angel hosting the talk.

They started out by chatting to the audience about who had visited the Chateau and one lady yelled out.  Then other questions like raise your hand if you have been dragged here tonight with someone which got a lot of laughs.  They then talked about "click bait" and spent quite some time reading out the "click bait" headlines on them and the stories that had been written about them which were untrue and some of them made you laugh.  One recent one that I thought was true was that they had sold the Chateau and they said absolutely not, the Chateau is their forever home and will not ever be selling it.  

So the slide show showed a year and then they had photos of each of their lives and up until they bought the Chateau and then it was intermission.  They searched for 4 years before they found the one and Angel wanted to put a deposit on it sight unseen which Dick put a stop to.  The drive to the Chateau was 4.5 or 5.5 hours [I can't remember] and she didn't want it sold on the drive there.  

The 2nd half of the show was basically a virtual walk through the entire Chateau room by room, floor by floor which was great because we have seen rooms renovated on the TV series but walking in the Chateau so you knew how it all fit together was really great.  They are such entertaining people and seemed really down to earth.   I got my tickets about 8 rows from the stage so was really watching them up close which was great.  After the show finished they did a meet and greet and got photos and signed programs however there was so many people as the Concert Hall at QPAC holds 1600 people and I'm pretty sure it was full.  I decided as since I was so close during the whole show I wasn't going to wait around for 1-2 hrs to get a photo with them although it would have been lovely.  I went to this event on my own as I have watched the series for years and none of my friends are into it.  I had such a great time given I wasn't sure how a talking event with two people would play out but I loved it.

This is how close I was to the stage.

The meet and greet as I was walking past to get out of the building.

Home made focaccia using this recipe.

I made some Hot Cross Buns and while they look great I made the mistake of letting rise in this dish which was actually okay however I should of then transferred them to a large tray so there was space in between each of them for them in the oven.  The ones in the middle didn't cook properly on the inside however had cooked on the top so I had to put them back in and muck around getting the centre ones to cook.  The ones that had cooked first up were nice but it was a simple mistake that could have been avoided.

This is a bunch of bananas that my neighbour grew and gave to us.

You can see the banana tree in the background.

Home grown by my neighbour, so tasty.

Made this yummy chicken recipe.