ON A MISSION

I'm on a mission to clear out the refrigerator.
We're off on holidays in a couple of day's time so we are trying to finish off the food that we have in the fridge.

So on Friday night we had roast leg of lamb.....

with roast pumpkin, potatoes, sweet potato, onions,....

cauliflower and zucchini cheese ( au gratin )

and baby peas.

Mint jelly and gravy to finish it off.

YUM !

I used all the vegetables I had so there would be some leftover veges.

Then I chopped them all up, added chopped up lamb, mint jelly and leftover gravy,
mixed them all together and made these using my trusty pie maker.

 When I had used all the shortcrust pastry, I made a couple of turnovers with some puff pastry.

That took care of Saturday and Sunday lunches and cleared the fridge.

Mission accomplished!

Cheers.

DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME

In some of the eastern states of Australia Daylight Saving Time comes to an end on Easter Sunday.

New South Wales HAS Daylight Saving, Queensland DOES NOT !

For nearly half of the year neighbouring states are on different time zones !

MADNESS !

In Queensland our longest Summer day starts about 4:30am and finishes about 7:00pm.

By 7:30 it is pitch dark - no twilight, just dark.

The weather is warm/ hot but it's dark at 7:00pm.

An hour more daylight would be good.

Families on summer holidays could use the extra daylight hour.

In Queensland we have less hours of daylight so we could use the extra hour in the evenings that moving the clock forward would give us.

What I find hard to understand is why countries with long hours of daylight need Daylight Saving Time.

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I've been in Scotland where dawn arrived at 3:30am and it was still light at 10:30pm!

I understand the desire to make use of every hour of light after a dark Winter, but who needs to be out in twilight at 10:30 -11:00pm when it's daylight again at 3:30am?

That's 19 hours of daylight !!! ( wouldn't 18 do? )

I guess mothers ( and others ) just draw the curtains and shut out the fresh Summer air to create "darkness" in order to get their kids to sleep at night.

Daylight Saving Time or Summer Time starts soon in many places all over the world.

How do you feel about Daylight Saving Time?

Cheers

FIRST CENTURY !

Helloooooo to all my friends out there in Blogland.

This is my 100th post!

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When I started my blog, I did it because I love to do stuff with computers.

My holiday photos turn into slideshows with a difference when I watch them with text and music on my TV thanks to Movie Maker.
I email my friends daily.
I dabble in Facebook.
I surf the net, chasing topics that interest me.
I research my holidays and book my flights and accommodation online.

So I made a blog with encouragement from my friend Ro.......
.... and there it sat ...
and I thought "Now what?"

Then I saw the film "Julie and Julia" and wondered how you achieved communication with  people
..... and at the same time another friend directed me to the wonderful blog  Attic24 .

Once again Ro encouraged me,...."If  you  find Attic24's day to day life interesting, perhaps others from other parts of the world will be interested in your comings and goings."

So I was off .....
and thanks to all of you out there I'm having a ball!

I have "met" a whole range of people I now call  "FRIEND".

You are the last ones I call into at night before I go to bed

and I breakfast with you every morning!

For me the world has shrunk!

Thank you for your friendship my dear Blogland friends.

Cheers

BOOK REPORT

This is apparently Joy Dettman's first published novel and I loved it.

She is an Australian writer, born in country Victoria,

who grew up in towns on either side of the Murray River.

It's not a recent publication - 2007 - but the first I've read of her work.

 According to the inside of the front cover she has several more published now.

The Queensland Times review said :

" A stunning debut; a rich engrossing read; a tale of page-turning suspense and mystery;

a post morteum of family ties;  all this and more, Mullawindy will grab you hook, line and sinker"

If you come across it grab it! I think you'll enjoy it.

Cheers

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT

As you know I am new to patchwork.
My first quilt, nearly finished, is packed in the linen cupboard.

Before I attempted it I decided to have a trial run to see if I could do it right.
You know: -
seams had to be a quarter of an inch...
sewn straight......
corners matching.

Some very dear friends have a wholesale furnishing business and they kindly gave me lots of material samples. The sort of material used in curtains and to cover furniture.
Not really the sort of material you would usually use to make a quilt.

I sorted through all of this bounty and pulled out all the pinky green pieces and went to work learning....
to cut....
and measure ....
and calculate .....
and think it through.....

and came up with this!

Want a closer look?

Oh yes, there are mistakes and I can see what I did wrong,

where I need to be careful in future,

but it also shows how easy it can be to put a whole variety of materials together and come out with something that is really rather nice.

I bought some pretty green for the border and now it is my picnic tablecloth.

I'm very happy with my little learning task.

Cheers.

CHALLENGE

I don't know about you but sometimes I can't think what to post about.

Haven't done any clever craft work,

or been anywhere interesting,

or done anything interesting.

Recently I was tripping around Blogworld, visiting friends of friends of friends

when I came upon an interesting challenge.

The challenge was to go to your My Pictures file.

Pick the fourth folder and the fourth picture in that folder and write about it.

Now of course it may be that you come across a photo that is of a person and not something you want to put on the internet. Then you might just have to pick any photo from that folder and post about it.

So that's the challenge:

The 4th photo in the 4th folder  in your My Pictures file. 

So here's mine.

This noble looking bird is a Laughing Kookaburra.

This photo was taken one morning in our Jacaranda tree.

He is a member of the Kingfisher family and a carnivore. He eats snakes , lizards, grasshoppers and such.

He's somewhat of an Australian icon and his loud cackling laugh often wakes us up in the morning if we are lucky enough to live somewhere  where there are plenty of tall trees.

The chuckling voice that gives this species its name is a common and familiar sound throughout the bird's range. The loud 'koo-koo-koo-koo-koo-kaa-kaa-kaa' is often sung in a chorus with other family members.

The Laughing Kookaburra is not really laughing when it makes its familiar call. The cackle of the Laughing Kookaburra is actually a territorial call to warn other birds to stay away.

A kookaburra kills its prey by bashing it against a perch.

Kookaburras are found predominantly in the eastern part of Australia.

Average size: 42 cm

                                                                  Average weight: 340 g

Australians love kookaburras and often feed wild birds that come to their gardens.

photos from Google

They have been known to steal meat off the BBQ!

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OK now your turn.

Will you take up the challenge?

Cheers.

A MIXED BAG

Last week I had a patchwork lesson. We made a 9 patch block.
Very basic, I know but I thought it was time I learnt the proper way instead of winging it.
Each month I will learn a new block and I have decided to make myself a set of placemats - one of each type but all using the same material to give them some unity.
So here's my WIP for this month.

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Otherwise I have been busy rounding up my clothes to take to France.

Buying Winter clothes at this time of the year is not easy but I've been trolling through the shops

 as they start to bring out the winter stuff.

It is starting to look like I have enough!!

 

Let's hope the weather doesn't warm up too much.

 I'm looking forward to some coolness !!

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While I have been visiting the shops I've finally found a bit of colourful "wool"

to use for Mrs Twins SIBOL project.

Let's hope I can get a few squares finished and posted off in the next two weeks.

Cheers.

SATURDAY PAPERS

I love the weekend newspapers, don't you?
You can take your time, sip a cuppa, do the Crosswords and Suduko without the need to hurry somewhere.
I love the Travel section especially.
We are so far from everywhere except New Zealand and I've grown up learning the history of England and Europe and always longed to go there to see it all.

At last I 'm managing to do that, I've spent a short time in Ireland and Scotland, seen some of Alaska and explored the Rockies around Jasper and  Bamff and the lovely Vancouver.

But the best holiday of all was three months exploring England -- the fantastic cities of London, Oxford, Cambridge, York and the glorious countryside of Cornwall, the Cotswolds, the Peak District, Yorkshire Dales, Lake District, Wiltshire and Kent.

So imagine my interest when I came upon this headline in the Saturday paper's Travel section.

Oh no I thought! This is what I love about England.

I look around at all the new houses here and there is a very definite change.

There used to be variety, a whole lot of different styles of house

Australian Colonial, Spanish, Square modern boxes, two storey, One storey, Mediterranean Villas.....

on and on the styles went.

Now if you drive through a new housing estate there is not that variety any more, the houses all have similar features:

square portico at the front,

one level,

shutters decorate the portico

water features,

rendered bricks painted cream, or mushroom , or taupe !!!!!

Inside is usually bare, minimalist, and cream ( or taupe, cinnamon or coffee )

Now I know a hot climate lends itself to this style...

but I love the old style - warm , welcoming, looking like a family lives there with their bits and pieces on show, their photos scattered around where they can be enjoyed,  but tidy too.

 I'll be going back to England, because I love this.

 

Well that's my rant for today!

Cheers.

AHOY DUYFKEN

When we went into the city on Wednesday this lovely little vessel sailed up the river.

It's a replica of the Duyfken, a small Dutch ship which, in 1606 sailed from the Indonesian island of Banda in search of gold and trade opportunities on the fabled island of Nova Guinea.

Under the command of Willem Janszoon, Duyfken and her crew ventured south-east.

They sailed beyond Os Papuas (Papua New Guinea)and explored and chartered part of the coast of Nova Guinea.

They did not find gold - but they did find the northern coast of a huge continent: - Australia.

 Captain Janszoon was the first European to map and record Australia in history so Duyfken's voyage marks the beginning of Australia's recorded history.

 

I think the replica is used in the tourist industry .

The ship is tiny.

I wouldn't like to sail the seas in a tiny thing like that!

Cheers

PEELING

Yuk, I'm peeling!

I don't know if you noticed in the photos, but on the first day at the beach I got sunburnt.

I know I should know better after all these years.

I should have remembered that you get worse sunburn on cloudy days.

But it was so interesting sitting there on top of the sand dunes watching the Surf Carnival that I forgot!

The races were exciting...

 

and so by the time we went back to the unit I looked like a

TOMATO!

 So now I'm itchy....

and my back and my legs are peeling

UGH!

By the way don't you love the finish line?

Cheers.

PS. Looked up peeling and found this.

Why do you peel after a sunburn?

Peeling after sunburn is your body’s way of getting rid of damaged cells. This is necessary because cells damaged by the sun are at risk of "losing control" and becoming cancer. Due to this danger, all damaged cells are instructed to commit suicide by repair mechanisms within these cells. This mass suicide of cells results in whole layers of damaged skin peeling off, to be replaced by other cells underneath those layers.
 
I told you it was yuk !

FURTHER ADVENTURES AT THE BEACH

Every morning we set off down the beach to watch the action at the Surf Carnival.

There was plenty of eye candy - even for old folks as the first day was the Masters section

Hunky old guys !!!

Well, I have to admit the younger ones were a bit more hunky !

OK I'd better get back on track !

The weather was fairly overcast but very warm and the sea was ROUGH.

so the surfboat races were very exciting.

They have crew of four rowers and a Sweep - the man who stands up at the back and tries to steer them

out of trouble with a large oar that is used as a rudder.

The rowers have an interesting way of stopping themselves slipping off the wet seats in the boat !

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You can see that there was a lot to hold our interest in the boat races!

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Back to the boat races.

So the starter fires a gun and off they go - through the surf, over churning waves till they get to calmer water and then round a couple of bouys and back through the surf again to the beach.

Sounds simple ?

But fraught with danger.

Those waves are coming through in sets of two or three or four at a time, pounding on the boats and it's a battle to keep the boats straight into the waves.

If they get the tinest bit sideways, they are in lots of trouble.

and they try to keep some distance from eachother

There are lots of spills.

Upended boats crashing around in the surf.

Heavy oars tossed around, spearing in all directions and five heads bobbing around in the waves, trying to gather oars, check to see everyone is OK then righting upturned boats and back to the race!

There is a ten minute time limit on each race and to finish you must have at least three men and oars still in the boat!

Luckily there were no serious injuries that we saw but by the third day the bruises were evident on lots of those ultra fit bodies.

and the boats had injuries too!

$25 000 down the drain !

I have put this little video we took ( only one minute ) on Youtube so you could see how exciting surfboat races are.

Cheers