Nothing lasts forever these days

A couple of days ago I was taking pictures outside when the screen of my camera went pink......not a good sign according to my online research, people in camera forums were muttering things about sensors and replacement costs and not worth it and forget about it and just buy a new camera instead......much as we like living here in the Small Smoke there are a few drawbacks, one of which is the lack of a dedicated fair dinkum ridgey-didge camera shop.  There are several places where one can buy a proper camera (as distinct from a phone with a camera in it) but they are all shops which sell many other things, and I prefer to buy from a proper camera shop and talk to people who know whereof they speak.  So......an online visit to the shop where my camera was purchased some years ago, a phone chat to a nice bloke in one of their shops in Canberra, and a camera has been put aside for me to look at next week.

I shall miss my little Pentax, but at least it had the good sense to die at a convenient time when it could be easily replaced......and here are the last-ever shots taken with it:

 Recently we have noticed white eucalyptus blossoms on the ground outside our back fence, and looking upwards we saw the culprits were sulphur-crested cockatoos who were biting off the flowers and dropping them.  It seemed a shame to leave them, so I collected a few and put them in the pretty crystal bowl I won last year.  Here's a close-up for you - they have a light sweet smell, bees love them because they make delicious honey.  They look like little eyes, don't they?

 The very last pic from the dying camera - this kangaroo eventually came to within 20 feet outside our back fence, I was watching it hop around eating grass while I was sitting at my sewing machine.  Yes, they do come that close, but that was after the camera died so you will have to take my word for it!  You can also see the fallen white blossoms on the grass.

Work on the new jammies is proceeding slowly because by the time everything else gets done that needs to be done it is mid to late afternoon before I set foot in the sewing room, and sewing black thread on black fabric in fading light is not kind to ageing eyes......but it is proceeding.

A couple of days ago Kevin had his minor surgical 'procedure' and the cyst on his back is no longer there, so next Wednesday we will be hitching up the caravan and heading off to Canberra a week later than originally planned.  It's a long enough trip to need an overnight stop but we aren't trying to break any speed records, and as days are now fairly short - it's almost dark at 5pm - we will make three shorter days of driving with two overnight stops, and arrive more relaxed.  I am taking a shopping list with me......a new camera, black walking shoes, a few other things.......and of course we will spend time with out son, his wife and our grandkid, Euan the Wonder Kid, who is now six months old and growing some hair like his dad did at the same age.  He's not such a baldy bub now.

We lucky enough here in the Small Smoke to have visiting musicians from time to time, and last week Slava and Leonard Grigoryan came to town to present a concert.  We had seats in the third row from the front so I could see their magic fingers dance on their guitar strings.......oh wow......don't know whether I should practice harder or set fire to my guitars and ukes and be done with it.......and the guitars they were playing were instruments of great beauty and sounded so wonderful......sigh......

Last night we were entertained by The Admiral's Own Big Band formed from musicians who play with the Royal Australian Navy band, and great fun it was too.  Big band music is great to listen to and must have been so good to dance to, back in the days when it was 'the' music of the day - you only have to look at old films to see that, or to watch modern-day jitterbuggers!

"The music.
Four musicians are enough for a "dance".  When the dancing room is small, the flageolet is preferable to the horn, as it is less noisy and marks the time as well.  The piano and violin form the mainstay of the band; but when the rooms are large enough a larger band may be employed."

I wonder how the good folk of 1885 would have enjoyed jitterbugging to a big band?  Last night's band had 15 or 16 musicians, no violins or flageolets......but they did have a piano.

Enjoy your days!

Computer has been unwell lately

Fortunately it has been fixed and is now powering along again.  We don't realise how much we need our computers until they don't work, do we?

Last weekend the uke group played for a musical afternoon put on by a local women's service organisation, and as it was a charity fundraiser there were raffle tickets for sale.  Performers didn't have to pay admission but I bought several tickets......and won a prize!

 A gorgeous white cyclamen, isn't it pretty?  It is now sitting in its new deep blue pot next to my other cyclamen, a bright cerise one.  Did you know that in the language of flowers, giving someone a cyclamen is a gracious way of saying goodbye?

Our nerine is also blooming right now, I see by the date that this picture was taken on 1st June 2011 - but the flowers are just the same.

There have been nerines blooming further down the street for some weeks now, deep pink and white ones, so perhaps ours are slightly backward.......or perhaps they don't get as much sun because they're in the shade of the garage, while further down the street they are in dappled sunlight.  Nerines apparently stand for vulnerability, and for the freedom to be ourselves.

Sometimes a member of the Thursday night choir will bring along a treat for our caffeine break, and last week's was Chocolate Milk Fruit Cake.  Now we all know that a fruit cake made from just three ingredients - mixed dried fruit, chocolate milk, and flour - should be all wrong, don't we?  But it isn't.  The pantry contained opened packets of sultanas and Fruit Medley (an Aussie dried fruit mix), and unopened packets of dried blueberries and craisins (gussied-up dried cranberries) all of which added up to 500g so a 375g packet of mixed dried fruit was purchased, and some chopped dates and a handful of pecan pieces made up the required 1 kilo of fruit.

It's one of those "don't scoff until you have tried it" things.  Like bacon jam.  Plenty of recipes out there should you wish to try making your own, some with metric measurements and some imperial.  I used 1kg of mixed dried fruit, 600mls chocolate milk, 2 cups S.R. flour, cooked at 180 deg C in a lined 23cm (9in) square tin for 90 minutes, then left in the tin to cool.  Next time I may lower the cooking temperature a little.

Our trip to Canberra has had to be postponed by a week because a benign cyst which has been on Kevin's back since before I met him in 1971 needs to be removed, it's now discharging (I'll spare you the gruesome details) so has to be dealt with, there's no choice, but we chose our dates a couple of months ago to fit around various activities in our lives and now I will have to miss the first uke lesson next term, and miss a quilt group meeting, and miss a sewing guild meeting, because of the changed dates.  I'm sure our son and his family will be pleased to see us - they'd better be - but I can't help feeling disappointed because these are all things I enjoy doing.  I am this close (holds thumb and forefinger so close they are nearly touching) to saying "I really don't care whether I go or not".  Because now I don't.

Ah well.  Deep sigh.

The list of fabric requirements for the workshop in August has arrived and I am somewhat underwhelmed, but no doubt when I start gathering fabrics together I may get more excited.  My first thought was to use my small stash of reproduction fabrics but I have since changed my mind; there is some black and white spot in my stash left from a quilt made a few years ago which will do well for the background, and bright floral and tonal fabrics.  The original pattern uses wide ric-rac braid round the edges of some details but I don't care for that look, I'll make my own bias.

Two pair of jammies have been cut out and will be started soon - might need warm jammies in Canada in fall!  The back of my purple passion alpaca jumper is done and the front is well under way too.  I've been told that alpaca stretches and drops when knitted, it doesn't bounce back like wool, but I'll worry about that if and when it happens.  If it ends up huge you can all get into it with me and we'll keep each other warm.

Over the past couple of days we have had some very welcome rain, so much so that some local roads were closed although most are now open again.  Gardeners are happy, farmers and even happier.  Let's hope it fell in the right areas to top up dams and rivers, or we will still be in drought!  Many sporting fields are still waterlogged to be used but may be opened again by Saturday for weekend sports which are very popular here.

"Unlike the social customs of most of the nations of the old world, it is the habit in Australian homes to encourage young people to take pleasure in each other's society, as the best possible training in both the great moral code which is the guide of life, and in those minor morals of kindly courtesy which give to social intercourse all its charm."

That's good to know.

Enjoy your days!

Done!

The green top is finished!  It's a much prettier colour than this - green can be difficult to photograph well.

I wonder why this should be?  Greens in nature are easy to photograph, leaves, grasses, trees all look good - but for some reason, green fabrics look flat and dull.  This is somewhere between lime and olive.

The purple/blue passion jumper is coming on well, so far over 31cm - about 12 inches - of the back has been done.  The alpaca yarn is not bad to work with but the working edge curls like nothing I have ever experienced before, that could be because it's being knitted on a circular needle.  Ever since I discovered circulars over 20 years ago I don't knit with straight needles, circulars are so much easier on one's wrists and hands because the weight of the knitting is supported on one's lap rather on the wrists.

Winter has hit with a vengeance!  Mornings are now frosty and cold, water in the bird baths is so frozen that even a Pied Currawong missed out on its breakfast drink this morning, and the fire is burning day and night.  Frosty gardens make for a very pretty picture, but I'm not going outside in my jammies at 7 am to take a photo.

This morning I had an appointment way over on the southern edge of town - we live on the northern edge so it meant Crossing The River, something many locals seem to fear for some reason that escapes us - my knitting came along in case I had to wait, and I found out that the trip from here to there is long enough to knit two rows each way.  Another row or two while waiting made it a very productive trip!  Must get into the habit of taking the knitting every time we go somewhere.

Our trip to Canberra in a few weeks will mean even more knitting time because I can knit in the car.  I can also crochet without getting nauseous but can't sew or read; some folks can, but not me.

The uke group has another gig coming up in ten days for the women's organisation we played for recently.  We will part of a Musical Afternoon, doesn't that sound genteel?  There will be a men's choir from one of the local churches, a women's choir (the local chapter of an Australia-wide organisation), and us.  Perhaps we will be the comic relief.

In a couple of months the quilting group is having its annual weekend workshop with a visiting tutor, and this time I will be joining in.  She is making things difficult for us as she doesn't answer emails and her web page contacts don't include a phone number.  We would like to know fabric requirements in advance, I know most of us plan to use fabric from stash but in case there are any gaps we don't want to be forced into a last-minute spend.  Between now and our Canberra trip I will pull out fabrics I plan to use, any gaps can be filled from the shops there.  There are a few stash fabrics that I have in mind.......

"In receiving morning calls, it is unnecessary for a lady to lay aside any employment, not of an absorbing nature upon which she may happen to be engaged.  Embroidery, crocheting or light needle-work are perfectly in harmony with the requirements of the hour, and the lady looks much better employed than in absolute idleness."

My thoughts exactly.

Enjoy your days!

Finishing and starting

A finish to report!  The jumper which has been in the making for a while is now done, has been worn......and, I am pleased to report, is very cosy and warm.

 Colour is a deep teal with pale flecks, and the pattern came from a Classic Knits book; a plain raglan sleeved round necked jumper, but it was gussied up by the ribbing being done k2 p2 instead of the usual k1 p1.  Yarn is from Bendigo Woollen Mills, Highlands 8 ply woollen yarn, colour 'Ness', and was purchased when first released......oh......must be four, or maybe five, years ago?  There have been three previous attempts to make a cardigan with it but all were hopeless for various reasons, so I gave up and made this.  It hasn't yet been blocked, pressed or washed, but has already been worn.

The next project has been started, it will be the same pattern (I know it's unadventurous, but it's an easy make, it fits and I like it) but this yarn has been in the stash since January 2001!  It was bought in the Famous Back Room at the mills on our so far one-and-only trip to Bendigo, Victoria, and is alpaca yarn in a nicer colour than this shows - it's a rich purple-blue, which for some reason that escapes me is called 'Passion'.

The difference will be the ribbing, this is a diagonal rib pattern which came from my Mon Tricot knitting and crochet stitch dictionary (it has 1030 stitches - no, I have never counted them!) which was purchased in 1974, and to which I still refer.  With a bit of luck and knuckling-down it should be finished in time to take to Canada late in September; I'm told alpaca yarn is very warm, and it might be needed.

There is also a 'Dragonfly Wings' scarf on the needles; the pattern calls for beads to be knitted in with the lacy edge, and the choice of beads here in the Small Smoke is not good.  Truth be told, it's downright abysmal.  Next month we are heading south to Canberra to see our grandkid and his parents, and I know where there is a good bead shop there not far from a very good quilt shop.

The green top is proceeding after a minor hiccup; I was following the pattern steps (as I always do) and thought "I know what comes next" so stitched the neck facing to the neckband on the outer edge....they had already been joined on the inner edge....read ahead in the instructions and, guess what, that doesn't happen at all ever.....so the seam ripper and I renewed our acquaintance along with a few choice words, and now all is going along as it should.  It has short sleeves, so when it's finished won't be worn for months because it's not short sleeve clothing weather here now.  Not for me.  Some hardy souls let their bare skin hang out in winter, but I'm not one of them.

Now you all know that I am a genius of some note, and it was confirmed this week.  At Easter a beautiful new baritone uke came here to join my other instruments, and a suitable chord chart was found online and printed out.  Baritone ukes are strung differently to other ukes, consequently the chord positions are very different.  I didn't want to go to the expense of buying baritone copies of my uke books and thought of writing the chord charts by hand in my current books, at least three chords and up to 12 or more for each song.....but wasn't sure I would live long enough to ever finish because you have no idea how many thousands of songs are in my collection.  A little bright light went "boing" in my brain (so bright it's a wonder my brain didn't explode) and I searched online for blank chord diagrams to print out - and there they are!  Lots of them!!  Clicked on one uke forum, started to read some posts about chord diagrams, and someone wrote "or......you could buy a rubber stamp".  "Of course you could" said I to myself, and one phone call, two visits to our local office supply shop downtown, a handing over of the fantastic plastic card, and I have a blank chord grid stamp.

Now all I need is the time to stamp several of these for each song, and to write letters and dots on them......

"Washington's maxims:
Play not the peacock, looking everywhere about you to see if you be well decked, if your shoes fit well, if your stockings set neatly and clothes handsomely".

What about when one is wearing a gorgeous hand-knitted (by oneself, of course) new jumper?  I think a little peacocking is justified sometimes.

Enjoy your days!

In which we find a big spiky bum

The neighbourhood echidna has been visiting our front garden lately.

 Now you see it......

 .......and now you don't.

We don't know if it's a boy or a girl echidna, and weren't going to look either.  We're not silly.  When it thought that I and the camera had gone it would turn round, poke out its snout into the garden and burrow for ants, but as soon as I or the camera hove into sight again it flipped around and buried its head - so I'm very sorry, but the only shots I could get are of its aforementioned big spiky bum.

It's all go go go up here on the hill, folks.

Did you all have a nice Mother's Day weekend?  The day before, Saturday was my annual 29th birthday so we went for a drive to Armidale, an hour or so north, to a cat show.  Lots of lovely kitties, we could have brought several home with us......we told Bianca that if she doesn't behave, we will trade her in on a new model.  That night we also went out to dinner at a - actually, the - local French restaurant and had a wonderful meal; engraved on the portals of this house (and just about any other house I have lived in) are the words "The Mother Does Not Cook On Her Birthday".  Kevin gave me an unexpected birthday present, a beautiful brooch in a Celtic design of entwined birds made by a silversmith we know.  I have a few other pieces of his work......earrings, a pendant......and wear them often.

So now I am a year older.  I don't like getting older.  Don't give me that guff about it being better than the alternative either.  And don't say tritely "it's only a number" because the number is getting larger every year.  Scary large.  I am not liking the stuff that goes along with getting older such as health problems, and losing any claim I may once have had to a nice slender figure, and my once-gorgeous auburn hair going grey and colourless.

Sigh.

The green top has been started, so let's hope it fits!  The next quilting project will be to finish a charity quilt, and the next sewing project will be some new pyjamas from fabric in my stash.  A quilt show is held annually here in spring, and I have it in mind to finish a couple of projects for this year's.  The jumper (sweater) which was being knitted is all done, and is now being sewn together.

None of which will get done if I sit here on the computer, will it?

Tonight we will be attending a performance by the local Musical Society of "Company", a musical we haven't seen before and of which we don't know the plot, but if it up to the usual high standard of the local society - and it has a very high standard - we will enjoy it.  On another musical note (hah) some of us in the uke group played last Thursday for a local women's organisation, and the feedback was positive, they loved us and will probably ask us back.

"Deference to elderly people.
A young lady should show the same deference to an elderly lady that a gentleman does to a lady.  It may also be said that a young man should show proper deference to elderly gentlemen."

We can always hope, can't we?

Enjoy your days!

Happy birthday to me.......

.....Happy birthday to me,
Happy birthday, happy birthday,
Happy birthday to meeeeee!

Swinging from the chandelier

Although it's not quite a chandelier!  A few days ago our new shade was installed.

 It is not easy for a short person to take a picture of a light fitting, you know.

 Looking up from under, the outer row of diamonds is bevelled clear glass, next row in is patterned clear glass, inner row is opalescent glass.  Shades with coloured glass are gorgeous, but we wanted a clear/white one.

We could have bought a ready-made shade in a lighting shop, had we found one that we liked......but no.  The 1970s are back with a vengeance, folks - remember brass, copper and wooden light shades? - which is why we decided to have ours made by Linda and Mark, the lovely folks at Volcania Art Glass.  We've lived through the 70s once already, we don't need to do it again.

The block that I designed last week is done, and since this was taken it has been starched and pressed.

At least I think I designed it......there are probably similar blocks floating round out there in quiltland, because there is nothing new under the sun, is there?  I called it "Spinner" because it reminds me of those child's toys that spin round on a stick.

The green top cut out a few weeks ago is being looked at next.  The fabric has been in my stash for a few years, the pattern was bought a year or two back, but I hesitated about cutting into it because I didn't to wreck it.  Up until several years ago I could buy a pattern, cut out and make up a garment and it fit perfectly but since going through menopause, changing shape and turning into a short barrel on legs, getting clothing to fit is much more difficult.  That's why the fabric has been sitting for so long, but now it's cut out and if it doesn't fit or makes me look like the side of a house and is thrown out......why then, it's only fabric.  Even if it is beautiful green fabric and was bought on sale because it was the last of the roll and there is no more because it was a few years ago and the fabric shop has none left and it's all gone.

Ah well.  It's only fabric.

This morning we had a thick fog, and the whole valley disappeared into cloud.  Planes couldn't take off or land, so pity help those folks who were planning to take an early plane to the Big Smoke to connect with another flight.  There was a good chance they missed it.  Like many country towns in Australia, on the closest hill to this town there is a lookout which affords views over the town, over the valley and for a long long way round - but there was no view this morning.

One of the local Rotary Clubs is having its annual used book sale this week, so yesterday I bagged a few bargains....and a few more today.....the sale is on all week, so I might have to visit again before it closes.  One of the books I bought today is about some of the women - some very young, still teenagers - who sailed from Australia to England after World War II to join the English men they had met and married during the war.  Going so far from their families and friends must have been a huge step for them at a time when many people didn't go far from home.  I remember watching a documentary about Aussie women who sailed to the USA after World War II to join the husbands they had married but barely knew, and that was interesting too.  Not all of these marriages lasted, a small number of women were notified by their husbands en route not to bother continuing because they were no longer wanted and were sent back (just imagine the hurt and humiliation!), and not all the women were welcomed by their husband's family when they arrived.  England has long had a reputation of looking down its nose at 'colonials', and some of the women were made to feel this very keenly.

"If, perchance, after they have entered upon the stern realities of life, they find that they have made a mistake, that they are not well-mated, then they must accept the inevitable and endure to the end, "for better or for worse;" for only in this way can they find consolation for having found out, when too late, that they were unfitted for a life-long companionship.

'Acceptance and endurance' - doesn't sound like a good bargain to me.

Enjoy your days!