Food glorious food, and camping

The weather has been a right dog's breakfast this week, sometimes pouring the rain, the next minute intensely sunny and hot. I have been occupying myself in the mornings with a running programme I found on the net and I am now into week 4. If I stick to the programme, as I have been, by the end of week 8 I should be able to run 8km without stopping, gasping for breath or being given the last rites. We shall see.

On Saturday, it was chucking it down so we went to the Olive Kitchen for one of their great breakfasts. Scarlett loves going out to eat and is good as gold. We filled the rest of the morning in a supermarket where they had trolleys for kids. Scarlett promptly popped Flo in one and they were off. (Not sure what Rob is doing with those mangoes in the background.)

This year I am very excited about reviewing restaurants for the Good Food Guide. We started last weekend reviewing the fabulous two-hatted Aria restaurant http://www.ariarestaurant.com/ Not wanting to leave the kids out, on Tuesday we jumped on the tram into the city to do a review of a lunchtime venue. Again Scarlett behaved beautifully in such a grown up restaurant and looked quite the part wrapped in my pashmina.I've got a few more places to review between now and the end of March, which is great as Rob and I are getting some lovely nights out care of the paper. The book is published in September and the awards are presented at a fabulous party at the opera house later in the year.

In three weeks we are going on our first family camping trip. Last year we bought a new tent and so yesterday Rob put it up, so we wouldn't look like idiots holding the instrcutions when we get to the campsite (let's not forget what happened with the pop-up beach tent). We reluctantly accepted that our much-loved two-man tent, we spent 3 months camping in on our road trip across the US, was not going to cut it with two kids, so this time we went for a 3-room tent that apparently sleeps 12. 12 dwarves maybe. It has a lot more room than we're used to and it is going to be brilliant fun with the kids. Scarlett was so excited when she saw the tent she insisted we read our bedtime books in it last night. We are also considering moving into it full time, in lieu of buying a new house with a massive mortgage. You think I'm kidding.

Finally, we were gutted this week to hear about the shocking death of Heath Ledger. he was a top actor and, by all accounts, a smashing bloke. He and Michelle Williams moved to Bronte in Sydney after Brokeback Mountain, but press photographers made it impossible for them to stay, so they sold up and moved to New York. Rob and I 'met' him once at the premiere of Ned Kelly. At the after party, were he was hanging out with some mates and his then girlfriend Naomi Watts, we drank lots of champagne and then when we left Rob turned and shouted waving across the room to Heath "Cheers, Heath, Thanks very much." Heath looked up at us and sort of waved back in a "who was that?' sort of way.