winners are grinners

generally the mail does not bring us much joy these days, its usually bills, bills and more bills, especially now that we are on a self imposed ban from ebay. So you can imagine our surprise with the receipt of a letter congratulating us on winning the Gardening Australia Festival Grand Prize. This generous gift was bestowed on us for taking out a Gardening Australia Magazine subscription. Our prize???? A 323L Husqvarna Trimmer and edger attachment.

When we have tamed the backyard with of course these new pieces of equipment we will be creating the following vege patch and arbor, both exhibits at the Gardening Australia Festival.

vege patch

arbor

Peter Cundell you're my hero! We'll be back again next year to renew our subscription, and could you make the prize either a blower or mulcher this time, I think we're on a lucky roll now.

circus

circus

The circus is in town, well at the local park, which is 2 minutes walk from our place. B and I took Macc for a walk to check it out, but there wasn't really anything to see, just the big tent and lots of caravans, no elephants, ponies or anything, oh well, it was a nice evening for a walk.

ssssunday

this blog presentation is brought to you with a 's' theme happening...

Officially the day commenced with swearing as at 12.01am and mid-view, we discovered we had hired a rather scratched copy of Spanglish.

With six/seven hours sleep we woke to light shower of rain and so took the opportunity to plant out the plants purchased yesterday at the Indian Bazaar, which saw us get totally soaked. Breakfast (raisin toast & a cup of tea). Phonecall to A, and an invite to join us on a Sunday drive, (she might as well have stayed the night) and the 'S' theme was offically born....

Spear....
First stop was a trip to the buddha belly. I had in my mind a way to hang some of the smaller framed pictures down our hallway, without having to put up a heap of picture hooks. I could get one of those timber rods with the carved ends from Bali used to hang quilts, this would require just two hooks to hold the rod, and I could hang the pictures from that, it would be something like a picture rail. With three in stock, a purchase was made of a 3 metre rail that, on the walk back to the car was dubbed the spear.

Seafood....
Next stop was Newport for fish and chips. Unfortunately the seafood shop we had travelled to visit was no longer. Instead it was fish and chips at a seafood takeaway chain. Not quite to the standard of the old fashioned one that has been levelled to the ground.

Sink or Swim....
To get to the nursery at Glenorie we took the scenic route which required a trip on the car ferry.

Ferry View

Nice House

Snake....
Shortly after we got off the car ferry, and still following the 4wd towing a trailler that had also been on the trip across Berowra Waters, we came to a stop. A snake was making its way across the road - we think it was Diamond Python.

an evening of art

commencing my 5 day weekend was an evening of art with mum and the littlest sister. The Art Gallery of NSW is open late on a Wednesday which was perfect for us girls to view the Margaret Preston exhibition. Her woodcuts and still life's/bowls of flowers have been a favourite of mine for as long as I can remember and have inspired my limited art collection.

A couple of my favourites from the exhibition were not however, related to flowers and included noah's ark, Christ turning water into wine (for no religious reason, they just made me laugh), and a still life of fish.

B has agreed to get me the catalogue, so when he does I will upload the pictures.

nephews

I have the most beautiful nephew, introduced on this blog in May 2005, as William Zachery, now known as William Thomas.


This weekend was little Will's Baptism. Here he is resplendent in the christening gown that mum got when I was christened 35 years ago and that my sisters and brother (his dad) also wore.


Big brother Max also wore the same gown 3 years ago.

neighbourly

last night a 'date' was booked, B and I were going to the movies, but we didn't quite get there. One distraction followed by another, and we decided to stay in. One of those distractions however was most welcome, and came in the form of dinner from the neighbours directly opposite us.

We couldn't believe it, the neighbours have 6 sons and 3 of them came bearing dinner just as we were about to head out the door. It was quickly decided that it would look rude of us to head off for the movie straight away (eat dinner later), so a raincheck was made on the movie.

How different it is in our house in the 'burbs as opposed to the townhouse development where you would think people would be more neighbourly.

PS. Dinner consisted of some sort of homemade sausages, seafood salad, lebanese bread, a very garlic dip, and some other sort of dip, and the best green salad ever (it was very lemony and even had tiny bits of lemon with the skin intact in it). YUMM! and thank you neighbours.

locked out

our house is (almost) secure. I know this because B lent his house keys to a friend yesterday, for the day, which ment that his house keys were not on the same key ring as his car keys. The outcome of this was that when he got home from work, realised he should have put petrol in the car and decided to go straight back out rather than leaving it to the morning, he grabbed his keys - the car keys.

I had been invited on the trip, and clad in pj's, socks and a jumper (I wasn't getting out of the car) I didn't have my handbag/keys. I did the responsible thing though of asking B if he had his keys when I was waiting for him on the front steps, and he said he did. However, just as he closed the door, he realised he had his car keys and no house keys! TOO LATE.

Out in the cold a phone call was made to the only person with a spare, but since that call went to voicemail we had to think of another way in...cutting a long story short, thank goodness for the poor maintenance undertaken by the previous owner and the use of silicon to hold in the window panes (in the only window without key locks), and thanks to dad for leaving the window repair tools with us. We managed to break in without too much effort, at the same time as cleaning up one of the three panes that need the silicon removed before the putty can be replaced.

Office Cat

At the new house Jasmine has taken to sitting on my lap whilst I am at the computer. However, this afternoon was serious business as I was making at start on my assignment for my Strategic Management subject so my lap was not on offer. This caused Jasmine something of a dilema - where the empty wastepaper basket looked good until she got in it, not really enough room to get comfy, next stop was squeezed between the printer and the in-tray, but she didn't last too long here either. Her final resting place was a box in the corner where she is now still fast asleep - sorry no photo, maybe it was the flash used for getting these photos that was the real problem.

validation required

at the moment I feel like I am swimming against the flow. I have so much I want to achieve but have so many things that need to be progressed first before achievements can be realised. Uni and work are real endurance tests for me at the moment. Uni in particular, the last subject I did was a real challenge, especially with B in hospital and what seemed to me like a slow recovery that followed, and even after achieving an overall mark of 58.5% still being failed. I have lodged an appeal but do not like my chances. So that means even if I successfully finish this semesters subject there is a distinct possibility I will be repeating 'Accounting' from last semester. I am seriously thinking about taking a year off uni, but as I don't like things hanging over my head, I will probably battle on.

Compounding my mood:
~ the WWW (no, not the world wide web) has struck again. My message to this person is - we are over it, OK. You won. We are getting on with our lives and you should too. I cannot be bothered by your latest stunt - it's just mean.
~ I would like to give my friend P a hug, her dad has been diagnosed with a terminal illness, I think it's cancer.

I am hoping to return shortly, with a more positive post. I am knitting a scarf, I might share some pictures of that with you next time...

I am still here

I feel compelled to write something just to let you know that I am still here. So here goes. B is back and has gone again - back tomorrow night. I am suffering here on my own... I have unpacked most of the boxes, and found places for most of our things, although, we have a distinct lack of storage, and what does look like storage aka one of the built in wardrobes, has no shelves. A trip to IKEA is needed.

In addition to all the unpacking, I have spent the last 3 weeks at work and on weekends working on the house, namely replacing glass which I would have given up on if it were not for dad (and mum providing the sustenance). The glass is all replaced now and after a productive weekend the light is replaced in our bedroom (brought with us from the old place), we have wall lights in the dining room, an austrian blind and curtain material has been purchased for the bay window, a new letterbox is in place, and more of the privet has been chopped down.

We have met the neighbours to the South, and that is another story......