The day before the day before the day before the day before.....

....the fat bloke in the red suit comes to call!

But only if you have been very, very good.

Because we are currently suffering in a heatwave there hasn't been much action in the sewing room, but temperatures are expected to drop somewhat after today (although it will still be a long way from what could be considered 'cool') so more green fabrics will be cut.  My brain doesn't cope well with extreme heat, and I can't settle to doing much at all.

As a result, we will be trawling in the photo vault today.

Another view of Butchart Garden, mostly green with just one red tree for contrast.

It shows how successful a monochromatic colour scheme can be, doesn't it?  The garden beds are planted with flowers that aren't yet flowering, just the young green leaves are visible.

More Aussie natives from the big store display, taken in our last year living in the Big Smoke.

There are those who decry our native flowers...."oh, they're not as beautiful as roses or pansies" they say.... but all have a place in this wonderful world of ours, don't they?  This selection is bright and vibrant, and has some of my favourite colours.

Different doesn't have to mean worse or better, does it.  It just means - different.

That applies to people, too.  Just because someone looks different to us, or thinks differently, or worships a different deity or indeed doesn't worship anything at all, doesn't make them worse than us.  

We have had a fairly quiet week, a couple of appointments to liven things up, lunch on Monday with my ukulele playing friend Clare, some suitably seasonal hunting and foraging.  Stitches were sewn and knitted; the jumper (the second sleeve of which is proceeding well) came with me to a medical appointment as there is always waiting time which can be put to creative use.  Repairs to the summer top have been started but didn't go well, so Plan B will have to come into play.

Problem is, there doesn't seem to be a Plan B yet......

Tomorrow is the summer solstice, which will happen at 2.02 a.m.  I don't plan to be nekkid dancing around the bonfire at the time.  I have other plans, chief of which is being deep asleep in the arms of Morpheus.

I wonder if our ancestors really did dance nekkid around the bonfire at solstice time, as they are reputed to have done?  It mightn't be too bad in summer, but winter would be a different story.  In any case, given our current heatwave and fire danger conditions, a bonfire would be out of the question.  Perhaps the crafty ones could improvise with some strips of red cellophane and a fan set to 'high'.

Many many years ago - before we bought our caravan - we were travelling in Victoria, and I had addresses of quilt shops to check out; in those days one had to peruse the ads in quilt magazines to find shops, as the internet was in its infancy.  One shop was half post office/half quilt shop, the post office's owner was a quilter.  (I looked it up, and it's no longer operating....it was nearly 30 years ago, after all!)  While paying for my purchases the owner and I were chatting, and she told me that she always started a new project on Boxing Day which had been not long beforehand, it was her reward to herself for her hectic Christmas each year.  That seems like a good idea to me although I have seldom followed through with it, but I plan to this year.

So - come Friday, who wants to join me?  Pick a project, no matter how large or small, and start it. I've picked mine, and it is small.

My Canadian tree featuring decorations we bought in Canada, or were gifted by Canadian friends.

In parting - no matter what you celebrate, or even if you don't celebrate anything at all, best wishes for a season of peace, happiness and love.

And chocolate.  Good quality dark chocolate.

Enjoy your days!

Jennifer

The computer has been unwell

So, too, have I.

The computer spent several days in hospital having its innards poked and prodded before returning home.  It seems to be just hunky dory tickety-boo, now.  However, when I suggested earlier that it could get some photos from my camera's SD card it shook its head and said, nuh-huh.....and the computer hospital is closed now for the next couple of weeks.  

Fortunately my innards didn't need to be poked and prodded like the computer's did, it was a very nasty dose of sinus/hayfever with a non-stop cough.  While the cough is settling it hasn't left, but I have high hopes that it, too, will soon be healed.

Hence the radio silence last weekend.

With the SD card reader not working the pics taken earlier today cannot be uploaded, which is disappointing.  Take it from me, though - two trees started last week were finished this week.  Autumn Rhapsody has come home from Margaret quilter and looks great; sadly I have been in no position to start on making the label, hanging sleeve and binding....but that, too, will happen, hopefully before too long

We survived yesterday's summer solstice, and can now look forward to summer.  We have been having hot temps for some time now anyway, and more is forecast, but now the solstice is over I am telling myself -  every day that passes is a day closer to autumn.

A couple of Christmas pics to round out the post.  This is my collection of Christmas wombats, a small tree and my Jim Shore angel.

My collection of Canadian decorations, another small tree and even a sparkly red maple leaf.

So.....no matter where you are, and no matter what - if anything - you believe, best wishes for a time of love, and peace, and good health.

And chocolate.  Good quality dark chocolate.

Enjoy your Christmas days!

Jennifer

To my Canadian family and friends......

......best wishes for Canada Day!

Don't you love how this maple tree is almost the shape of a big maple leaf?  Taken at Bluffers Park, Toronto, in October 2009.  Here's hoping for more glorious fall colours in October this year - just for us.


Winter is well and truly upon us, we have had some very very cold weather this week.  Last week was the winter solstice but it was much too cold for dancing nekkid round the bonfire at midnight, or whatever our ancestors did on this occasion - so I didn't.  There are some things for which the world is not yet ready.  They must have been a hardy lot, those forebears of ours.


This week I was approached by someone connected with a local community radio station to see if I would be interested in being trained for, and perhaps ultimately having, a radio program.  I said yes!  So here goes.  Just goes to show that even at my advanced age there are new experiences to be had.  The radio station has a huge collection of its own music, and announcers also use music from their own collections - as I would.  Perhaps having a program which plays folk music might be a way to winkle out some closet folkies?  Let's hope so, because I miss being involved with folk music more than I can say.  While I enjoy being part of two choirs I do miss the interaction of getting together with like-minded people to just sit around and make our own music.


This town calls itself "Australia's Country Music Capital" and has a huge music festival in January with a much smaller one in July, but their idea of country music and mine are somewhat different.  My taste is for older music, preferably written before 1970.......most modern 'country' music to me sounds like pop music.  Just wearing cowboy boots and singing to a guitar doesn't make a song country.  There is even an annual school here for budding country musicians!  I was told of a young woman who took one of its courses a few years ago who was told she would have to dye her hair, as there were already enough dark-haired girls on the scene.  Supposing she didn't want to?  Music which is formulaic is not my idea of music - sorry.  Life would be dull indeed if we all liked the same music, or read the same books, or ate the same food.......


Has anyone spotted the housework fairy lately?  She hasn't been visiting here for some time and I have had to clean my own floors, and wave my own duster around.  I am not impressed.  The garden elves have also gone missing, probably playing games with the housework fairies somewhere a long way away from here.  


"Home is the woman's kingdom, and there she reigns supreme.  To embellish that home, to make happy the lives of her husband and the dear ones committed to her trust, is the honoured task which it is the wife's province to perform.  All praise be to her who so rules and governs in that kingdom, that those reared beneath her roof 'shall rise up and call her blessed'."


You know, I will gladly relinquish some of that supremacy to the housework fairy when she finally makes her appearance.


Enjoy your days!

Winter Solstice

Today is winter solstice, the shortest day....now winter starts in earnest. Winter in Sydney is nothing compared to winter in other parts of the world, but we are a bunch of wussies who complain if the temperature goes below 17 degrees - that is to say, some people complain - but moi? Maybe just a little.....the last few days have been damp and cloudy, good weather for staying inside.

The Maple Leaf table runner has the top done, and the back was about to be cut when a little light went "doing!" in my brain. So now, instead of being plain, the back will have one Maple Leaf block in the middle. And of course I measured twice, and cut once, and still cut slightly wrong, but it's nothing that can't be fixed.

Don't you love lime green flowers? The picture is of some chrysanthemums I bought recently, all finished now but very pretty for a while.

And you will all be pleased to know that The Dreaded Lurgy is leaving me slowly but surely, I am feeling way heaps better although the singing voice still hasn't come back. Not sure if I will make choir tomorrow night. We have a gig on Thursday evening, nothing major, just one we do from time to time, but yours truly is the main female soloist. Not because I have the best voice, I'm not sure that I do, just because no one else is game enough (or silly enough) to have a go at a solo. But if the voice hasn't returned by then and I can't do it - then I can't do it.

Now I am going to cut the remaining pieces for the back of the Maple Leaf runner. Have a good solstice....don't go running around the bonfire naked in this cold weather, you will freeze......keep your fig leaf on.

Jennifer

I do believe it's the summer solstice

I may be wrong (I often am) but I always thought the solstice happened on 22nd-23rd December - today is 23rd so I suppose we are bang on solstice time. So, happy solstice wherever you may be. That means the weather really heats up here in Australia....not sure I am looking forward to that....sigh. Not much I can do about it though, except grin and bear it.

I am making new covers for the new mattresses in our little RV, can't you tell I am procrastinating - the corners are done and I only have to make hems along the bottom edges and thread elastic through, I am making them like a fitted sheet. I have never made a fitted sheet in my life before. Wish me luck.