Anne here, and I'm currently away from home and in Sydney, and writing this in my cute little old hotel room. But more of that later.
I came here from my annual writing retreat in Queensland, and then came to Sydney for several events with the Australian Romance Readers Association.
The first event was a high tea with a group of romance reader. There were seven people and one author hostess at each table -- people had to book well in advance, and had to choose which of the six authors they were to sit with. There was a lovely selection of cakes and savouries and club sandwiches of course. This was the selection at our table -- don't they look yummy? (Thanks Pamela for the pic.)
It was a lovely event -- for nearly three hours we talked books and favourite authors, writing and more personal things. In the book discussions, I madly jotted down names and titles.
The event was held in a 1920's hotel where the decor had been beautifully maintained. This was the dining room as they were setting it up. Pretty, isn't it?
Then in the evening came the ARRA annual awards for ARRA readers favourite books of 2015.
It was my lucky night, because I won four awards: 
1) Strongest heroine, (Jane in the Spring Bride)
2) Favourite historical romance (The Spring Bride)
3) Favourite Continuing Romance Series (The Chance sisters)
and 4) Favourite Australian Romance Author.
The full list of award and winners is here:
Now I'm staying in a small and very quirky boutique hotel at The Rocks down on the waterfront in Sydney, at the base of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. You can see the arch of the bridge in the photo of the left -- it was taken from the balcony of the hotel.
The Rocks is the district where the very first Europeans settled in Australia -- then still called the colony of New South Wales. It was a penal colony (convicts) and this plaque commemorates the arrival of the first fleet in January 1788.
This little hotel contains more stairs than anywhere I've ever stayed. It's built on a steep hill and there are stairs everywhere, and I couldn't work out why -- until I realized it was actually built over the tip of three separate (though physically connected) buildings, one of which was the oldest pub in Australia.
The old buildings in this are were all convict built with local stone, so it's very quirky and uneven and rather beautiful. Tourists come here in droves, and the shopping is quite fine, too, if you're that way inclined.
The town grew in a completely unplanned, higgledy-piggledy manner, so you come across tiny lanes like this, which were once simply tracks that becomes well worn, and around which buildings were constructed. Later they were paved with local stone. It's been raining solidly in Sydney over the last few days (just my luck) but the colored striations in the stone are beautiful. Click on the photo for a closer look.
I'm a stone's throw from Circular Quay which is where the commuter ferries leave from, and there is currently a ginormous cruise ship that overwhelms the Quay area, turning the opera house and harbour bridge into mere background. It gave me a huge fright when it arrived last night. I had my window open and it sounded its arrival with three or four loud blasts of the ship's horn, so loud and close I could almost believe the Titanic was about to come through my window.
Anyway, I'll finish now, but I'll leave you with this question: if you could pick an author to attend a high tea with, who would you pick, where would you go and what foods would you include on your tea table?
(And if I take a bit of time in responding to any comments, please forgive me, as I'm travelling home now.)
