Best wishes for a happy and healthy 2014!

It's already afternoon on the first day of the new year here, before you know it 2015 will be upon us.  Not that I am wishing my life away, but we all know that time flies faster as we get older, don't we?

Did you all have a good Christmas?  We did, it was quiet and peaceful and our lunch at a local restaurant was excellent.  We even had some rain!

A wonderful way to start the new year - stitches have been sewn!  This morning I was able to sew on a button which came off one of my buttoned shirts (which are still pretty much all I can easily wear) and was so emboldened by that success that after lunch the remaining rolled hem finish on the skirt centre back seam was done.  Next step is to press that seam, then pin and sew front to back.  If the shoulder lets me I will do that later, if not.....well, there is always tomorrow isn't there.  In just four weeks we drive to Canberra for the wedding, so that is the looming deadline.

Speaking of the shoulder, it appears to be doing well.  It is very sensitive to touch and my long hair brushing across it feels like broken glass, which is quite surprising and rather painful.  It is still stiff and sore too but the exercises are being done daily, and movement is gradually coming back.  The uke hasn't yet been touched, but on 11th of this month we are having a rehearsal for The Big Gig the following week - I will be there, and I will be playing.  Even if I have to play my little $50 soprano uke rather than my very beautiful new larger much better sounding (and considerably more expensive) tenor uke, I will be playing that day.

Our roses are blooming, aren't they pretty?  I don't know their names because they were in the garden when we moved here.

 While these pics were taken a couple of summers ago the roses look just the same now.

One of three red roses, all different.  The miniature rose in the header pic changes colour as it blooms, the horticulturalist who worked on the garden called it a chameleon rose.  There is also a yellow rose which seems to be struggling, we get one or two flowers a year in spring and that's that.  Such a shame, because I really love yellow roses......perhaps we should replace it.  Because of the low humidity here roses seem to do fairly well, except for that yellow one; our neighbour has some beautiful yellow roses, must ask her their name.  In the Victorian language of flowers a yellow rose stood for "decrease of love".......does that mean if you were given a bouquet of yellow roses it would be a means of saying goodbye?

"Morning receptions, as they are called, but more correctly speaking, afternoon parties, are generally held from four to seven o'clock in the afternoon.  Sometimes a sufficient number for a quadrille arrange to remain after the assemblage has for the most part dispersed."

Perhaps this explains why "morning dress" seems rather formal when compared to what most of us wear before lunch?  I could stay, because I know how to dance a quadrille......several quadrilles, in fact.

Enjoy your days!

Join me in a coffee break

Just one of the pics we took last year in Canada, taken at Bluffers Park in Toronto. We are heading into the heat of summer here (although today is pleasantly mild) so those fall colours are several months away yet, but I can still dream.

The centre of the challenge quilt is all quilted and it's not too bad, it passes the ten foot rule......if you can stand ten feet away and the mistakes don't jump out at you, then it's not too bad......the jigsaw stippling went OK although some of the loops have points instead of curves, and lines occasionally cross each other which I believe is not allowed, but considering it was my first attempt it passes inspection. At present I am tracing the last of the border design onto lunch wrap to quilt through, both short ends are traced and pinned on ready for quilting, just need to fill in the last of the design along both sides and I can quilt it. The quilting design is whales and rolling surf, and it's meant for a four inch border while mine is six inches, if I had been organised I could have enlarged it on a copier somewhere, but I wasn't, so I didn't. Never mind, I reckon if I quilt a wavy line under the aforementioned whales and rolling surf it will fill out the design and hopefully won't look too bad. That, anyway, is my cunning plan. Less than a week to go to get it finished, the Big Reveal is next Saturday. At this rate it's not looking good.

The beautiful vase full of red roses is now finished, what a shame.....they were so beautiful. We have a few pink ones in a smaller vase instead.

No news on the unwell computer yet. I promise not to crack any jokes about its health problem being terminal because they are very corny.

Diane reminded me that it was The Carpenters who sang "Rainy Days and Mondays", The Mamas and The Papas sang "Monday Monday"......in my mind I could hear Mama Cass singing about Mondays, hence the confusion. Mama Cass was great. "Stars shining bright above you, night breezes seem to whisper I love you"........etc.......talk about reliving one's youth, when one was young and slender........

"If a lady asks any favor of a gentleman, such as to send a servant to her with a glass of water, to take her into the ball-room when she is without an escort, to inquire whether her carriage is in waiting, or any of the numerous services which ladies often require, no gentleman will, under any circumstances, refuse her request."

Of course he would not. He would not be a true gentleman if he did so. And we like our gentlemen to be true.

Now my coffee is all drunk, so it's back to tracing whales and rolling surf. Enjoy your days!

Our new computer is ill

Isn't that a bummer? Only two months old, and the motherboard has to be sent back (to the mothership?) to be checked out, at least it is still under warranty. Fortunately after a computer-less few days I remembered we still had the old one packed away, so we are still connected to the world. Sadly that meant no keeping up with blogs and emails, so I apologise if any of you have been feeling bereft without my witty blog comments. Doesn't mean I don't still love you all.

That means no wombat posts for a wee while either, because I would rather load my pics onto the new computer when it comes home than onto this one. Hopefully these native flowers will help to make up for that, the red flowers are Kangaroo Paws; I took it last year when we visited a native botanic garden just outside Sydney.

We have had so much rain lately that we just about float instead of walk. The area was in drought for quite a while, but the rain started soon after we moved here and we have had a lot more since then - local gardens are beautiful at present. Last Thursday we had 89 mls (3-1/2 inches) of rain in less than 24 hours, and we have had more since then. Tomorrow, Thursday, is forecast to be another rainy day. What is it about Thursdays? Once upon a time didn't The Mammas And The Pappas sing a song called "Rainy Days and Mondays" - what about rainy days and Thursdays? We had floods a few months ago and apparently are very close to another, the ground is so waterlogged it can't hold much more moisture so of course it will all flow into rivers and creeks, which will flood. Again.

On soggy Thursday one of our rose bushes was bowing down under the weight of its flowers so I cut those branches and brought them inside. Imagine a large glass vase full of deep red roses, eight or nine stems with at least eight roses on each stem, on my kitchen bench - it's glorious. Bianca The Beautiful (but slightly brainless) has discovered that rose petals and leaves make for tasty chomping, then of course she heads over to the cream carpet to heave them up again.......she could stop on the tiles on the way but no, she keeps walking to the carpet.......those of you who have cats in your lives know just I mean.

Several years ago I tried rose petal jam, it was delicious - perhaps I could try making some now that we have our own roses? It seems a shame to throw out all those pretty petals.

Right now I am quilting the challenge quilt, I took a coffee and blogging break when the bobbin needed refilling. The great reveal is due in just ten days so I had better get a move on; quite a bit of the top is still to be quilted, then the border has to be quilted, then it needs to be bound - that's not difficult - but the days are rushing by so it's time to speed up a bit. I am up to quilting the 'sky' section and am just using a jigsaw stipple. I don't really like jigsaw stipple quilting but the centre 'sand' and bottom 'water' sections are quilted in horizontal lines, so I wanted some flowing lines for the top section. Over the years I have seen some lovely quilts which could have been amazing with imaginative quilting on them but which were just jigsaw stippled all over, it looked as though the quilter just wanted to finish it off so chose an easy option. Now I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, if that's your preferred quilting style then good for you, but to me it's just one way to quilt - it's not the only way.

Wouldn't the world be a dull place if we all liked the same things, be it quilting styles, music, books or indeed anything?

"Dress of Hostess at a Dinner Party.

The dress of a hostess at a dinner party should be rich in material, but subdued in tone, so as not to eclipse any of her guests. A young hostess should wear a dress of rich silk, black or dark in colour, with collar and cuffs of fine lace, and if the dinner be by daylight, plain jewellery, but by gaslight, diamonds."

So now you know. It is permissible to wear your diamonds if you are hosting a dinner party but only if you are dining by gaslight, not by those energy-saving (and rather dim) globes that we are all supposed to be using these days.

Enjoy your days!