Half the year is done

According to the fount of wisdom which is the internet (how did we ever manage before it?  Greatest thing every invented, in my humble but honest opinion) two days ago, 2nd July, we reached the half-way point of the year; 182 days had passed since last year's end, and there were 182 to go.  Now we are the downward slide.

Nothing, however, will be said about the Big C occasion just before the year's end.......

Thursday, 1st July, was marked by making date and maple syrup muffins using maple syrup from Canada, but instead of making 12 muffins I made a cake.  You eat a whole muffin whether or not you need a whole muffin, don't you?  So the mix became a nine inch square cake, yielding much more than 12 serves, and it's quite nice.  It would have been even nicer with chopped pecans added but the pantry held none.

This week's completed house blocks, a purple house with a scribbly border, and a cat on a hot tin roof house with almost the last of this chrysanthemum print.

These blocks are such fun - I really like how the black and white sets them off.  Considering that there was no intention of making another quilt when the first few blocks were made, it's coming along nicely.....as are (finally!) the Canadian blocks with seven having their stitching finished, six to go.

On our trip down south, on a warm sunny day in April, we stopped off in Blayney to pay our respects to two members of Kevin's circus family.

Charles Henry Perry was a cousin of Kevin's grandmother.  Back in June 1923 Perry's Circus was setting up for a performance in Blayney when both men were killed in a gas explosion.  Charles' sister Elizabeth was married to William Sole, so she lost a husband and a brother in one evening; Charles Perry had recently sold the circus to William Sole as he intended to retire, but had stayed on for a few weeks to help out.  Both men are buried in one grave, and newspaper reports of their funeral the following day indicate that it was the largest ever seen in Blayney.

On arriving at the cemetery we couldn't at first find the grave, so I asked a couple of young blokes who were, to judge by the sign on their work truck, familiar with many cemeteries in the area.  They took me straight to it and one bloke, in particular, was really interested; he said he had often wondered why the grave was so big and why there were two names as double graves are unusual.  We chatted for a while and he said that the company they worked for was one of the last remaining in the region which restores and makes grave markers and headstones......"it's a dying trade", he said.  I bith my thongue and didn't laugh because I didn't know whether he was making a joke or being serious.......but yes, I suppose in these days of people being cremated and their ashes scattered, instead of having a grave with a marker, it has meant that there is a lot less work than there once was in the monument industry.  It also means no headstones for family historians which is a shame, as they often contain interesting information.

It's been a quiet week as we - particularly me - have been lying low.  An edict has come from the state government in the Big Smoke that everyone in the state, regardless of where they live or how far away they are from cases of the current plague, must wear a mask in public.  That's a problem for me because as soon as I put a mask on I can't breathe then I have a panic attack.  So I stay home, which is fine.  However as Kevin did such a bad job of shopping last week (most of the items on the list were missing when he finished, including chopped pecans for the date and maple syrup muffins/cake) I fear that I will have to run the gauntlet of the hunting and gathering tomorrow while he pushes the trolley.  He's not getting out of it.  

I would rather stay home, and breathe, and sew.

"Do not find fault with the food."

This is probably tactful, no matter whether you are dining at your own home or someone else's.

Enjoy your days!