NOT OVER YET --- PLEASE

The headline says it all ! 

It's the 1st of August !

Supposed to be Winter!

Supposed to be a Winter Music Festival !!

and look at the weather for the next week

sunny - well that's OK -

but please, not 26 degrees yet !!!

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

HOORAY FOR THE GREEN !

Today I went to an Irish Morning Tea.

It was a function organised by my CWA as Ireland is the country we are studying this year.

Some people got a bit carried away with dressing up!!!

There were lots of Irish jokes

and a super feast!

Green food , of course

and tables groaning under their load of delicious food.

and this cute little gingerbread gift to take home.

No wonder I can't lose any weight!

Cheers.

HOORAY FOR ME !!

Look what I made!

I can't tell you how pleased I am .

Cheers

WHAT'S THE WORLD COMING TO ?

Get ready I'm going to RANT !

Recently my daughter bought a new car.

She works hard and loves her shiny blue car.
She's had this lovely car for 6 weeks.
Recently she was off doing a course so that she could learn a new technique to help improve her skills in caring for patients in the Intensive Care Ward of the hospital where she works.
Works at helping to save people's lives.

While on the course she left her new car parked in the hospital car park.
She presumed it would be safe there as it was "secure" - even had a "security guard"!
Left it overnight as the course was out of town........

... and when she returned this is what she found.

 She decided it was safer to park it in a nearby street in the future ....

and two days later this is what she found  !

Senseless vandalism !.....

........  huge  inconvenience and costly to get it repaired.

NOT very cheerful today !!!

BUSY SATURDAY

It's been a busy Saturday.

Off to the Food Markets early (6:30am !!!) to buy a fortnight's fruit and vegies.

Stowing all those vegies in the fridge is quite a task.

Since then I've been cooking up a storm.

The slow cooker has been on all day cooking a Beef Hotpot with lots of mushrooms and some red wine.

I've tried out a new recipe for Rhubarb Cobbler which looks and smells lovely.

Custard to go with it.

Some stewed rhubarb to go with yoghurt during the week,

...and finally a dozen Roma tomatoes have been halved and basted and are slowly drying in the oven.

Tonight " Made of Honour " is on TV.

 I've been wanting to see it ever since I found out it was filmed at beautiful Eileen Doonan Castle in

Scotland . ( I'm a landholder in Scotland , you know !!!)

This delightful castle is not far from the Skye Bridge.

We were lucky enough to visit it with Sally when we visited her while she was working in Edinburgh.

Now that I'm a landholder I'd love to return.

Love those bagpipes and men in kilts !!!

Cheers.

ENJOYING THEIR OLD AGE

When they entered their eighties my parents decided that maintaining a four bedroom house with a large garden was beginning to be too much for them.

They still wanted  a house of their own and Dad loves his garden so they decided to sell up and move into a Retirement Village in Hervey Bay.

In this village there are around 300 homes - mainly 2 bedroom but there are several with 3 bedrooms.

The amount of land around each house is small and there are no fences between houses but the gardens are lovely. The lawn is mowed and heavy work is done but residents can personalise their space or leave it to the staff. It's their choice.

With a smaller house and less garden to look after they can spend their time on other, more interesting passtimes.....

like

swimming in the pool or lounging in the hot spa

or

playing lawn bowls

or

joining in a spirited game of table tennis or billiards

or

 

meet friends to play cards, scrabble, mahjong, learn new crafts...

or just chat.

They have a fabulous meeting place they call the Grange

where daily drinks can be purchased at Happy hour and weekly dinners are held.

They have a library, gym and computer room....

and the latest inclusion in this list of occupations is this -

a community vegie garden where residents can acquire a garden plot to grow their own vegies.

It's been a roaring success - as you can see!

Small raised beds make it easy for old timers like my Dad to potter and grow lovely fresh vegies

It also provides a social focal point for the residents to chat ,swap and boast

about the quality and size of their produce.

No wonder the residents are so happy in this lovely place.

They have lovely surroundings and the company of lots of HAPPY people their own age.

Hope I can find something similar when I'm their age.

Cheers.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM

My dear Mum turned 88 last weekend.

She is the fourth eldest in a family of fourteen children!

Here she is with her 75 year old sister.

Don't they look good?

Hope you have many more happy birthdays, Mum !

PROGRESS REPORT

Just quickly letting you know that the blue tablemats are coming along well.

I've done seven now  - tops only but only one more and the table runner to go......

...then I can sandwich them together with the backs and some wadding.

I'm very pleased with them so far and they have been fun to do - not too difficult.

Let's hope I don't muck up the stitch-in-the-ditch quilting !

I'm thinking that the star design would lend itself to a Christmas set too.

Cheers.

THE PICTURE SAYS IT ALL

Yesterday the postman delivered this letter.

It's from the lovely Sue of Mrs Twins fame.

I was very impressed with the decoration around the letter.

So apt for bloggers I thought.

Friends, making contact,

...keeping in touch.....

all around the world.

Brilliant !

I might try it out for my header.

Cheers.

THAT'S MORE LIKE IT !!

Being retired has lots of bonuses and today was one of them.

The sunny Brisbane weather has returned and so with a packed lunch we set off through the western suburbs towards Mt Glorious. ( good choice of name don't you think?)

It wasn't long before we left the houses behind us and began to drive through the bush.

As we began to climb the trees got taller and closer together as we headed towards the rainforest.

It's amazing how tall and straight these trees are as they grow straight up towards the light.

In Australia our mountains are not very high.

 The highest, Mount Kosciuszko is only 2,228 metres (7,310 ft)  high .............

and they are mostly completely covered with thick bush and trees.

Today's mountain, Mt Glorious, is only a baby mountain of just over 2000 ft but as you can see it is densely covered with trees - some of it is rainforest.

The rainforest part is a National Park - set aside to preserve it in its natural state and everything in it is totally protected.

These areas are very popular recreation places for family gatherings and picnics followed by a rainforest walk.  

A section of the mountain has been cleared for picnics and there were a few others there enjoying the quiet of a mid-week picnic without the weekend crowds.

As soon as we unpacked our sandwiches this fellow appeared.

He's a Bush Turkey.

They are very common and are even found in the outer green leafy suburbs where they drive householders mad as they destroy gardens by scraping up all the mulch and leaf litter into huge mounds in which the females lay their eggs.

As they are totally protected there is not much you can do when they wreck your garden and even trapping them and taking them way out into the countryside before releasing them doesn't work as they are back

within a couple of days.

It was very tame and is obviously used to crumbs from picnicers and it wasn't long before the word was out in the bird world and we had Kurrawongs, 

Magpies

and a couple of Kookaburras descending on us in their numbers.

It felt a bit like that movie "The Birds" !

After consulting the map we opted for a short 2km circuit walk through the rainforest.

This is a Strangler Fig.

A seed, left in bird droppings high up in the host tree, germinates and the seedling sends out lots of long roots which snake towards the ground. The seedling lives off the tree till these roots reach the ground where they quickly establish themselves and the host tree is gradually squeezed out of existance.

You can still see the carcass of the original tree in the middle of all those roots.

There are palms everywhere.

as well as moss covered logs,....

......... Bird's Nest ferns high up in the trees, .....

........ lethal looking fungus, .......

......and Epyphytes ... ( we call these ones Staghorn ferns )

After a pleasant walk ( and no leeches !!!) we set off for home.

I was able to capture these views of the valley below as we came back down the mountain.

Today's maximum temperature was 25 degrees.

It's hard to beat Winter in Queensland !!

Cheers.