Now for the next 50 years!

Here we are, home again after a fun three weeks.  It is said that travel broadens the mind....it certainly broadens the behind, because we sit a lot when travelling, don't we?

Anyway.....

We had a good time revisiting places from years past, and it's interesting to see changes since then.  The weather was mostly kind (we did have quite a cold change in Canberra but that's nothing new; fortunately we had warm jumpers with us) and there are photos to share.

Seen on the wall of a café in Tumut while sitting under cover out of light rain, a sentiment with which I heartily concur in these days of doom and gloom:

The coffee was good, and the munchies were excellent too; we took a couple of slices back to our accommodation to share later in the day.

The bathroom floor of our apartment in a beautifully renovated old house - the same design as my tumbling blocks currently being sewn, but with only three colours instead of many:

And yes, those are my feet in my gorgeous green sandals - which, believe it or not, started life as boring beige.  Green is much prettier than boring beige....just about anything is better than boring beige, actually.

Not the best pic ever taken, but there we were at the end of summer and there were still flowers on the wisteria shading the verandah - even though they were hiding behind leaves.  I'm not sure if they were late bloomers from last spring, or getting an early start for later in the year.

One day we drove from Tumut to Batlow where this interesting sculpture was on a park at the entrance to the town.  You can't see here - but it moves!  The whole 'leafy' top section swivels back and forth, while the individual 'branches' also twist and turn at the same time.

It's part of a sculpture trail; I was a little annoyed to find no information on the sculpture without having to scan a code and visit a website.  What's wrong with an information board near the sculpture itself?

Perhaps I'm just old......

We celebrated our anniversary with a very nice lunch at a Tumut pub.  When our server found out about our special occasion she insisted on gifting us our drinks, and also brought a special dessert for us to share.  Dark chocolate dipped strawberries, yummo.....cheesecake too.....the strawberries were beautifully ripe and very delicious.  It was a pleasantly warm day, fortunately nowhere near as hot as the day on which we were married 50 years earlier.

There are some more pics to show, which will make their way onto the blog in due course.

How have you all been over the past few weeks?  I hope to catch up with blogs over the next few days; we arrived home three days ago and have been busy unpacking, and sorting, and washing clothes, and putting Stuff away, etc.  You all know what happens at the end of a holiday, don't you.  Well, that's what we've been doing.  However, I think we are just about caught up, so normal life can resume next week.

While we were away stitches were knitted and sewn, and words read.  Some shopping was indulged in, and my supply of home-made jams should last for quite some time.  My wardrobe has been expanded by some op shop purchases including a brand-new-with-tags top from a well-known retailer, which will be quite useful.  A couple of fabrics shops were visited and a small - quite small - amount of shopping done in them.  Best of all, though, was time spent with family and friends.....The One And Only Grandkid is now a foofteenth of a smidgin taller than I am, and he's still only 11.

Today's quote will be continued next week, as it's fairly long.

"Breaking an engagement.

Sometimes it is necessary to break off an engagement.  Many circumstances will justify this.  Indeed, anything which may occur or be discovered which shall promise to render the marriage an unsuitable or unhappy one is, and should be, accepted as justification for such rupture.  Still, breaking an engagement is always a serious and distressing thing, and ought not to be contemplated without absolute and just reasons."

This is true.  I was told about events which, had I been given more notice, would have led to the engagement with the first husband being broken off....but just ten days before a wedding is not much notice, is it?  Especially when one is the only girl in the family, whose parents (particularly whose mother) had been looking to seeing their one and only daughter safely married off.  So the wedding continued, but the marriage did not.

Enjoy your days!

Jennifer

Slow and painful

That is me, typing on the computer.

I am trying to make the best of my enforced 'leisure', but oh.....it's boring; just imagine no sewing or knitting, no playing ukulele, no cooking or food prep or housework - well, that's a silver lining, isn't it.  So far my arm hasn't fallen off, my black eye is healing as are all the other bruises on my left wrist, right elbow, right ribs.....bruises in places I didn't know I had places.  The plaster on my right arm is heavy and cumbersome, but hopefully my broken bits are healing inside it.

On to happier things.

Another quilt I photographed at the antique quilt exhibition was this one, because I liked the fabrics.  

Some of the fabrics are similar to those in the Rajah quilt, not surprising given that they are nearly from the same era.

The backing fabric is very exuberant.

This, we were told, is 'Sir Loin' who stands proudly outside a pub just north of Canberra, where we ate a couple of times.

He's quite "incredi-bull", isn't he!  We admire people who make art pieces from old metal; I don't know what he's made from, but he is very well done.....and quite large.

One place we found to eat on our trip south from Canberra was a café in Gundagai, a small town with an interesting history.  I can remember, on trips to visit my Posh Melbourne Grandparents, calling into the Niagara Café....and it's still there!  Many Ozzie towns had cafés opened and run by Greek immigrants from the early 20th century onward, and this is one; although the original family no longer owns it it is still run by a Greek family, and still does good food and wonderful caramel milkshakes.  The decor has been restored to look as it would have done in the 1930s....talk about a trip down memory lane, and a slice of history.

There is not much to report this week.  Words have been read.  Medical visits have happened, more are to come.  That's about it, really.

Continuing on with Conduct in Opera, Theatre or Public Hall:

"If it is a promenade concert or opera, the lady may be invited to promenade during the intermission.  If she declines, the gentleman must retain his position by her side."

Indeed.  She may be feeling like quietly pondering on the music she has been listening to, or she may be feeling poorly.  She may even have a broken arm.

Enjoy your days!

Jennifer

Gee, it's good to be back home again......

As the song says.  You'll be singing it all day now, won't you?

We had a good time with family, visiting new - to us - places, and re-visiting favourites.  The weather ranged from glorious at Easter to frost and cold wind the following week but it only rained twice, both times at night, so we stayed dry.  

The One-And-Only-Grandkid is shooting up like a weed, as is to be expected now that he's six.  One evening he called me 'Jennifer' instead of 'Grandma' while giving me a sidelong glance to see if he could get away with it......I think he was a bit miffed when everyone ignored it!

Aren't these windows amazing?  They are in the shop at the National Library of Australia, in Canberra.  There are more in the café but they were difficult to photograph without people in the way, perhaps on another visit I may be lucky.

These are floor to high ceiling.  The café windows use more red and orange in their designs than those in the shop.

Information on how they were made is here.    

I try to visit the National Library when in Canberra as it has interesting exhibitions.  The reason for this visit was to see Australian art from the late 1800s; we also took in a 'blockbuster' exhibition of European art at the National Gallery of Australia but the Australian art really spoke to me, I enjoyed it so much more.  There were even some sketches of our town made in the late 1880s including one of the Post Office, which is still standing today.

We stayed for several days in Cootamundra - such a nice town, with beautiful old homes and civic buildings.    Cootamundra Wattle is a plant with glorious yellow flowers; I don't know if this is one, the colour is a bit pale.  It was near our camp site.

A distant cousin lives in Cootamundra, the reason for our visit.  Our mothers were first cousins, and we spent much of our meeting time catching up on family history; I was able to tell Diane things she didn't know about the family, and she was able to give me information in return.  We share the same middle name - Grace - as did her mother Nadine, named for a teenage cousin who died just a few months before Nadine was born.  My niece has also given her daughter the middle name of Grace, so the family tradition continues.

We were both in the wars while in Canberra.  We spent Sunday evenings at our DIL'S parents for family dinner, and while descending their front steps one night I fell off the bottom step.  There are 16 steps but, apart from a light outside the front door (which was behind us as we descended so it didn't help much) it was dark.  The railing which I was clutching ends at the third step from the bottom, and I didn't realise I had run out of handhold until down I went.  Never mind, things have finally stopped hurting, nothing has fallen off......and the following Sunday when we visited there was a light outside the garage at the foot of the steps.

A couple of days later Kevin stood up too soon when entering the caravan and boinked his head on the metal door frame, cutting it open (the head, not the door).  We now know where there is an excellent walk-in medical centre with helpful staff, although we hope not to need it again!  The scar is fading, his head is still a bit tender, but - like my bruised bits - it hasn't fallen off either.  Which is probably A Good Thing.

To welcome us home, a couple of autumn houses were made yesterday.  They share the same faded green for their lawns, just as greens are fading here with the cooler weather.

Two more to go, which may also be autumn houses.

For several months now there has been a mouse plague in our part of the world, and while we and Bianca were away the mice moved in to play.  We are now in the process of suggesting to them that there are much nicer placer that they would like to live.  I do not like the idea of meecies rampaging through my home; we are told that winter's colder frosty weather, particularly if it's wet as well, should move them on.  Fingers crossed.

"It is rude and awkward to elevate your elbows and move your arms at the table, so as to incommode those on either side of you.

Whenever one or both hands are unoccupied, they should be kept below the table, and not pushed upon the table and into prominence."

Indeed.  Keep those elbows and hands down, and don't poke your dinner  neighbours.

Enjoy your days!

Only eight houses to go!

There is a 'but' here......but we are going away in three weeks, so not all the houses will be made before we go because I am sticking to my goal of two per week.  Never mind; they will be here to welcome us home again and all houses will be done by the anniversary of our moving into this house, eleven years ago in May.

Aren't these fun with their colourful gardens?

A lavender house with a garden of iris, and a light green house with pots in its garden.  The green fabric was pulled from my stash to make the roof for the lavender house, and I liked it so much that it also became the next house.  It has been in my stash for a very long time, the selvedge says "Stained Glass for Quilters".

Some trimming has also been happening.  The blocks on the right have been trimmed but need to be pressed and have their corner 'ears' snipped off, while the pile on the left is awaiting trimming.  Too long spent with the cutter aggravates a soreness in my right forearm, so I take it easy and don't have marathon cutting/trimming sessions.  This is the autumn quilt.

Eventually both these quilts will be done.......and then I might have to think of a new one!

The coming week holds the promise of rain, even possibly quite a lot of rain.  We shall see.  We have watched promised rain clouds part and go around us before now; even with the weather site saying "95% chance of rain" we have missed out on even one drop.  Our town is on the edge of a wide valley with hills to the north and east, and those hills make their own weather.

We are now feeling confident about making plans for our sojourn down south.  Two interesting exhibitions will be on while we are in Canberra, one at the National Gallery of Australia of European paintings, and another at the National Library of Australia of Australian art - which is the one I really want to see.  Way back when I was a Sweet Young Thing and worked at the library here it held a copy of "The Picturesque Atlas of Australasia" with its beautiful engravings published in the 1880s, which was fascinating to a somewhat naive teenager who didn't know much about anything.  It was republished many years ago but I didn't get around to buying a copy, and now it's probably out of print.

My etiquette book is a reprint of a book from the 1880s.  Back in the 1970s-1980s several older books were reprinted in facsimile editions, meaning that they are an exact copy of the original......and this in the days before computers and scanners.  To all intents and purposes it is exactly as it would have been published in those earlier days, except of course for the information about it being a facsimile reprint.

By the way - if you have left a comment and I haven't answered it's not because I am ignoring you, I really love having visitors and like to reply!  It means that you are a "no reply blogger", so if you would like a reply you might want to check your settings.

"The knife and fork.

The knife and fork were not made for playthings, and should not be used as such when people are waiting at the table for the food to be served.  Do not hold them erect in your hands at each side of your plate, nor cross them on your plate when you have finished, nor make a noise with them.  The knife should only be used for cutting meats and hard substances, while the fork, held in the left hand, is used in carrying food into the mouth.  A knife must never, in any account, be put into the mouth.  When you send your plate to be refilled, do not send your knife and fork, but put them upon a piece of bread, or hold them in your hand."

I recall, as a child, being told "don't put your knife in your mouth".  To this day, if I do so - I do it with guilt while looking over my shoulder to see if my mother is watching, despite the fact that she has been gone since 1999.

Enjoy your days!

One-twelfth of the year has gone, you know......

.....never to return......not this year, anyway.

We had a busy hot January , first the trip to Canberra to see the family (who are all well.....Euan is now crawling and we suspect he will be a late walker like his father was) and to see a wonderful exhibition of works by Tom Roberts, one of the best shows I have ever seen.  Paintings that many Australians know well, such as his paintings of sheep shearers, were hanging - they were painted just a couple of hours north of here.  'Bailed up' was also hanging in the exhibition and if I could have snuck out of the exhibition with just one painting under my arm, that would be the one.  It's so evocative of the Australian bush in summer that it took my breath away.

There was a 'play room' attached to the exhibition where one could dress like some of the women in Roberts' paintings to take a selfie (something I have never done in my life and don't intend to start doing now) but I tried on the hats anyway......oh my......one flash number from Edwardian times in black with a wide veiled brim and a red feather was very oooh-la-la, I liked it, then I tried on a smaller-brimmed black bonnet......well......not so good, I looked like a Salvation Army lassie of old, and the white wide-brimmed hat also did nothing for me.  White has never been my best colour.  But it was fun, it's been a long time since I played dress-ups.

From which you can tell that, although seeing the family was good, that exhibition was the highlight of my trip away.  Sorry, family.  That's how it was.  Especially after being told by our son and his wife and child, as we handed over Christmas gifts for all and a birthday present for Euan "sorry, we didn't get around to getting you a Christmas present".  I con't care about the lack of a present.  I do care that you couldn't be bothered to find five minutes in your oh-so-busy lives to at least make the gesture.

Anyway.  Moving right along.

Yesterday the last stitches were taken on a project bought last year in Canada!

 A couple of days before we left to fly home the friends with whom we were staying on Vancouver Island took us for a drive from Victoria 'up island' to Courtenay.  The weather which had been so nice the day before turned cold, windy and rainy and, each time we stopped (there are several quilt shops along that drive, you know, and my friend is a quilter too) we dashed very quickly from the car into the warmth of the store.  The husbands had more sense - they waited in the car!  We had a lovely evening with our friends' friends, and next day drove back to Victoria in slightly better weather.

One place we visited on the way back was Parksville, and in Sweet Pea Quilting I saw the kit for this table topper.  The dark colours of the fabrics reminded me of our drive the day before with dark waves crashing on the shore and boats rocking at their moorings, so it came home with me.  Pattern is 'The Centrepiece Tablemat' by Sweet Treasures.

These pics were taken on the way home......waves were still churning and the wind was still cold, although not as fierce as on the previous day.

 As you can see, there wasn't much sun that day either!

I'm glad I wasn't out on the water in a boat on either day.  We left Swartz Bay on the ferry for Tsawassen the following day and had a good crossing......but the day after that, the weather turned so nasty that all B.C. Ferries were cancelled, including the one we would have taken had we stayed one more day!  That was our trip back to the airport to fly home so, while I'm sorry we couldn't have stayed longer, I'm glad our travel plans weren't disrupted.

It's good to make a more complex and/or larger project, but sometimes a smaller one with some mindless sewing and not much brain power required is Just The Very Thing for hot weather when the heat fries one's brain, and it has been hot......so one's brain is well and truly fried.

We have survived another country music festival.  The whole town is taken over for much of January by country music fans and it is fun, but it's also good to be able to just go inside and shut the door on it all.  We had friends staying this year, a woman connected with one of the 'fringe' events and her teenage daughter; their billets were supposedly already arranged by someone, but the bottom fell out of those plans and we offered them beds here.  It was very nice to have them and we have made the offer for next year too.  My friend and I had a little music session one day, she played my baritone uke (she plays guitar and banjo) while I played my tenor uke......well......I have never heard the two ukes played together before and it was magical.  They were made by the luthier out of the same woods, and they blend beautifully.  If there was a way to play both ukes at once I would do it.

"True hospitality.
Try to make your guests feel at home; and do this, not by urging them in empty words to do so, but by making their stay as pleasant as possible, at the same time being careful to put out of sight any trifling trouble or inconvenience they may cause you."

I hope - in fact, I'm sure - that our friend and her daughter enjoyed their stay here, and it was no trouble or inconvenience to have them; quite the contrary, it was a delight.

Enjoy your days!

Eggs and omelettes

Wouldn't you like an omelette made from eggs in this nest?

   Might be a bit hard on the teeth, though.

It's an interesting artwork called 'Nest III' (I don't know where I and II are, or if indeed they exist at all) and is perched on a hill at the Arboretum, which we visited for the first time on our recent visit to Canberra.  It's made of discarded tools and pieces of farm machinery; I admire people who can see ways to use old stuff that might otherwise be discarded.  Size - it's big, much taller than I am.......which is not hard, I'm only five feet two inches. Or thereabouts.

Our taste of winter earlier this month was just that, a little taste.  Since then, days have been much milder although it does cool down at night.  No doubt when winter arrives it will hit like a ton of bricks.  Many locals are still in summer clothes, they are braver than I am because out of the sunshine it's not very warm.  Last week we saw a young woman wearing a summer dress with tiny shoulder straps, sandals on her bare tootsies........and a heavy woollen scarf wrapped round her neck and chest.  I felt like tapping her on the shoulder and saying "for goodness' sake, dear, if you are cold put on more clothes......do you know how silly you look?"  I don't think she would have thanked me.  But she did look silly.

Blue skin and goose bumps do not make for a good look in winter.  The same with bare legs.  What's wrong with wearing warm tights in autumn/winter if one wants to wear a skirt?  One can still look attractive while being warm, there is plenty of opportunity in spring and summer for baring one's flesh in public should one wish.  However, just because one can do something doesn't mean that one should.

Yesterday the scissors were wielded in the sewing room and a top was cut out from fabric purchased in Canberra.  Now all one needs is the motivation to sit down at the machine and sew it, but that will come over the next few days.  The fabric is rather yummy, a viscose-blend knit in blue, yellow and green with an interesting print of bugs and moths, but you have to look hard to see them.  The front was (hopefully!) carefully cut out so that the print won't be badly placed. Pattern is Jalie 2794 and this will be the second time I have made it.

Leaves on the we-think-it's-an-apricot tree in our back yard are nearly all yellow now, just a few touches of green are hanging on, and many of those leaves have already fallen.  In another week the tree will be almost bare, and the golden carpet on the ground will be turning brown and dry.  There are some trees in our street right now which are turning a rich dark purple-red but I don't know what they are called - they are really beautiful.

"Morning dress for street.
The morning dress for the street should be quiet in color, plainly made and of serviceable material.  It should be short enough to clear the ground without collecting mud and garbage.  Lisle-thread gloves in mid-summer, thick gloves in mid-winter, are more comfortable for street wear than kid ones.  Linen collars and cuffs are most suitable for morning street dress.  The bonnet and hat should be quiet and inexpressive, matching the dress as nearly as possible.  In stormy weather a large waterproof with hood is more convenient and less troublesome than an umbrella.  The morning dress for visiting or breakfasting in public may be, in winter, of woollen goods, simply made and quietly trimmed, and in summer, of cambric, pique, marseilles or other wash goods, either white or figured.  For morning wear at home the dress may be still simpler.  The hair should be plainly arranged without ornament."

Nothing there about heavy woollen scarves worn with summer sundresses and sandals, you notice.

Enjoy your days!