Counting down......

.....not long to go now, only 11 days until we walk out our front door and start driving to Sydney!  The next day will be a very very long day, our flight leaves Sydney at 11.25am and will take 15 hours to fly to Vancouver arriving in the morning of the same day, then we hang around the airport for a couple of hours, then we get on a plane and fly to Toronto which takes four and a half hours, and we are due to arrive in Toronto at 4.16pm the same day we leave Sydney.  Isn't that something to contemplate?  I tried to work out how long our day will actually be and gave up at 39 hours, because it hurt my brain.

Here are some of our new plants, this sweet little one is Pink Myrtle (Hypocalymma augustifolium) - the new buds are pink, and they open into tiny white flowers.  It is about eight inches tall now but will grow to about three feet, won't that be pretty?

Don't you just love this one?  Eriostemon Buxifolius 'Cascade' is its name and its small white flowers open from pink buds.  It will only grow to about six inches high and is a mass of flowers and buds now.

  And just because it's so gorgeous, another pic of the Eremophila Nivea, its pale grey leaves are almost white in sunlight.  This plant is Kevin's favourite.

It will be interesting to see what difference six weeks have made to our garden, when we return.

Aren't you proud of me, the quilting on the pinwheel quilt is done!  The paper is being removed now; I draw my quilting design on tracing paper, pin it on and quilt through it, then tear it away.  Not everyone may find that a good way to quilt, but it works for me - removing the paper is a bit tedious but there are no pen marks on the quilt.  Then the edges will be trimmed and straightened, and the binding sewn on.  And a label.  Mustn't forget the label.

The next project is so far in the future that it's not even in my head.  Next year I would like to get at least two of my tops quilted, so that is something to work toward.  It costs many many dollars to have them done professionally which, being a retired Olde Pharte, I can't justify......and if someone else quilts them I won't have the opportunity to improve my machine quilting, something I would like to do.

I would rather spend a little of that money on upgrading my ukulele next year.  Recently the uke song book I ordered arrived, it has 365 songs - a song for every day of the year, if one is so minded!  There weren't many I didn't know........wonder just how many songs are tucked away in my brain?  When I was a child TV hadn't arrived in Australia but the radio was on all day, and we learnt the songs of the time, and of times past too.  In the 1960s that station played music of the 60s, and the 1950s, and the 1940s, and even further back - those songs seeped into my brain by osmosis and many of them are still there.  Even if the whole song doesn't come to mind, the chorus usually does.

"The bow is the touchstone of good breeding, and to neglect it, even to one with whom you may have a trifling difference, shows deficiency in cultivation and in the instincts of refinement.  A bow does not entail a calling acquaintance.  Its entire neglect reveals the character and training of the person; the manner of its observance reveals the very shades of breeding that exist between the ill-bred and well-bred."

The bow is something which is not practised as it used to be, is it?  How many people of your acquaintance bow when they chance to meet you in the street?  The lack of a bow doesn't show ill or good breeding - just that times have changed.

Enjoy your days!

Spring is sprung

Some spring pictures taken at a garden a little south of here.  Don't you love the different coloured leaves on these plants?

 A very pretty clematis........

 ........and a gorgeous azalea.

Our new garden is doing well and so far all plants are still alive.  Some very welcome rain last night means they are all smiling today.  Pics will be taken soon, I promise - even though the tiny size of some flowers means I may be lying on my stomach to do so.  If I can't get up again it will be your fault.

A few 'lasts' this week - last Monday night choir rehearsal, last Tuesday night ukulele group, probably last Thursday night choir tomorrow night - because they all go into recess during school holidays which start at the end of this week, and the first day of the next school term is when we leave here to begin our holiday.  In less than three weeks we will be in Canada, yay!  When we return home there will be plenty of time to take up singing and uke-ing again.

This morning was the meeting of a new local branch of the Australian Sewing Guild, and I started a tablecloth skirt because it looked like a fun project.  And it is!  Still need to attach the waistband, and overlock all the seams.....had I been properly organised I would have done that when the pieces were first cut out but never mind, it will get done in due course.......my fabric is a dull solid red cotton with a self-woven check and it suits the design well.  But it will not get finished until that challenge quilt is all quilted, labelled and bound; I want to get it out of my hair first.  All setting blocks and triangles are quilted and thread ends are in the process of being buried, or will be once I get off the computer.

While I have been diligently doing the exercises to strengthen my torn shoulder muscle the different exercises prescribed on the last visit to the physiotherapist are causing a certain amount of pain and discomfort, so I have been easing back on them.  Somehow I suspect that after our return from Canada I will be talking to the doctor about Going Under The Knife to have it mended once and for all........not looking forward to that but if it helps fix the problem it will be worth it.......even holding the folder of songs for choir practice and concerts is causing pain, and as I'm planning on living for a long while yet I would like to be as pain-free as I can.

"Yielding to one another.
One of the greatest disciplines of human life is that which teaches us to yield our wills to those who have a claim on us to do so, even in trifling, every-day affairs; the wife to the husband, children to parents, to teachers and to one another.  In cases where principle is concerned, it is, of course, necessary to be firm, which requires an exercise of moral courage."

The forthcoming holiday will be the longest time the two of us have ever spent away from home in each other's company........it could be interesting.......there may be a certain amount of yielding happening.  While we have been retired for a few years now it's easy to keep out of each other's way with our separate activities, but spending six weeks together will be different.  Ah, well - I'm sure we will have a good time, regardless.

Enjoy your days!

Life has been getting away from me lately........

This is one of the new plants in our back garden, it's an Aussie native called Eremophilia Nivea from Western Australia.  Eremophilia plants are called emu bushes because emus eat the flowers and fertilise the seeds in their gut.  We have others too; red and yellow flowered ones will attract birds, while blue and pink ones will attract insects.  The insects in their turn probably attract birds too, and so the cycle goes on.......the foliage of this bush is a pale soft grey, almost white.  It is very pretty.  And tricky to photograph on a windy day.

 When we lived in the Big Smoke we had no luck growing cyclamens, so I am giving it a go here.  So far, so good.  Perhaps the drier inland climate will suit them better, they certainly didn't like the humidity.  We've started with this pretty cerise one which is waiting patiently to be potted.

The radio station is still going ahead, I have been sitting in with a couple of announcers watching and learning as they present their programs, and when we return from our holiday I will be trained in earnest.  Looking forward to that!

Ukulele group is also going along nicely.  We're getting a little advanced now, even trying some finger picking - those of us who are game to do so, anyway.  Some of the beginners haven't progressed past strumming yet, but they will.  Fortunately the pink uke was sitting on the other side of the room so I was spared being punched in the arm again.

Quilting on the challenge quilt has temporarily halted but will resume again today.  All the setting blocks are now done, the outside setting triangles are next.  Last weekend was quite busy and took on a life of its own, or the quilting would be much further along.  On Saturday a friend and I drove two and a half hours to a quilt show in a quite small town, and had a good time, then drove two and a half hours back home.  One of the few things I miss about living here compared to the city is the lack of quilt shows within, say, an hour's drive.

Sunday afternoon was taken up with a choir concert for a local fundraising group, our concert proper is on this Sunday so we gave a shorter program.  It was a good chance to iron out a few bugs.  I have become the choir percussionist because I play tambourine, drum, and rhythm clapping for this concert of African-American gospel and spiritual songs.  The Christmas concert will have to happen without me this year, because I will only be able to make two or three practices.

It is 27 days until we start our holiday.....that's less than four weeks, yay!  Not looking forward to the long flights, but it will be worth it when we arrive and see our son and his lovely girlfriend, and our Canadian friends, again.

"Premature declaration.
It is very injudicious, not to say presumptuous, for a gentleman to make a proposal to a young lady on too brief an acquaintance.  A lady who would accept a gentleman at first sight can hardly possess the discretion needed to make a good wife."

How long should a couple be acquainted, I wonder, before a suitable time has lapsed for a proposal?

Enjoy your days!

The garden is done

And we are so pleased with it!  As you can see it still looks a bit raw, but as the plants establish themselves it will become much more finished.  The rocks which were used as a garden edging (and which looked like broken teeth) are now scattered among the plants.  The bird bath is back - the birds have been a little slow to re-discover it, but they will come back in good time - the large plant against the fence in the pic below is rosemary which we planted a couple of years ago, it's used a lot in my kitchen.

 This is a garden which will provide entertainment for the cats, as it's right outside the floor-length window where they like to sit.  The path is gravel thumped into submission with a machine called a whacker packer, so it's well packed and not loose.

 A broken pot, now a decorative plant holder, beside an interesting native grass.

 To make up for the lack of colour so far here's a little native plant which lives in a tall pot on our back verandah.  Those pea-shaped flowers are only about the size of a fingernail, and yes, they are purple and orange together.  You and I possibly wouldn't wear that colour combination, but that doesn't worry Mother Nature!  It's a plant from Western Australia which amazed our garden designer - she hadn't seen it growing here.  Considering I can kill off plants without even trying, it's doing very well.

Once the new plants flower more our garden will be very pretty.  Many Australian native flowers are quite small, some are really tiny.......their size is their defence against hot weather, as smaller leaves and flowers are better able to withstand heat than large showy flowers.

Speaking of Australian flowers, yesterday was Wattle Day.  The Golden Wattle is Australia's official floral emblem and there are many species of wattle in bloom now all over town, it's such a glorious sight!  When I was at school a thousand years ago Wattle Day was celebrated on 1st August; since then it has moved back a month, but I still think of August extending into September as a celebration of wattle.

Second week of ukulele group has come and gone, and the same folks made the trek up that steep staircase for another hour of fun and music.  The woman with the dinky pink el cheapo uke, wearing a pink shirt, and declaiming loudly that she was only there to learn to play an instrument to ward off dementia, was giving me a dose of the irrits.....perhaps when I get a little more proficient I shall upgrade my uke (not very expensive, but at least it's not pink) to something better.

The challenge quilt is coming along nicely, all the pieced blocks are quilted and the setting squares have been started.  It's beginning to look as though it may be finished soon, yay!  Much will be the relief when it's done.

The shoulder exercises are being dutifully done, even though they won't help heal the internal tear - only surgery will do that, it seems.  But exercises will strengthen the shoulder muscles, which will help it cope with the weakness of the torn tendon.  We'll see how it goes next year; perhaps opting for surgery might have to be the way to go.

"Size in relation to dress and colors.
A small person may dress in light colours which would be simply ridiculous on a person of larger proportions.  So a lady of majestic appearance should never wear white, but will be seen to the best advantage in black or dark tints.  A lady of diminutive stature is dressed in bad taste when she appears in a garment with large figures, plaids or stripes.  Neither should a lady of large proportions be seen in similar garments, because, united with her size, they give her a "loud" appearance.  Indeed, pronounced figures and broad stripes and plaids are never in perfect taste."

That makes me wonder what the good folk of 1885 would have thought of wearing a garment in the colours of my flowers - bright orange, purple and green?  Perhaps it would be considered a trifle loud.

Enjoy your days!

Not much to see yet, folks.......

........just some dirt, and some stones which used to be the edge of the garden against the fence.

 More dirt, hard-packed where pavers (now edging the new path) used to be.  You can see the feral geraniums in the corner bed.

  The new path will be curved, and won't be grassed.

The back yard in its entirety - as you can see, it's not very big.

But on the other side of the fence is a hill with trees, and kangaroos, and kookaburras and parrots and other birds.....so who needs a big yard?  The path will be gravel and the curved sections will enclose garden beds with native plants.  Some plants already in the garden will stay and there will be some lovely new ones.  The posts (one in this pic, the other in front of the small green shed in the first pic) are supports for the wash line; like many Aussies I don't own - have never owned - a drier.  Sunshine and wind for drying washing are free.

This week a ukulele group had its first meeting at the local music school, and great fun it was too.  There were 12 or 14 of us who turned up, but I am wondering how many will stick with it.  The folks who didn't have their own instrument (although the school owns some which can be borrowed), have never played an instrument before, and can't read music, seemed to find it a bit hard.  We'll see how many make the trek up that steep staircase again on Tuesday night.

On our last visit to Canada I managed to fall and break my arm which duly healed, and is pretty much right now.  But that fall also damaged my left shoulder, and scans and tests a few months later showed a torn tendon....no wonder it was hurting......so it was treated with physiotherapy and a cortisone injection, and was fine until recently.  However for several weeks now the shoulder has been painful so my doctor suggested an ultrasound, which shows that the tear has deepened.  No wonder it's hurting again.....so back to physiotherapy this week......words were said about an operation to fix the tear, but that's a last resort as far as I am concerned.  The doctor and I decided to treat it with PT and exercise, have another ultrasound in a year, and if the tear is worse then I will have the operation - the idea of Going Under The Knife fills me with dread, as does a hospital stay; it's the loss of dignity, privacy and personal space that is hard to cope with.

In 43 days we will start our holiday.

Quilting of the challenge quilt is proceeding slowly.  Very slowly........it has to be well and truly finished before we go away.......perhaps if I sat at the sewing machine rather than the computer, that might be a good start.......

"Etiquette of card playing.

Never urge any one who seems to be unwilling to play a game of cards.  They may have conscientious scruples in the matter, which must be respected.

If you have no scruples of conscience, it is not courteous to refuse, when a game cannot be made up without you."

Supposing one just does not know the card game being played, scruples or not?

Enjoy your days!

Now you see it.....

....and soon you won't.  This is a corner of our little back yard, all of which will be re-modelled this week.  The palm tree in the corner has been gone for a while and the corner bed is now home to feral geraniums.  Grass doesn't grow well in the yard because it's shaded, but there is a thriving crop of assorted weeds which do grow.  I was going to take a few pics to show you the ordinariness of it but didn't....however, you will see the new yard when it's done.  We will having things removed, and things added, and the grass will go, and there will be some new garden beds and lots of lovely native plants and a new gravel path.

We had thoughts of doing the work ourselves but decided against that, as some of it will be hard work and we are Olde Phartes.  Paving stones will be dug out and re-used, and concrete edgings will go, and the stones edging the current beds will be moved.  Some of those stones are granite probably from the hills just north of here, and even though they are not huge they are fairly heavy.  We are looking at making life easier for ourselves as we get older so making the garden low-maintenance is a good place to start.  A local horticulturalist looked at our yard and came up with a plan which we like; this week the heavy work will be done and new garden beds laid out, then next week the new plants will go in.  There will be two beds closer to the house than at present, which will make for kitty television once birds start visiting......mind you, I'm not sure that either of our cats would know what to do with a bird.  Binky was a good mouser in her younger days but as far as we know never caught a bird, while Bianca has been an indoor cat since a very young age.   They don't take much notice of birds, but a leaf blowing in the wind sends Bianca into spasms of excitement.

Quilting on the challenge quilt has been started but has been grinding very slowly.  Hopefully it will pick up this week.  The first two pieced blocks don't look too bad with quilting on them, but I had a brain snap and thought that perhaps quilting on each of those 2-1/4in pinwheels would look good.....and it would, you know......but have decided to do the rest of the quilting first, then - perhaps - all 125 of those little pinwheels will get quilted too.  One at a time, because there isn't a lot of scope for continuous lines on them.  If I don't run out of quilting oomph first.  Just the thought of having to weave in all those thread ends is enough to bring me out in a severe case of hives.........but it would look so good.......

It's been a busy week!  Thursday night choir is back - we had several weeks off because our director had to have medical matters attended to - and a local woman is starting (re-starting actually, there used to be a branch here a few years ago apparently) a branch of the Australian Sewing Guild.  Its first meeting was held during the week and will, I think, be excellent.  I am so fed up with clothing choices available in shops, once one gets to A Certain Age many of the clothes are very uninspiring, and the boutique-style shops have prices that make me gasp and styles that look as though they are trying too hard to be different with floaty bits here and asymetrical panels there.  Fine if one is very tall and reed-thin, but when one is short (5 foot two inches on a good day) and not slim any more.....sigh.....one would look and feel as though one was making a spectacle of oneself.  While one doesn't mind standing out a little from the crowd, one doesn't wish to be a figure of fun.

"Showy dress.
The glaring colors and "loud" costumes, once so common, have given place to sober grays, and browns and olives; black predominating over all.  The light, showily-trimmed dresses, which were once displayed in the streets and fashionable promenades, are now only worn in carriages.  This display of showy dress and glaring colours is generally confined to those who love ostentation rather than comfort."

Well, now......comfort before ostentation, I always say.  But brown?  Having lived through the surfeit of brown in the 1970s I'm not so sure about wearing a brown dress ever again.

Enjoy your days!

My new quilting space

So far it working well.  My Lovely New Bernina (13 years old this month and still going strong) sits in its Sew-Ezi table; the darker table behind it is a typewriter table bought more years ago than I can remember in an office supply place, it has a shelf which slides out on which ever side you need (it's out on the left side here); and the lighter table in front was bought a very very long time ago, at the time it was the latest and greatest thing to hold one's sewing machine.  Usually my overlocker sits on the dark table and my Singer Featherweight on the light one, but when the tables are needed for quilting those machines have to sit elsewhere for a while.....like the floor.

 As you can see this set up works well - the tables to the back and left hand side support the weight of the quilt nicely.  The challenge quilt is finally being quilted, it posed for you so you can see how this works.

This is my suggested colourway for the Coronation block, for my quilt group tomorrow - what do you reckon?  Dark blue with brights.  If several blocks were being made there wouldn't be any repeated fabrics, this happens when you make only one.

The k-niddling is also coming along nicely after having to buy a longer circular needle, because more than 300 stitches is a lot when crammed onto a shorter needle.  It's now been divided for the fronts, back and sleeves with one sleeve currently being worked on - 72 stitches per row is an improvement on 300, let me tell you.

This week we have really been back in the depths of winter, with heavy frosts and a cold wind.  Towns barely an hour away had snow.  Today is sunny, and the wind isn't so strong or cold, for which we are thankful - but it's quite dry, some rain would be very welcome.  We have both noticed our skin is drier since moving here so I for one am making sure that vitamin E lotion is daily applied to lots of me, even the bits that never see daylight.

Some family history stuff: recently I found out that one could apply for divorce records online, so I applied for a copy of the record of my maternal grandmother's divorce from her first husband in 1923.  It must have been a deep scandal in those days.  The divorce was instigated by her husband on the grounds that she had been absent for at least three years, and the decree nisi was granted in April 1923 with the proviso sternly stated "If you marry before this decree is final you will be committing bigamy".  No beating about the bush there!  The decree absolute came through in 1928.  However in September 1923 she married my grandfather - no doubt my mother's birth seven months afterwards provided a reason - but I am now wondering, was that a bigamous marriage?  And if so, does that make my mother and her brother illegitimate?  Skeletons in the family cupboard!  Yesterday was open day at the local family history centre but the lovely folks there couldn't shed further light on the matter, except to agree with me that yes, her second marriage was probably bigamous.  Perhaps if I took the papers to the local court house, there might be someone more versed in legal matters than I am who could tell me.

57 days until we start our holiday.  Better get cracking on that sewing, hadn't I?

"Intruding on privacy.
Never enter a private room anywhere without knocking.  Sacredly respect the private property of others, and let no curiosity tempt you to pry into letters, desks, packets, trunks, or other belongings of another.  It is ill-mannered to read a written paper lying upon a table or desk; whatever it may be, it is certainly no business of yours.  No person should ever look over the shoulder of another who is reading or writing.  You must not question a servant or child upon family affairs.  Never betray an implied confidence, even if you have not been bound to secrecy."

Does digging into one's family history constitute an intrusion on privacy - bringing to light matters which have been hidden for years, or indeed never known at all?

Enjoy your days!