Computer has been unwell lately

Fortunately it has been fixed and is now powering along again.  We don't realise how much we need our computers until they don't work, do we?

Last weekend the uke group played for a musical afternoon put on by a local women's service organisation, and as it was a charity fundraiser there were raffle tickets for sale.  Performers didn't have to pay admission but I bought several tickets......and won a prize!

 A gorgeous white cyclamen, isn't it pretty?  It is now sitting in its new deep blue pot next to my other cyclamen, a bright cerise one.  Did you know that in the language of flowers, giving someone a cyclamen is a gracious way of saying goodbye?

Our nerine is also blooming right now, I see by the date that this picture was taken on 1st June 2011 - but the flowers are just the same.

There have been nerines blooming further down the street for some weeks now, deep pink and white ones, so perhaps ours are slightly backward.......or perhaps they don't get as much sun because they're in the shade of the garage, while further down the street they are in dappled sunlight.  Nerines apparently stand for vulnerability, and for the freedom to be ourselves.

Sometimes a member of the Thursday night choir will bring along a treat for our caffeine break, and last week's was Chocolate Milk Fruit Cake.  Now we all know that a fruit cake made from just three ingredients - mixed dried fruit, chocolate milk, and flour - should be all wrong, don't we?  But it isn't.  The pantry contained opened packets of sultanas and Fruit Medley (an Aussie dried fruit mix), and unopened packets of dried blueberries and craisins (gussied-up dried cranberries) all of which added up to 500g so a 375g packet of mixed dried fruit was purchased, and some chopped dates and a handful of pecan pieces made up the required 1 kilo of fruit.

It's one of those "don't scoff until you have tried it" things.  Like bacon jam.  Plenty of recipes out there should you wish to try making your own, some with metric measurements and some imperial.  I used 1kg of mixed dried fruit, 600mls chocolate milk, 2 cups S.R. flour, cooked at 180 deg C in a lined 23cm (9in) square tin for 90 minutes, then left in the tin to cool.  Next time I may lower the cooking temperature a little.

Our trip to Canberra has had to be postponed by a week because a benign cyst which has been on Kevin's back since before I met him in 1971 needs to be removed, it's now discharging (I'll spare you the gruesome details) so has to be dealt with, there's no choice, but we chose our dates a couple of months ago to fit around various activities in our lives and now I will have to miss the first uke lesson next term, and miss a quilt group meeting, and miss a sewing guild meeting, because of the changed dates.  I'm sure our son and his family will be pleased to see us - they'd better be - but I can't help feeling disappointed because these are all things I enjoy doing.  I am this close (holds thumb and forefinger so close they are nearly touching) to saying "I really don't care whether I go or not".  Because now I don't.

Ah well.  Deep sigh.

The list of fabric requirements for the workshop in August has arrived and I am somewhat underwhelmed, but no doubt when I start gathering fabrics together I may get more excited.  My first thought was to use my small stash of reproduction fabrics but I have since changed my mind; there is some black and white spot in my stash left from a quilt made a few years ago which will do well for the background, and bright floral and tonal fabrics.  The original pattern uses wide ric-rac braid round the edges of some details but I don't care for that look, I'll make my own bias.

Two pair of jammies have been cut out and will be started soon - might need warm jammies in Canada in fall!  The back of my purple passion alpaca jumper is done and the front is well under way too.  I've been told that alpaca stretches and drops when knitted, it doesn't bounce back like wool, but I'll worry about that if and when it happens.  If it ends up huge you can all get into it with me and we'll keep each other warm.

Over the past couple of days we have had some very welcome rain, so much so that some local roads were closed although most are now open again.  Gardeners are happy, farmers and even happier.  Let's hope it fell in the right areas to top up dams and rivers, or we will still be in drought!  Many sporting fields are still waterlogged to be used but may be opened again by Saturday for weekend sports which are very popular here.

"Unlike the social customs of most of the nations of the old world, it is the habit in Australian homes to encourage young people to take pleasure in each other's society, as the best possible training in both the great moral code which is the guide of life, and in those minor morals of kindly courtesy which give to social intercourse all its charm."

That's good to know.

Enjoy your days!