FEEDING THE BIRDS

Recently I showed you photos of my attempt to feed Lorikeets, my favourite birds.
Australia has millions of them and often places that tourists visit, feed them.
This can be quite a spectacle when thousands of birds descend on the bird feeders.

At the moment there are lots visiting my garden to feed on nectar from the grevilleas that are flowering there.

So Tony has made me a bird feeder - a good sturdy one as I'm hoping they will eventually come in large numbers.

It's right down at the bottom of the garden on the second terrace.

Tony pruned the garden a few months ago  - with a chain saw !! - so we have a lot fewer flowers from the grevilleas than usual.

especially up here on the top terrace.


The new feeder is down among the bigger plants which were trimmed earlier and have recovered enough to flower quite well.





It hasn't taken long for the birds to find the new feeding spot.




Of course they are very wild and spook easily at the moment so I'm taking the photos from inside with my fantastic new zoom.

They make quite a racket. Screech and chatter and tell eachother off the whole time.

 

 These are all Rainbow Lorikeets - easy to see where they get their names

especially when you can see the colours under their wings.


Higher up on the first terrace we have a bird bath which, until now, has been completely ignored
 

 

It is fairly exposed at the moment while the grevilleas are so small but this morning I was so pleased to see a Lorikeet taking a bath. 

 

It was having a great time diving right under and splashing away

 

and was very wet by the time it was finished.

 

 

Hope it tells all its buddies about the great birdbath it found.

 

Cheers.

WHAT'S GOING ON ?

I don't know what's going on.

I guess that it's just that cool weather energises me.

You know how I absolutely hate housework

but .....

I seem to have caught the cleaning bug and it's not even Spring !

I've even polished the silver !

Cheers.

BEDROOM PROJECT - GETTING THERE

 

OFF TO A GOOD START

One of the things on my "to do " list for this year ( number 8 in fact ) is to finish decorating my bedroom.
On my recent visits to my local shopping centre I've noticed lots of black and white photos of the Eifel Tower in the homeware stores and I really like them.

So off home I trotted to look at the photos we had taken on our visit to Paris, my favourite city in the world.

After a bit of fiddling using Picasa I have come up with these :



Black and white with a hint of blue.

We sent away to have them printed up as large as possible without being poster size - about 11inches  by 14 inches.

The top two have come back and look terrific and I purchased one plain white frame to see how it would look.

I'm absolutely thrilled with it.

I'm going a little French Provincial-ish and I think three of these above my bed will be terrific.
So we're off tomorrow to buy some matching frames and have the next two printed up.

On the outside wall with the window I have a lovely little item that my talented friend Lynnie made for me at Christmas.

It's made of buttons covered with pieces of material from my quilt.

Isn't that a cute idea?

So here we are at the end of January and I'm actually achieving something.

I'm on the way with number 8 and have accomplished number 2 ( learning to take movies with my phone ) !

I'm really pleased !

Cheers.

A LITTLE CRAFT PROJECT

This sad old tissue box cover has to go.

It's old and grubby ( you can see how grubby when you are up close )

and falling apart.

The colour scheme doesn't really fit into this house either.

So, with this piece of material left over from the cushions in the family room, I set about making a new one.

Wadding first, then cut out the material to fit an old tissue box.

A bit of craft glue and some pegs to hold it till it dries.

Cut the hole in the top and glue it down, some binding to finish it off and ...

Voila !!

Another project finished !

Cheers.

FINALLY FINISHED !

In my dining room I have a bookshelf where I have made a display of blue plates.

Not expensive ones but quite pretty all the same.

So when I had to choose a project while learning some new ( to me !) quilting blocks I decided to make some table mats to match the plates.

You know, I've been doing them for months - one tablemat a month !

Well this week I've been working hard on them and...

I'm finished !

So here's the big "Ta -da !"

Need a closer look?

There's even a little table runner for the centre.

It all reflects in the mirror, you see?

I'm quite pleased with them.

Cheers.

CROSS ANOTHER JOB OFF THE LIST

Friday morning saw us off to the Gold Coast where our daughter lives, to help out with her renovation.
Her new kitchen had been waiting quite a long time to have its final touch - splashback tiles.
This is a job we'd been putting off - never done tiling before -

so we enlisted the help of Aunty Roe - Tony's sister.

She's a bit of an expert!

Between them the tiles went up quite quickly.

Expert cutting to finish the top row.

 Ta dah !

Cheers

PROBLEMS OVERCOME AND A TA-DA

After an enormous amount of trouble changing my header tonight I have finally fixed it via Tony's computer.

I can't work out what the problem is but it could just be that my computer is fast reaching the end of its capabilities and I NEED a new computer !!!

Finally tonight I bring you my big TA-DA.

Yes, my quilt is finally completed !!

Yah !!

Here it is.......

It has now taken up residence in my bedroom.......

where it looks very pretty.

Now I just have to finish the other pillowcase!

Cheers. 

BONUS

One of the bonuses about winter is that a lot of Australian Native plants begin to flower and as our back garden has quite a few of them it looks great.

A lot of our native plants have flowers that are shaped like this

and they're full of  honey.

 

So if you have flowers...

and honey....

you have birds that LOVE honey.

 Cheers

ps. Sorry about the misty photos. It was raining !

pps. The tarts tasted better than they looked !!!      

I HATE HOUSEWORK !!!

This is not news to me.

I've known for years that I hate housework.

It's never-ending, boring, you get hot doing it and when everything is clean and tidy ......

it all gets mucked up and dirty AGAIN !

I've just spent the morning cleaning shutters and blinds. YUK !

Shutters are not too bad and fairly easy to clean ...

and I love the look of them ...

but the window tracks ! ... YUK !!

Dead flies and other tiny insects, spiders and dirt ! YUK !

Then there's the Venetian blinds.. YUK!  YUK!  YUK!

Soooooooo  awkward to clean and sooooo dusty and dirty .

Well it's all done now.

I'm all hot and bothered.

It's time for a little of this.

 Yes that's Weight Watchers' Carrot Cake ...

 and coffee in my moose mug, a souvenir from my holiday in Canada.

( wish I was there now for the Olympics !)

Hope your morning was better than mine.

Cheers.

PS.      These just arrived in an email. How apt !!