Clinging WOW

Well, what do you know.....blogger uploaded these pics in order, not in reverse order as it usually does.......that's too much for my little brain to take in. Taken a couple of weeks ago at sunset with storm clouds rolling in, looking across the valley from our front verandah - the little light on the left horizon was the last of the sun's rays bouncing off a structure that may have been a silo. We get some wonderful views from our verandah.
Today's little wombat has feet that hang on so he is trying to climb my sewing desk lamp, nice person that I am I tilted it down to make it easier for him. My sewing room needs a few wombat friends, yes?

I am not a happy little vegemite today. Yesterday I went to a doctor about something that had me slightly concerned, and what a waste of time that was. I don't think we were on the same page, in fact I don't think we were even reading from the same book when it came to communicating. I don't know where he learnt his English but it certainly wasn't at the school I attended. Anyway. So this morning I dutifully trotted along for a blood test (having fasted from last night as required, and starving without my breakfast) only to be also told that the request form also included an ecg which required my stripping to the waist. Never again. I was also supposed to have a chest x-ray but I cancelled it because it also meant stripping. I value my personal space, and my privacy, and my dignity, and don't like having them invaded or trampled on. When I rang the specialist's office this afternoon as requested, the receptionist started to say "he wants you to have a stress test....." - "no I will not", says I, "I will not have any test which requires getting undressed". The nice receptionist said the message would be passed on. I don't want to hear platitudes such as "leaving one's modesty behind at the door of the doctor's room" because I don't feel that way, I cringe the whole time. My husband thinks I am being precious, but it's different for men; a man does not feel the same as a woman does about stripping in front of strangers while they attach sticky things to her personal bits. I hate it. I will not do it.

We have a new computer! And I can play with EQ7! Just need to negotiate our way round Windows 7.....so far, so good.......working out how to do the monthly fabric downloads because I couldn't get them at all with the old computer.

Last week my name was drawn to be the lucky person to have friendship blocks made by the members of the Thursday quilt group. Much as I would have liked to I didn't choose "Coronation" because the fact that a 12in block has 58 pieces (although it's not difficult at all to make, I have done so) was enough to give some people conniptions, so I played safe and chose "Jacob's Ladder" instead, to be made 9in finished in different green fabrics on a plain cream background. I have always liked two colour quilts, and have I ever mentioned that I really really like green? One day I will make myself a Coronation quilt, it makes an interesting design when several blocks are set together without sashing as more stars form where the corners meet.

We are seeing and hearing birds which are familiar and some which are not - although it's from Canberra, this site has several of the birds we see and hear each day. Several of the pages have the bird calls as well as pics and information about the birds, so if you would like to have some of the sights and sounds of Australia on your computer feel free to click away! The noisy friar bird is a bird we had never heard until we moved here.

"The importance of trifles.

Some people are wont to depreciate those kind and tender qualities as trifles; but trifles, it must be remembered, make up the aggregate of human life. The petty incivilities, slight rudenesses and neglects of which men are guilty, without thought, or from lack of foresight or sympathy, are often remembered, while the great acts performed by the same person are often forgotten. There is no society where smiles, pleasant looks and animal spirits are not welcomed and deemed of more importance than sallies of wit, or refinements of understanding. The little incivilities which form the small change of life may appear separately of little moment, but like the spare pennies which amount to such large fortunes in a lifetime they owe their importance to repetition and accumulation."

Well said, the folk of 1885 knew a thing or two about human nature didn't they? Now I am going to ponder deeply on the outer border for my challenge quilt, I did take a pic but it was so bad I deleted it, so the world will have to wait a little longer to see my work of genius.

Jennifer

WOW Coming and Going

One of the many kits I have bought over the years.......I have often wondered what to use these for, but now that The Age Of Table Runners has arrived perhaps they could feature on some table linen. In my not-inconsiderable stash there are some Aussie fabrics which could be used to set off these two to perfection.

Sydney (not the rest of New South Wales or Australia which couldn't care less, just Sydney) is going nostalgic over the Olympic Games which were held there ten years ago. Like all Olympic Games they had their daggy official mascots based on Aussie animals and birds the names of which have completely left my mind, which tells you how memorable they must have been. The wombat was not one of them.....not until Fatso The Fat-Arsed Wombat was chosen by a TV program as an unofficial mascot. Fatso became more beloved than all the others put together and to find one now would be as rare as finding hen's teeth; I don't have Fatso in my collection but would love to. We went to New Zealand for the duration and the games completely passed us by; we even met some people we knew while we were there, as New Zealand was full of Aussies like us who were also sport refugees. And everyone we met there knew about Fatso.

But I am finding the nostalgia vaguely sickly....the way the media is going on about it nothing good has happened in Sydney since then, its glory days are behind it, it was such a wonderful time, nothing will ever be as good again etc.....come on people get over it, life has moved on and we are all ten years older.
Now that spring seems to be sprung there are many surprises popping up in our garden including these daisies which grow in dappled shade, so they are a darker colour than the ones in bright sun -which are paler purple and even white. I don't know what they are but they open up on sunny days, close up on dull days and grow like weeds. Perhaps they are weeds......they are quite pretty......the back garden has a small tree which lost its leaves just after we moved here in autumn, now it is covered in tiny buds two of which are about to flower, and it looks as though they will be pink. I have no idea what it is. And we have bluebells, and white May bushes in flower. May bush flowers in spring - September - in Australia, not in May as it does in the Northern Hemisphere, but of course it is still called May bush just confuse everyone.

The sad and sorry saga of EQ7 and our computer continues. We thought it was fixed last week, but no.....it lulled us into a false sense of security. Last October, two days before we flew out for our Canadian holiday, we had a severe electrical storm which hit j-u-s-t as I switched off the computer. The storm fried the modem as well as doing some damage to the computer but we knew not what. After we came home we bought a new modem and had some work done to the computer but it seems that the damage done then is causing problems now, to the extent that we are thinking that a new computer may be in our near future. At least we have a new keyboard and mouse. I am getting very good at sighing.......

At least I worked on my challenge quilt while the computer was back in hospital for several days. The blocks for the centre are all laid out and some are joined. It will have a narrow inner border of dark blue but I am a little undecided about the outer border, so I will sew as far as the blue border then listen to what the quilt has to say about what it wants.

And joy of joys, I have found someone to play music with - a local bloke who likes lots of the music I like - I am so happy.

"Your children will form habits of evil-speaking if they hear you deal lightly with the reputation of another - if they hear you slander or revile your neighbour. If you wish your children to show charity toward the erring, you must set the example by the habitual exercise of that virtue yourself. Without this your teaching will be of but little avail. If you take pleasure in dwelling upon the faults of others, if you refuse to cover over their infirmities with the mantle of charity, your example will nullify your teaching, and your admonitions will be lost."

Now I have just finished a cup of most excellent coffee so back to the sewing machine. Have a lovely week!

Jennifer

Serving WOW

If you visit our house you might be served something yummy on a small wombat tray....perhaps it might even be chocolate so as to co-ordinate with the colour of these wombats?
Some more golden gloriousness, or glorious goldenness, at the local botanic garden last weekend. The taller wattle on the right is Silver Wattle named for its silver-grey trunk, and I'm sorry but I don't remember the name of the other. As you can see, not all wattles are the same colour - Silver Wattle flowers are deep gold, the other is lemon yellow, and they don't all grow the same way either as some are trees and some are bushes. Others are ground covers. This was taken on a dull rainy day (much like today) and you can see how bright the wattle is.

Speaking of dull rainy days, we have had more than our share since moving here. According to the local paper this is the best year for rainfall in this area for 15 years....the drought in some parts of Australia has been bad........perhaps we brought the rain with us!

Some good news: EQ7 is now working! Seems the problem was the interaction between our mouse and keyboard, which is why it would work in the computer shop but not here at home. One new mouse and keyboard later, and everything is going along beautifully. It has also sorted out a couple of other issues, so the mouse must have been a bit of a problem for a while but we didn't realise it. So if you have EQ7 and were concerned by my experience that you might have problems too, fear not. All will be well. Many thanks to young Kieran at the computer shop for his help, and to the lovely folk at Electric Quilt who were also trying to sort it out for me. Now I can have some fun playing!

Some not-so-good news this morning, a folkie friend died recently but we only just found out. We were not surprised as we knew of a bad diagnosis, but it is still very sad. Our annual trip to the big folk festival at Easter will be poorer without his good cheer and music. When we moved here we were only an hour from his home and had hoped to get together occasionally, but it was not to be. Farewell, friend.

Lately my mind has been turning to knitting, goodness knows why as the weather is heading for summer......definitely not knitting time here, and definitely not weather for wearing knitted garments! Perhaps it's all those lovely blogs and sites from Canada and the US, because they are going into autumn and some of the designs are so lovely. Perhaps I should give in to it and knit a scarf.

"The saddest of all ceremonies is that attendant upon the death of relatives and friends, and it becomes us to show, in every possible way, the utmost consideration for the feelings of the bereaved, and the deepest respect for the melancholy occasion."

Now I think it's time for a play with EQ7. Enjoy your days!

Jennifer

Golden happy

Sounds like the name of a firework doesn't it? A few more pics of our visit to Apsley Falls last week. As you can see the wattle was in bloom in all its golden glory, I don't know enough to be able to identify the different species though.
The yellow wattle really contrasts with the greyish green of the Australian bush, on a cloudy or dull day it really glows.
A slight fuzzy close-up - it was a windy day.
A pretty little white creeper which could be clematis. You can see the wattle not yet blooming too.
This benign little river ambles gently along the countryside then falls over the edge - the pics of the waterfall were in the last post. It's hard to believe this peaceful river can turn into such a torrent!

My lovely girl-in-law has started a new blog, a happy blog, because there is enough gloom and doom in the world already. The pic for Caturday (that's the special day for all kitties) is of her cat looking very relaxed, but those claws still mean business.

"There is a sentiment attached to flowers, and this sentiment has been expressed in language by giving names to various flowers. These names constitute a language, which may be made the medium of pleasant and amusing interchange of thought between men and women. A bouquet of flowers and leaves may be selected and arranged so as to express much depth of feeling - to be truly a poem. We present herewith a list of many flowers and plants, to which, by universal consent, a sentiment has become attached."

Acacia (golden wattle) - Concealed love

Clematis - Artifice

I have given you a bouquet of mixed feelings, it seems! But it's nicer that the sunburn remedy in the last post, n'est ce pas?

Jennifer

A Nice Sunday Drive on Wednesday

Last Wednesday we went for A Nice Drive to Apsley Falls, about a hour north-east from here, not far from a small town called Walcha where we had a very nice lunch at one of the pubs first. We made a new friend in the car park while at the falls, this beady-eyed currawong, who is obviously used to scrounging from anyone with food - as a young tourist couple in a hired van found! Despite that nasty looking beak he/she was quite friendly, although I didn't hold out my hand.....I'm not that silly, I don't trust that pointy beak.
If you click on this sign it tells a little about the falls. We didn't see any peregrine falcons.
The falls start from a very benign river then tumbles over this cliff. You can see some large chunks of rock that have fallen in the past, they would have been nearly as large as a small car. Because of the rain over the past month or two there is quite a lot of water; we visited here a few years ago and there wasn't much more than a trickle coming over.
Down....down....down........to the pool at the bottom........
.........until the water flows away along this gorge, where it eventually joins another river then flows to the ocean. Compared to the volume of water at the top there seemed hardly any water down the bottom! This is part of Oxley Wild Rivers National Park.

We took a detour on the way home via Kentucky, a small village where the general store serves very good coffee and extremely nice cakes, white chocolate and raspberry cake for me and banana walnut cake with caramel icing for Kevin. No one seems to know why Kentucky was named, but in the Walcha district there is also Ohio, so perhaps an early settler had ties with America. I can remember visiting Kentucky as a child with my parents, we visited an apple orchard and bought a crate of fresh apples. The fruit industry is much smaller than it used to be as fine merino sheep growing has taken over in the district.

Then we drove home.

On another note I have been working on my nine patch challenge quilt and have three yellow blocks to make, then lots of blue water/ocean/ships blocks. While it will never win a blue ribbon I am pleased with it, some of the fabric has been in my stash for a long while so it's about time it was used. Perhaps it will be called "Anchors Aweigh".

The saga of EQ7 is continuing, but I don't want you all weeping on my keyboard so I will save it for another time.

"To Remove Sunburn.

Take two drams of borax, one dram of alum, one dram of camphor, half an ounce of sugar-candy, and a pound of ox-gall. Mix and stir well for ten minutes, and stir it three or four times a fortnight. When clear and transparent, strain through a blotting-paper and bottle for use."

If that doesn't remove your sunburn I don't know what will!

Best wishes to all the dads for Father's Day today - have a lovely day! And to the mums too, because without them there would be no dads, would there.

Jennifer

Normal service will resume as soon as possible

Recently I bought the EQ7 upgrade and have been having great trouble getting it loaded on our computer......took it to the Nice Young Nerds at a local computer place who waved their magic wands and managed to load it, but now it will not open. It opens in the shop for the nerds but not here at home for me. Let's face it, the nerds don't want it - and I do! To make a long story short, the computer has been going back and forth to the computer spa to try to get the problem sorted out. I am also in correspondence with the Electric Quilt folks in Ohio, they have been helpful too.

Thank you for listening, taking you back to your normal programs now.

Jennifer

My little quilt is up there for the world to see........

Quilting Gallery's weekly themed quilt contest this week is Miniature Quilts so I have taken my courage in both hands and entered one of mine - a purple and yellow Double Wedding Ring, 16in (40cm) square. I blogged about it ages ago, but here it is again in all its little glory. The other quilts in the contest are so pretty, and some of them are so much more miniature too!

This weekend I will be singing in a concert with The Only Choir In Town, just two songs as it's part of a concert given by two other musical groups, a concert band and a clarinet choir. Our choir is a "special guest", as the posters around town say. So I have bought a white shirt, as required. White is not my best colour but one does what one has to do, doesn't one.

The headache that stopped me from sewing the other day has gone away, gone with the wind.....it has been very windy here for the past few days but it's easing now, thank goodness. It's been a very chilly wind. So I have made two nine patch blocks for the challenge quilt. Woopy doo. But it's a start, yes?

Be sympathetic and animated.

Do not go into society unless you make up your mind to be sympathetic, unselfish, animating, as well as animated. Society does not require mirth, but it does demand cheerfulness and unselfishness, and you must help to make and sustain cheerful conversation. The manner of conversation is as important as the matter."

The weekend is fast approaching, so be animated and enjoy it as best you can!

Jennifer