As we watch September slip by like the stealthy month-cat she is, the stark horror that it’s getting to the last 100 days of the year dawns on us.
Really?! 100 day to Christmas? I am concerned. Any day now I’ll be fretting because it’ll be Christmas Eve and I’ll’ve just started shopping.
Where’s that paper bag? Breathe… Right. Feeling better now – this week’s IG Edition sees Mrs R and me attending a couple of interesting launches of things we’re looking forward to telling you about, plus some of our favourite people’s birthdays – oddly all on the same day.
Not to mention our Travel Recap looking back at some of our never-before-seen travel footage and tips on these beautiful destinations.
We hope you enjoy this week’s Edition and, if you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up to our free weekly newsletter I email to our members keeping you up to date on our latest posts, competitions, giveaways and suff like that.
Today, Mrs Romance and I are at the beautiful Chiswick restaurant in Woollahra in Sydney’s east. We’re here to check out our friends at Olympus’ new camera. And to eat excellent food. But mostly the camera – honest!
Olympus has been developing their mirrorless range for years now – we ourselves use OM-D E-M cameras for shooting and they’re amazing.
This is Olympus’ new E-PL8 Pen camera, which has some pretty cool functions and some very fancy finishes too. We both like the tan leather look.
I think my hands are a bit big to use one of these properly (think Berk from Trapdoor), but for travel, parties and everyday use, this is a pretty good option.
Just a couple of the delicious morsels we’re enjoying at the Chiswick while we’re learning more about the new Olympus Pen camera. It’s the first time I’ve been here (unlike Mrs Romance, who seems to come here all the time the way she’s talking!), but I hope it’s not the last!
These Olympus E-PL8 Pen cameras really are very good. They’ve got so many of the features of the full-size OM-D cameras – including a very funky selfie flip-out screen function – in a unit that’s lighter, smaller and more streamline. Very impressed. Most cameras this size are just those compact point-and-shoots, but this one’s got interchangeable lens capabilities and everything. Hmm.
Quite enjoying the foliage of this Olympus launch! It’s exciting to be one of the first people on Australia to hear about this great new little camera, and to be at the Chiswick too has me smiling!
Launch Number 2!
This evening we’re at the Australian Heritage Hotel in the Rocks learning about the 12th annual Beer Fest festival that’ll be happening in October.
Friday 14th to Sunday 16th October will see the Australian Heritage – one of Australia’s oldest pubs – offer over 30 different breweries from across Australia. There’ll be things like blind tastings, expos, brewer talks and brand new beers available, plus food stalls, in the pub and on the street outside too.
There’s a lot of beer fun about to happen in October, and this one is definitely one to keep in mind.
Love the sky over Sydney this evening. It’s the evening of three of our friends – one of whom is Mrs Romance’s sister Mary! Happy birthday, Mary.
The other two – Paul and Dave – were actually born in the same hospital in the UK! They’ve met but one of them lives in Australia, the other lives in a totally different part of the country to his birthplace in England. They only met for the first time at our wedding!
Today, we’re having a big picnic party for Mary. How beautiful is it here? This is Bobbin Head park in Sydney’s north on the Hawksbury River. It rained a bit earlier but it’s cleared up nicely – and the rainbow the weather’s left is a real treat!
One of the best parts of Mary’s birthday: the doughnuts! three huge boxes of these bad boys.
This week’s travel recap
Each week we go back in time over some of our favourite travel destinations using never-before-seen photos of our travels. Here’s where we’ve been looking back on this week.
If there’s one thing both Mrs Romance and I do love, it’s a good gin martini. And what a way to finish up a weekend. Or start one!
Love the styling at the Balcony Bar and Oyster Co in Byron Bay. And this sign they’ve got on the wall says it all!
The shores along the southern coast of Cuba is so beautiful. But then that’s what you’d expect from the Caribbean, right? This is somewhere between the Bay of Pigs and Trinidad, and just back from this rocky shore is a cenote. A natural sinkhole in the rock full of fresh or brackish water. Just right for a dip.
For more about our time in the magical country, check out more of our posts on Cuba here.
The Bacara Resort in Santa Barbara, California is absolutely stunning. It’s a favourite place to stay for some of the world’s biggest names (we’re talking Oprah and Michael Johnson level), so if it’s good enough for them…
It’s hard to put into words what it’s like to discover that you’ve got your own private pool that overlooks the ocean! Our villa in the Aleenta Hua Hin resort in Thailand was exactly what we needed after a hectic few days in Bangkok. Yes, this is about as luxurious as you can get, but this resort is also beautifully eco-minded.
Check out how the Aleenta has nailed the concept of eco-luxe here in our review.
One thing I do love is a big comfy hotel bed. Especially if they have either lots of pillows or one really firm one. That feeling of sinking into freshly laundered and slightly starched hotel sheets and knowing that tomorrow night you’ll have a fresh set to do it all again is just the best!
Our time in Cuba was so unforgettable. We’ve both wanted to come here for so long, the risk of it being an anticlimax was incredibly high. However, this country – the biggest island in the Caribbean – really delivered. Cut off from the rest of the world so completely for so long, the culture of Cuba is beautifully preserved.
We were here the week before everything changed and Obama’s USA started warming up the relationship with the Castro brothers. I don’t think things will change beyond recognition that quickly, but we’re both so glad we got there before it all started.
For more info on what we did, where we went, what it was like and how you can do it too, check out our coverage of this mysterious, beautiful country.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s IG Edition and that this week’s a good one for you. See you again soon!
