Mr Hyde's Other Notebook

A Dingo took my dinner!

It's true.

The neighbour has a new dog, one of many.
A dingo, who looks more ferocious than he is

However

the open front door I guess was too tempting
as were the chicken wings up on the kitchen bench

Top Ten Australian Conference Venues

I'm just back from 5 nights at the Hyatt Coolum Resort on Queensland's Sunshine Coast.

I was MC at a large conference for AustBrokers and IBNA. Conference MC engagements now make up about 50% of my work.

It's intense complicated work, long hours on the job, lots of preparation work, but usually very rewarding.
Here's a link to my MC Business

Doing this job gets me to some of the best venues in the country. I would have to rate the Hyatt Coolum as definately in the Top 10, if not in the Top 5 conference venues in the country.

Great facilities, great location, but above all, the Staff are brilliant, especially the Banquet / Functions Staff and go out of their way to make you delighted.

What are your Top 5 venues?

Hazelnuts - Planting year 2

Well, our second year of Hazelnut planting is well under way.

What started as a trial patch of 30 trees will now be nearly 100 trees by the end of August!

Two weeks ago we added another 15 to our first section of Oregon Barcelona's and yesterday commenced work on our new Italian Tonda di Giffoni's. The Barcelona's should be a large nut while the Tonda di Giffoni should produce a smaller but more tasty nut. In fact, I believe Tonda di Giffoni is the nut variety used in Ferrero Rocher chocolates.

Along with these two main varieties we have planted a range of Pollenisers. Hazelnuts are not self pollenising and need a range of different varieties to do the job.

We have - Spanish Casina, French Sergorbe, German Halls Giant, Epsilon, Jemtegaard #5, Lewis & Willamette (USA). 

It certainly is the United Nations of Nuts.