It's now the middle of April!

We're back, as you can see!  We had a good holiday; the Canberra family is well and happy, Young Euan is growing like you wouldn't believe and leading his parents a merry dance while his grandparents sit back and chuckle remembering the days when his parents did similar things,  the folk festival was fun (although it would have been much more funner had I not succumbed to a bad dose of hay fever), no new instruments came home with me although I had a play of a beautiful small-body guitar which I still covet enormously, and the chocolate shops in Canberra still have some stock left.

The weather was surprisingly hot, dry and sunny.....a bit too hot and sunny for comfort most days.....Easter in Canberra is supposed to be autumn colours, mild days and cool nights.  Not so, this year.  Don't be fooled by the greens in the picture below, everywhere else was very dry.

 More like these two pics show.

 We discovered the new-to-us lookout at Red Hill last year and were most impressed!  This year we had lunch at the cafe overlooking Canberra, and a very nice lunch it was too.

Some brave locals were traipsing up and down the somewhat steep hill for their daily constitutional.  Hardy folk, those Canberrans.

We also went to the jewellery exhibition.....well, what can I say......those trinkets were mostly very gorgeous although there were some I didn't care for, the tutti frutti pieces among them.  There is just too much going on in those pieces.  I have never cared much for diamonds but after seeing some - not all, mind you! - of the diamond pieces on display I can see the attraction of a wall of shimmer on one's bosom or head; every time one moved one would sparkle and dazzle.  My favourite - even though it's not green! - is this pretty little tiara; compared to some of the jewellery on display it was fairly modest, but was quite sweet and I loved it.  Just the same, the green baubles were all rather lovely and I could have brought any of them home with me.

But I didn't.  Law abiding Jennifer, that's me.

Now we are back home and settling in the next Big Trip will be to Canada in early October......and the months won't take long to fly by, if the last few are an indication.  However, the Canadian government has now decided that Aussies travelling to Canada have to fill out and lodge a visa waiver form thingy which we have duly successfully done, but imagine our surprise when we found out, upon completion, that each form is costing us $127!!  Geez!!  That's $254 less to spend on maple syrup and fabric, you know......never had to do that in the past and we have visited Canada five times......sorry Canada, I love youse all but that's a bit rude......

Oh well.  If we want to see our boy we have no choice, and it's already paid.

My quilt is waiting to be bound, it is quilted with a design of oak leaves which suit the autumn colours.  The binding is made and pressed, still need to design a label but that will be done soon.  Something with an oak leaf or two, perhaps.  Then, hopefully before you know it, the whole thing will be all finished, done and completed!  Yay!

"Cleansing gold jewellery.
Gold ornaments may be kept bright and clean with soap and warm water, scrubbing them well with a soft nail-brush.  They may be dried in sawdust of boxwood.  Imitation jewellery may be treated in the same way."

I wonder if that method would be used on a diamond tiara?  And I wonder if one can buy sawdust of only one particular species?

Enjoy your days!

It's baaaack.......

Just when we thought the heat of summer had gone - it has returned!  We're having what the weather people call a 'mini heatwave' for a few days.   We still have to survive today and tomorrow and it should start to ease on Wednesday, just in time for when we head off in the caravan.....and we will be going south where it's cooler anyway, so that's all right.

Hot weather at this time of year isn't unusual, however.  Tomorrow is our wedding anniversary (42 years with the same bloke, I'm not sure which one of us deserves the bigger medal) and the day we married was very hot.  The heat stayed around for a few more days, but by the next weekend the weather had broken and summer was finally gone.  Fingers crossed that's what happens here, too.

Any sore heads from yesterday, St Patrick's Day?  We were very circumspect here, no leprechauns made their way into the Chateau des Wombats, just a little diddly-i music.

It was also International Quilting Day, did you know that?  I cut out fabric (some of which is green, thereby tying together both celebrations......you get value for money here, folks) and stitched a little, but no actual 'quilting' stitches were made.  If one doesn't actually 'quilt' on International Quilting Day, does this make one a failure as a quilter?

My quilt backing has been made, those two seams were quick to sew and trimming that humungous piece of fabric didn't take long either.  It has gone off to the quilter, and will be collected when we return from our jaunt down south in the middle of next month.  There are quilt shops down south, you know.....there is also a big music shop......

When in Canberra we often take in an exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia, or the National Library, or visit a chocolate shop - much as we love living here in the Small Smoke it is sadly lacking in chocolate shops - in short, we try to enjoy experiences we can't have here.  To this end we have booked tickets to an exhibition opening at Easter at the National Gallery of Australia, and you will all wish you were coming with us because it's Cartier trinkets and baubles, bangles and beads. 

I reckon every woman who attends should be given a little souvenir of her visit to take home and enjoy wearing.  I'll have an emerald trinket, thank you.....but not that one with the crocodiddlies.  I don't do reptiles, even if they're emerald reptiles.  The aquamarine tiara is pretty too, I could wear that shopping; after all, what's the point of having baubles like these if you never wear them?  A tiara would be the very thing for sashaying round the supermarket, yes?  Most of all I'm very partial to the necklace with the honking great emerald, it would sit nicely with the green strap on my tenor ukulele.

"To keep the hair from turning grey.
Take the hulls of butternuts, about four ounces, and infuse in a quart of water, and to this add half an ounce of copperas.  Apply with a soft brush every two or three days. This preparation is harmless, and is far better than those dyes made of nitrate of silver."

Copperas is also known as iron sulphate.  I always thought hair turning grey to be a natural process of aging so there isn't much can be done about it; one can refuse to accept it and dye the heck out of their hair, or one can just shrug one's shoulders and accept it.  I have done both, and for several years now have been shrugging for all I'm worth.  Surprisingly, considering my advancing age, my hair still has a lot of its natural colour although there is getting to be more grey with every passing year.  I can accept the grey but will not go for the Old Lady Chop, so it's still long.....an aging born-again hippy, that's me.

We'll be back in the middle of April.

Enjoy your days!

In which we revisit an old friend

A goal this year is to get a couple of my quilt tops finished, so this one has been taken from the Black Hole Where Quilt Tops Reside along with the backing pieces, one pieced strip (already done) (been done for a couple of years, actually) and two plain strips for the sides.  That is only two long seams.  I can do that.  Then there will need to be some trimming along the sides because it will be way heaps too wide.  I can do that, too.  Then......it can go off to be quilted!

If I get myself into gear and if the quilter can fit it in, it may even be able to be dropped off for quilting before we go away in ten day's time.  Binding will be the same brown print as the inner border.  I love this quilt, it really says "autumn " to me, so perhaps its name may be "Falling into/through Autumn" or something equally witty.

Aussies will recognise these handsome birds, our Aussie magpies.  Last breeding season seems to have been a good one so there are a lot of young birds around, and I have started to make friends by giving them an occasional treat of beef mince.

 Now, as soon as I step into our back yard, they come flying down to see me and sing to me.

 Probably saying to each other "here she comes, the sucker's on her way......"

 They are all slightly different but I am still learning to tell them apart, however the bird on the right in this pic and on the fence above is distinctive because it only has one foot.  It has a full left leg and foot, but the right leg ends at what I imagine would be its knee.  It can fly as well as the other birds, but sometimes its landings aren't very graceful.  We have named it 'Hopalong'.

Had this feller all lined up for the prize-winning shot, and blow me down if it didn't turn away just as I pressed the button.  Obviously camera shy, I sympathise.

In Australia we aren't encouraged to feed native birds, it's preferred that they forage for their own food and not become dependent on humans, but a lot of people do.  During the spring breeding season, August to October/November, magpies can be very territorial if anyone walks near their nesting tree and they may fly down and 'swoop' the person.  I've been swooped, it's quite scary - the clacking beak and the flapping wings from out of nowhere, then the peck on the head which drew blood.  However magpies are very intelligent; tests have shown that they can recognise faces (they certainly recognise mine when it's mince time) so humans within their breeding area are often regarded as 'family' and won't be attacked, the reason I am making friends by feeding them occasionally.  But - should you chase or annoy a magpie it will never forget that, and you will be swooped for ever more!  They don't, as a rule, like anyone on bicycles, our younger son was chased and pecked while riding his bike as a teenager in the Big Smoke.

As you can also see from these pics, we have had a little rain - the hill is green!  The grass isn't very long, but at least it's green!  The air has changed, too.....the heat of summer is nearly all gone, and there is a feeling of autumn in the air.  Nights and mornings are cooler, trees are getting ready to change, leaves are losing their bright green, and I have even spied the occasional yellow leaf.  Probably stressed from the hot dry summer, like the rest of us.

Plans are coming along nicely for our trip to Canada in October.  Plans are also proceeding well for the annual trip to Canberra for the National Folk Festival and to see our son and his family; Young Euan turned three just before Christmas, so I imagine he will have grown quite a lot since we saw him last year. 

"Be careful always to dry the hands thoroughly, and rub them briskly for some time afterward.  When this is not sufficiently attended to in cold weather, the hands chap and crack.  When this occurs, rub a few drops of honey over them when dry, or anoint them with cold cream or glycerine before going to bed."

Honey?  Surely that would just make the hands sticky, not soft and youthful?  I'll reserve judgement on that hint, but do let me know if you try it.

Enjoy your days!

In which we are making Plans

The main Plan is - we have booked our plane tickets to Canada in October, woo hoo!  That will give me several months to psych myself up for those loooong flights surrounded by 300 of our new best friends and 97 crying babies......

I am so happy to be going.  We need to see our boy again after his health issues - he's doing very well now, but it has been an anxious time for us all.  Even though he's now 39 years old, he's still our boy.

So.....we will be able to see sights like these again......

 .......because it will be autumn!

 We think we're doing well here to see a dozen trees in autumn foliage, so for us a whole hillside in fall colours is a glorious sight.

I am already drooling at the very thought!

Unfortunately the convenient self-contained unit we have stayed in on our previous visits to Toronto is no longer available, it has been sold.  Bummer......it was in a great spot not far from our son, far enough away that we all had our privacy but close enough that we could spend time together; their sometimes unsociable work hours weren't disturbed by our comings and goings.  However we have found another place just a couple of streets away that may be suitable, so we will enquire about bookings in the next day or so.

On another note, yesterday My Lovely New Bernina was used for the first time since the flood - and it still works, isn't that good?  Not to make anything exciting, though, just fulfilling a BOM obligation for my quilt group.  I really really don't like fiddly-diddly cutesy-woo applique.....little teeny tiny bird beaks and legs......the foot stool and  thick books which helped make the foot pedal and left foot a comfortable height were casualties of the flood, so I shall keep an eye out for replacements.

Some boxes have been unpacked, the house is slowly coming together.  Kevin is going to make replacement book shelves; we can't buy what we want, so that is the best option.  Once the cooler weather arrives we will feel more like the physical work involved in unpacking, sorting and culling - and there will be culling.  Maybe even a few books will be culled - now, that will be difficult.

We have had some rain!  Not a lot, but after such a dry summer we will take whatever we can get.  More is forecast, possibly even later today - we can but live in hope, clouds outside are getting quite dark already.

"Prompt payment of bills.
If an account is presented to you for payment, you should, if it is correct, pay it as promptly as though it were a promissory note at the bank already due.  The party who presents the bill may be in need of money, and should receive what is his due when he demands it, but some houses in a large way of business pay on special days of the week, and this is a good plan."

We have already paid for our plane tickets, does that count as prompt payment?

Enjoy your days!

Slowly but surely

That's us, putting the house back together.  Slow, but sure.  You know, this is worse than moving house;  at least when you move you have cupboards and furniture and big stuff which is placed where it needs to go in whichever rooms it needs to be in, then you unpack your boxes of small stuff into said cupboards, and everything is just fine and dandy.

We are shuffling furniture around, and moving stuff, and trying to work out how to fit a larger cupboard's worth of stuff into a smaller cupboards because the larger ones aren't made any more.  Moving house six hours away wasn't this difficult, you know.

Ten days ago the furniture and most of the packed boxes were brought from the garage into the house so now the car can be parked out of the hot sun, something for which, considering the heatwave conditions we have been struggling with for weeks, we are very thankful.

In recent times the population of galahs on the hill behind us has boomed, it must have been a good season for babies!   A few youngsters sitting on our fence, the babies are slimmer than the adults and the colours aren't as bright.

A few of the flock foraging, but as you can see the drought is bad and there's not much of anything to be found.

 A visiting teenager, with some of the flock behind.  Young ones don't have the head crests that adult birds have, either.

I like galahs.  They can be very noisy, raucous even, but they can be very funny birds.  My grandparents had a caged galah when I was a child, goodness knows how old it was....they can live to extraordinary ages in captivity.  They possibly could in the wild too, but how would you know?  One galah in a flock looks much the same as its feathered friend flying alongside.

Yesterday a local guitarist checked out my guitars for water damage, and they are all right.  I am so relieved, you can't begin to know how much, a weight has been lifted from my shoulders; new strings (to be purchased early next week, the spare sets in the cases will be thrown out because they have probably rusted) and they should be good to go......or hot to trot, as once would have been said.

We decided, while we're throwing money around like it's going out of style, to get rid of our dining room table and chairs.  The buffet had to be chucked after the flood....sigh......and trying to buy something which looked good with the table and chairs, with the limited choice available in a country town, had us scratching our heads.  I never loved that setting although I didn't hate it; when we bought it Kevin liked it more than I did, but now it's gone gone gone, collected by a local charity shop a couple of days ago.  New table, chairs, buffet and coffee table will be delivered on Monday.

As I said, slowly but surely.

A few tumblers have been joined, but I am trying to hasten slowly with them although they are very quick to join.  We are planning a trip to Canada later in the year, and I will need a take-along project, so that will be It.  Work has started on another project involving hand work, but no pics yet as it's to be a surprise for its recipient.  Hopefully it will be finished when it needs to be......no guarantees here though, folks. 

"Parents who indulge in gossip, scandal, slander and tale-telling, will rear children possessing the same tastes and deteriorating habits.  A parent's example outlines the child's character.  It sinks down deep into his heart, and influences his whole life for good or for evil.  A parent should carefully avoid speaking evil of others, and should never exhibit faults requiring the mantle of charity to cover.  A parent's example should be such as to excite an abhorrence of evil-speaking, of tattling, and of uncharitable construction of the motives of others.  Let the mother begin the proper training of her children in early life, and she will be able to so mould their characters that not only will they acquire the habit of bridling the tongue, but they will learn to avoid the presence of the slanderer as they do a deadly viper."

Yes.  Much gossip and slander is currently being spoken about our local Member of Parliament, and much of it is true......the wife and four daughters are an established fact, as is the mistress and her expected baby.  There is more, much more, the whiff of corruption is strong, and it is all true.  Who knows where it will end?

Enjoy your days!

We have carpet!

Everywhere in the house which should have carpet now does.....bedrooms, family room, hallway, and good room.  (Anyone else have a 'good room' in their house when they were growing up?  We did; back in those days children were told 'stay out of the good room' because it was kept pristine in case of visitors.  The rest of the house could be a total pig sty but our parents - mostly our mothers - made sure that one room was fit for the odd guest.  We were then allowed in under sufferance.)

We like our carpet choice much better than our pick last time, and much more betterer than the carpet which was here when we moved in.  Now we look around and see our choice of carpet, our choice of tiles and our choice of wall colour (although those pink pink walls we inherited still give me goosebumps at the very thought).  The fussy frilly curtains and pink blinds were also replaced a few years ago by our choice of slightly textured cream blinds and no curtains, and now the rooms are a restful unfussy very-slightly-buttery light cream.

Sigh of contentment......

Packing, unpacking and sorting has commenced in the sewing/stash room.  The plan is to be totally ruthless and only keep anything I like and hope - I nearly wrote intend, but I may not live that long - to use.  Under the window is now a set of cubbies with a shelf top, four spaces across by two down, replacing a larger desk which had become "somewhere to dump stuff".  The two new cupboards are smaller than the cupboards they are replacing so that will leave me with more floor space for moving around.

Consequently the camera hasn't seen the light of day this week, so there are no new photos for you!  However do not despair, to counteract the fierce heat which has been making our lives miserable for the past few weeks here is a colourful foretaste of autumn.  Only a couple of months now.....

This was taken with the late afternoon sun shining through the trees.  I can't identify these trees for you, I'm sorry!  Perhaps the Canadians will know; I can recognise most of the garden flowers we have seen on our visits but the trees have me stumped.  Except maple.  I can usually identify maple trees.

 The evergreens with deep gold in front, then bare trees......I love it.

 On a rainy day, our last day in Toronto before we flew to B.C.  The suite where we have always stayed and where this was taken has been sold, quelle horreur!  We will have to look for somewhere else as convenient.  Those blue spruce trees are so pretty.....we don't have them here.

Only a couple of months to go.....fortunately it has cooled down for a week or so, and we are relishing the chance to enjoy temperatures lower than average for a while.   It will, sadly, warm up again by the end of next week.

The home renno TV channel sometimes shows people house hunting and/or renovating in Canada or U.S.A. during autumn, and the colours are soooo glorious.  We like renno porn.

A few more tumblers have been joined, and a few more cut.  Currently the total stands at 366 cut, leaving 474 still to be done.  Better get cracking......

"Unmarried ladies should not accept presents from gentlemen who are neither related nor engaged to them, nor indebted to them for some marked favors.  A married lady may accept presents from a gentleman who is indebted to her for hospitality."

I wonder if this still holds true?  In my giddy youth the implication was, if one accepted a present from a bloke to whom she was neither related or engaged, she was under an obligation to repay "in kind"......and I'm sure I don't need to spell out to you what that means.

Enjoy your days!

Australia Day

The annual celebration of all things Aussie!  It's also Robert Burns' birthday, for those of you who - like myself - have Scottish blood flowing through your veins.

Each year the "we should change the date of Australia Day" voices grow louder.  On 26th January 1788 the First Fleet dropped anchor in what is now Sydney, and modern Australia has grown from that event.  The native aboriginal people didn't always come off well in encounters with the new settlers and vice versa.  There is documented evidence of Dutch visits to Australia's shores in the early 1600s, even an attempt at settlement from shipwrecks, but until 1788 it remained the land of those born here.

Some parts of Australia think of Australia Day as being a celebration for the east coast only and for Sydney in particular, but I think that's a bit simplistic.  That early rag-tag settlement of convicts, guards, marines/soldiers and a few settlers grew and in time spread over as much of the inhabitable land as it could, for good or ill.  Many people now look on 26th January as "invasion day" but European settlement in this land was inevitable; a French ship landed only two days after the First Fleet, so who knows......we may have all been parlez-vousing instead of speaking English!

Incidentally, here's a snippet of historical trivia for you:  That French expedition was captained by Jean François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse, who was shipwrecked and didn't make it back to Europe.  A promising young cadet, a skilled navigator, was to have sailed with him but decided to go into the army instead of the navy, and stayed in France.  His name was Napoleon Bonaparte.....the course of European history would have been very different, had he sailed.

We will have carpet next week!  The carpet-laying blokes are coming on Monday morning and my sewing stash room is still not yet packed.   A new cupboard was bought to replace the one in my machine sewing room but it's smaller than the old one (which was pretty old, let me tell you; it came up from Sydney with us, as did the two in the other room) and shelves are shallower.  Consequently some of the baskets holding my stash won't fit, they are now too deep.  The new way of thinking is obviously "we won't raise the price, we'll just make the cupboard smaller".  Because of the harsh Aussie sun fading fabrics left uncovered I prefer to have my stash behind closed doors, so there will need to be some re-jigging of shelves to help that happen.

News from the slowly-coming-together sewing room, the second hexie rosette is done.

 All that red makes you feel hot, doesn't it?  From here the pin cushion is assembled by machine, and I haven't sat at a machine for months.  Let's hope I still remember how to use one.

Three units of four tumblers each.  In order to mix up the fabrics as much as possible I thought to join them in pairs then in fours, light-dark-light-dark.  I think I'm going to like this even though it's very different to my usual taste.....or, perhaps, because it is different.  Been a bit slack on the tumbler-cutting front lately because of the heat, but that is supposed to ease during the coming week.....it can't come soon enough for me.

Our summers have usually been fairly warm, a period of warm to hot days followed by a cooling down period, perhaps some rain, then it heats up again and the cycle continues.  This summer, however, started hot and hasn't cooled much at all; nights have been a bit too warm for restful sleep which makes it hard to spring into life each morning.  By the time I start springing it's well into the day......clouds are building up as we speak, and showers/thunderstorms are forecast.  Rain would be very welcome, everywhere is dry and brown.  You can tell which people water their lawns.....

Our gospel ukulele gigs went off well!  Sundays breakfast at a small church was very well received, and earlier in the week we had also been asked to play at the gospel tent which is part of the annual huge big country music festival.  We did so, but geez......it's difficult playing an outdoor gig with not enough microphones and dust billowing around.  Never give a bloke a leaf blower......one of the people connected with the tent took it upon himself to clean the "floor" while we were setting up and he blew all the dust our way.  With one voice we all yelled "hey!"  Oh sorry, he said, but by then he had stirred up quite a lot of fine dust which was very slow to settle.  Never mind, we soldiered on womanfully but were glad to finish.

"Receptions at Government House.
Stated receptions are given at Government House by the Governor, and all are at liberty to attend them.  Sometimes these are morning, and sometimes evening, receptions.  Upon entering the reception-room, the caller gives his name to the attendant, who announces it, and upon approaching the Governor, is introduced, by some official to whom the duty is assigned, both to the Governor and to the members of his family who receive with him.  The callers pass on, after being introduced, mingle in social intercourse and view the various rooms until ready to depart.  A caller must leave his card."

No doubt these receptions were accompanied by soft tasteful music......don't you think a ukulele ensemble would liven them up a bit?

Enjoy your days!