Imaginative WOW

You have to use your imagination to see a wombat in this piece of wood, but it's there. The little nose.....the rounded chunky body.......a few years ago we bought this from a stall at a country market and the stallholder said we were the only customers who, apart from herself, had seen the wombat in this beautifully grained piece of snowgum. We have seen snowgums growing in alpine areas - it has a beautifully marked trunk which changes colour when wet, the pale colours change to deep red and even green, and the trees bend into very interesting shapes.

The table runner in last week's post is layered and quilted and needs to have its edges trimmed, and the binding is made but needs pressing. This will be a very pretty runner for our new table which (hopefully - fingers crossed) will arrive at the end of next week. We have been making do with a card table and two outdoor chairs in our informal eating area since we moved here, so to have 'proper' chairs and table will be a treat! When the runner is done there is an embroidery, which is to be part of a raffle quilt, waiting its turn then I shall make another bag using the lovely fabric I bought in Canada last year. I'm trying to finish one project before going on to another.

Last week I passed a milestone - I am now able to wear my wedding ring again. When I broke my arm last October I had to remove my ring and watch in hospital as my fingers, hand, wrist and arm were swelling at an alarming rate. The nice young physio bloke who treated my arm in Sydney said that it can take up to 18 months for swelling to go down - apparently wrist injuries are very prone to swelling. My left wrist is still a different shape to my right one, and my shoulder does not like carrying heavy bags. It was a very quick fall that did all that damage and it has certainly left its legacy. It wasn't the souvenir I wanted of an otherwise lovely holiday.

It's a dull grey day today. I have forgotten what winter here can be like, when I lived here I was much younger and of course kids don't take much notice of things like weather, do they. Judging by what some of the local chickybabes wear on cold days here, they still don't. Sensible people wear long pants, shoes, socks, jumper (sweater), perhaps a coat..........the chickybabes wear shorts (!) or skinny jeans with rubber thongs or sandals on their little bare tootsies, a skimpy top with a low cut neck - sometimes a scarf at the neck - and a thin jacket. It may look very glamorous but by gosh they don't look warm, they walk along with their arms huddled around themselves shivering. But then - it's all about the look, isn't it, even if they get pneumonia in the process.

By goodness, I do sound like a grumpy old woman don't I? At least I'm warm. And while I have some memories of the clothes I wore as a younger person you can bet they were appropriate to the weather, I didn't wear skimpy summer clothes in the middle of winter. Compared to winters in the northern hemisphere ours is relatively mild, we don't get snowed in.....but it does get cold.

If I were 40 years younger and 20 kilos lighter I would love some of the pretty clothes around today. But I would still dress for the weather.

"Dress.
Dressing well requires good taste, good sense, and refinement. A woman of good sense will neither make dress her first or her last object in life. No sensible wife will betray that total indifference for her husband which is implied in the neglect of her appearance, and she will remember that to dress consistently and tastefully is one of the duties she owes to society."

We should all be refined, don't you think?

Have a wonderful week!

Jennifer