What does excess rain and sun do?

Answer: makes your garden grow. My tiny garden is getting very overgrown and the pawpaw tree I put in at Christmas is now as tall as me:

If you look closely, you can see the mulberry, the pawpaw, the persimmon and the fig...my fruit salad garden.

The gas meter man refused to go around the side of my house to read the meter and left me a message saying that he couldnt access it because of overgrown garden! If I felt stronger, I'd do something about it but I haven't even got the strength to sew.

I have been playing with my chinese silks but nothing has been finished!!!!

Evans Head

I have just come back from a week with my friend Marina at Evans Head.

I was so tired when I first got there that I couldn't enjoy this magnificent view and the pristine beach. Hoewever, I did get one swim in yesterday.

Marina was a wonderful host and let me sleep for the first couple of days and then just let me do what I felt I could. on Tuesday, a drive to town for a pint of milk left me tired and nauseous and a shopping trip to Lismore on Thursday required a sleep on return. However, I am feeling a lot stronger now.

There were lots of spots for me to lie around and sleep and read. Read three books on my ipad!

there's light at the end of the tunnel!

Having felt extremely ill for the past few weeks, I am starting to gradually feel a bit stronger. Yesterday, for the first time in a month I did a bit more than sit around: I baked a nectarine cake to take to my friend at Evans Head -

It's a nectarine cake with almond and butter crunch on top!


I then made some tomato relish

there's another jar in the fridge so that's six jars from 2kg of tomatoes.


Finally, I even started a fibre project using some of the silks Victoria and I got in Hong Kong about 4 years ago...

I'm off to Evans Head for a week of r and r so I don't know when I'll be back to finish this!

My new friends

Here are some of my new friends: 

 as you can see this one has a high cost - but I was lucky enough to get it at reduced price.
I can't recommend shingles as a nice friendly little disease - at least it's not on my face or in my eyes. 

the joys of airconditioning

The climate in Brisbane is hot and humid and one thing that makes a huge difference to living comfortably here are North Easterly breezes.  My house was designed to catch those breezes and this means that I only use my aircon occassionally. 
However, Mr veryrichbuilder who is proving to the world that he has made it, has built a concrete block house that shuts out all breezes.  I came home this afternoon to find this:

 

this beauty is sitting about 25cms from his fence (and one of the only parts of the fence that is not all concrete - it is to be filled in with horizontal wooden slats so the sound will travel well through that!

 

I think it really adds to the ambience of my garden - thank heaven my hedges are growing.  

Rented flat in new farm is looking good!!!!!

A traveller returns

A prize for the person who knows what this is:

 

here's a clue......

  

Born in Italy

 

they are the fur cuffs of my exhausted coat which has been to America for a month and has been from West Coast to the East and braved many snow falls and blizzards!  You can see how tired it looks!

In New York, it visited the MOMO and brought me a lovely scented candle which is needed here to combat the rather musty smell from having a wet ceiling and carpet after rain got in in the storms. Written on the candle holder is "if you truly love nature you will find beauty everywhere".  I'm not sure which is more beautiful - the possum that has declared my swimming pool fence to be his own personal toilet or the Chinese fir tree which has just popped it's cones and delivered about 20kg of fir seeds to my pool and surrounds!

so it's off to the cleaners for the coat, a re-uniting with it's cuffs, and then back into the cupboard beside Victoria's wedding dress - I wonder which one will be the first to be worn again?

the sofas of number 53

While the city of Brisbane has been flooding, I have been on enforced stay-at-home leave.  The office building I work in has been closed and the power turned off.  My suburb has not been affected at all.  It has been quite surreal to think of all the people suffering from the floods while I sit here in the sunshine, and I'm not really able to join a work gang and help clean up. 
For want of something to do, I started considering my STUFF.  One important fact is that I have FIVE sofas - how can one person possibly use all those?  Being a great believer in cushioning, some of them have been re-cushioned lately and some are sadly in need of same - here they are:

poor little front verandah - sadly in need of something - it has to wait until the building next door finishes!!!!!

this poor thing is stuck in a room upstairs and is in danger of DROWNING!!!!!!!!

The ladies lounge sofa has had several lives - seems to now be leaning towards palm trees, elephants and pineapples.

Monkeys and palm trees - this one is for Floss

the elephant couch - perfect for tired people

I am thinking of downsizing - what fate awaits all these old friends?