Turn up the heat

Hubby and I are trying to find a house to buy at the moment, and in our search the realisation has come to us that we can either fork out a frighteningly large amount for what we want in our area (Sydney's northern beaches) or move inland a bit and get to spend a slightly less frightening amount. No prizes for guessing which we've chosen! It's going to be a real shame to have to move away and this morning when I woke up I realised we have spent so much of our time recently trying to find a place elsewhere that we haven't had a chance to enjoy our last few months (good grief, let's hope it doesn't take longer than that - but I know it will) here. So I trotted out and walked down to Manly via the Manly to Spit Walk for a bit of gazing out at the sailing boats and a giggle at the endless tourists who just sort of stand on the last piece of concrete available and gaze at people enjoying the beach without venturing onto the sand themselves (sand in your socks can't be that bad surely), and met up with Hubs (who'd been out for a scoot) for brekky.

By the time I turned around to walk back home (three cheers for hills) the sun was starting to really beat down. It's perfect weather for lying around on the beach already, but the water is still freezing, so once you get yourself up to roasting temperature on the sand, that's it, there's no relief. Got back to our apartment just about to keel over with heat exhaustion - hey I know what I'll do - stick the oven on to 180 Celcius and bake myself raw! ('Grrrrreat idea' says heat-addled brain back to self). And the delightfully nutty result - Nigella's brownies (with pecans substituted for walnuts). Let me tell you they were so worth it!