Feature Sneak Peak - Winter 2016!
business, people, lifestyle, travel, health & beauty, house & garden, food & wine | By shl publisher | Sunday, 3 July 2016
Woman of the West loves rural life best
Di Bartok visits inspiring businesswoman — and happy house cleaner — Debbie Burgess on a rare spare morning at her five-acre Kenthurst property to find out what makes her tick.
When dynamic businesswoman Debbie Burgess finds time to retreat from her busy life, she goes to a lovely little room at the bottom of her garden in Kenthurst. The zen-like “girly” stand-alone room beside her pool is Debbie’s sacred place where she can “escape the testosterone in the house”.
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From the universe to the Hills
No matter how far revered rock historian and writer Glenn A Baker travels, he still loves returning to the Hills, where he raised his family amid the happy chaos of his life. There have been challenges along the way, such as surviving an encounter with a dictator’s gun-toting guards and open heart surgery. He speaks to Sydney Hills Living’s Di Bartok.
Glenn A Baker is rarely lost for words, but meeting Bob Dylan and having Fidel Castro’s heavies point AK47s at him were two occasions when he was truly gob-smacked.
Looking back, once his heartbeat returned to normal, Baker happily includes these incidents in his repertoire of incredible anecdotes spanning a 40-year career in the music business. He is now Australia’s eminent rock historian and an inveterate world traveller.
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A touch of Paris in the Hills
A dynamic mother-daughter duo is transforming beauty care in the Hills with an academy to learn how to use an exclusive range of organic cosmetic products from France which have developed a cult following.
Mother and daughter team Maureen Bartlett and Shannon Earls firmly believe that makeup is for everyone, not just models and movie stars. Through Encore Beauty, the pair is delivering premium cosmetics and techniques to everyone from shy teenagers to professional makeup artists.
Entrepreneur Maureen describes Shannon and herself as the yin and yang of Encore Beauty, with complementary skills that enrich their growing business.
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Create winter warmth to attract buyers
With winter here, it’s the perfect time to welcome prospective buyers into your home with a warm, inviting interior. Resident property stylist Jeanine Michel shares her best tips to create a welcoming home that buyers won’t be able to resist.
When you are selling your house there is always more to the package that people are buying than just the house itself. The neighbourhood, the light factor, the ambience — the feel of those four walls is just as important as the walls themselves. When your property goes on the market it helps to always remember that you are not just selling a house — you are selling a lifestyle.
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Living easy by the pool
Building a backyard pool is a wonderful lifestyle choice, but it doesn’t end there. How you landscape around the pool can make or break its impact on your summer fun.
It’s winter, so the thought of jumping into a pool is probably not high on your agenda. But if you’ve recently built a new pool or renovated your old pool to give it some much needed pizzazz, now is the perfect time to finish your project with landscaping to make sure it’s a fantastic feature of your garden.
Pool landscaping has come a long way in the past decade or two. A pool is seldom just a pool now; it has become part of a larger environment that provides families with a lifestyle that delivers their favourite activities alongside opportunities for entertaining and being entertained.
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Make the most of your Winter garden
Gardening guru Linda Ross says winter is the time to catch up on all your garden chores, and prepare for a bumper season next summer.
It's time to:
Harvest buckets of limes, oranges and lemons. And you don’t need an orchard to do it. We grow an espaliered wall of citrus. Find a fence facing north or west. String up horizontal wire every 20cm. Plant citrus one metre apart. Train branches along wires. Prune at the top of the fence. Water in. Spray with our Magic Mix!
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Magical, mystery tour
The Blue Mountains is a region at its sparkling best during winter, offering spectacular scenery and plenty of scope for relaxing in front of a roaring fire after a brisk bushwalk or a spot of antiquing, writes Sharon Dowley.
Winter is coming. For Eddard Stark and his brood in the novels and TV series, Game of Thrones, these words signalled very dark days ahead. Thankfully things are a little less fraught in this neck of the woods.
With atmospheric villages, cosy teahouses and cottages and the spectacular azure mountain range that gives the region its name, the Blue Mountains is an eclectic and always inviting destination. The World Heritage listed region lies just 100 kilometres west of Sydney, and while it can be enjoyed year round, there’s perhaps no time quite like mid-winter to truly discover its magic.
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The joy of Winter Cooking
It’s the perfect time of year to catch up with good friends over a fabulous lunch or dinner using fresh local produce. Here is a delicious gourmet menu that will have your friends coming back for more.
Winter offers the perfect excuse to invite friends around for a feast of great food accompanied by fine wines. The cool weather means comfort food and warm fires, fine reds and great company — an unbeatable combination, with a promise of cosy indulgence : Garlic King Prawns, Herb & Garlic Lamb, Sticky Date Pudding.
Our menu for this fabulous meal has been kindly prepared by the chefs at Pandora’s Restaurant in Rouse Hill.
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