G'Day,
Tonight is New Years Eve. Happy New Year all!!!!! I have been watching a concert by Elton John. He is soooo.... good, and hasn't lost his abilities as he has aged. In fact I think I enjoy his matured voice much more than when he could sing in the falsetto. His music and songs have been part of my life since forever. Well ever since my early teens anyway. Every song they had on the concert tonight was a classic with all the love, emotion and memories they engender. Fun, sad, happy etc.... When I was 15 my best school friend, Anna and I, used to go into the city (Sydney) to see the musical, Tommy. I think we saw it every weekend for about 3 months and I reckon I still know every word and image in the movie. I remember analysing it for an English essay and getting in trouble off my very religious English teacher, because I thought it was analogous to Christ's story. Ha. I.E. he came from the bottom of the pack and overtaking obstacles, made good then was dumped on by his supporters, there were analogies to lots of social issues that were current at the time also like the drugs and the searching for answers etc. Elton's music was only a small part of the movie. I don't think I ever had any more than 2 of his albums then, money didn't run to that in those days. I had Yellow Brick Road and Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. I have a double C.D. with all the old songs, and some newer ones on it now which I play in the car.
I have thought about artists that we have around now days and thought about what ones could be remembered in a few hundred years like Mozart, Beethoven , Tchaikovsky etc, are now. I don't think it will be the Brittany Spears dolly birds, or the silly Spice Girl type of artists that will be remembered as being the icons of our age but maybe the people like Elton John, Beatles, Mick Jagger, even Michael Jackson, (who love him or hate him, has had an undeniable influence on today's music and who has an undeniable talent), who will live on. O.K. we all have our tastes in music which are many and varied and could be added to make a list as long as your arm and it is all subject to personal taste after all. I won't be around to be proven right or wrong I guess.
Yesterday and today were real stinkers. Today it got to 42 degrees and yesterday it got to 37 degrees. The old scale equivalent to 100 Fahrenheit is 37 point something Celsius. I watered today for an hour out the back, what a pleasant way to cool down at the end of a hot day. I enjoy hand watering. My garden seems to be standing up well to the heat at the moment, as there is still some subsoil moisture left in it from the recent rain we have been lucky to have. I have put quite a bit of work into improving my soil over the last few years because of the drought, so the dividends look like they are paying off.
I am not going anywhere or doing anything tonight, I will leave that for the young ones. I have rarely gone out on new years eve anyway. My evening usually involves watching the clock tick over and watching the fire works at midnight on the tele, exciting stuff.... not! Or I just go to bed to sleep. Very boring and normal for me. Plus both Pete and I have to work tomorrow. Nice penalty rates.
One of my workmates has had a real bad scare over the last few days. Her son who is 8 yrs old was rushed to Wagga by ambulance with a suspected case of meningococcal. I haven't rung her to find out if she is still in Wagga Base with him but have heard along the hospital grapevine that he is improving and will be alright. The diagnosis won't be back until tomorrow because the tests take 48hrs to get back. There have been quite a few cases of meningococcal virus around in the news recently. I have only heard of one other locally though, a woman in Cootamundra.
Mum cooked a lovely roast leg of lamb for our tea tonight. Lamb is so expensive now days, about $23 and upwards for a medium sized roasting leg. It used to be mostly what we ate growing up as it was cheap and very available. Now I think beef is the cheaper meat to get.
I got a phone call from Annie earlier tonight, the ginger kitten we got for Michael's Christmas present was very stressed and dehydrated because of the heat, they don't have air conditioning. I told her to dunk it in a bucket of cold water and leave it for half an hour then ring the vet if it didn't improve. I rang them back and he was o.k. again and running around and attacking everyone, so all is well. I've had to do that to my chooks before (they die very quickly from heat exhaustion) and it works on them too. Even Jack our cocky, has had to be sprayed with the hose to cool her down on really hot days. Good old Australian summer eh!
We have had 2 deaths at work over the last few days. One in the acute care ward and another in the long term department. These things usually run in bouts of three so what is next. Sometimes death is a blessing when you see people are ready to go and suffering though. I am sure it is easier on them to go suddenly than hang around and wait to die and for them to know what is happening, but I am sure it is easier for the family to get used to the idea than have a sudden shock. I know which I would choose for myself. I remember when my Dad died, before hand, I was praying for him to be taken gently and I guess that is what happened. He didn't have to lie around wait and get sicker and sicker. Even though he did his share of suffering with his health. I always think I look more like my Mum but I think like my Dad. But he was quite good with numbers and I never acquired that skill. Lol.
Good Night Love Linda.
Monday, 31 December 2007
Friday, 28 December 2007
28th december 2007
G'Day,
I want to scream, fight, cry, hit. I just spent an hour in here writing and lost the lot. So... I have to start again.
Well ya not gonna beat me!
Here goes, now let me try to remember.
I was writing something about this being the third of 7 days I have to work then I get 5 days off. For the past 3 days I have been in the acute care ward cleaning. I had hoped that it would be closed down for a few days over christmas but that wasn't to be. I was to have 3 days scrubbing, stripping and re- polishing floors. I might be weird but I actually enjoy doing that and having the vinyl floors in that area sparkling, especially if I have the whole ward to work in by myself. I did get two rooms stripped and polished though. They do look good. One of the rooms had a Mr F in there, one of our regulars and an easy to get along with type of patient with whom I always have a joke. I had him worried today though. He was dropping sultanas on the floor and I told him not to dirty my floor. He threw out the rest of his sultanas, I felt so mean. Sultanas are not good when you run over them a few times with a wheel chair and spread them around to dry hard on the floor.
I really hate policemens boots the most, they are every bit as bad as farmers boots after it has been raining. They have deep treads that fill up with mud which they march up and down the halls with, just when you have them looking good. Lol. Also funny at work today was a palliative care patient who was feeling no pain, nope no pain at all, because of his medication. He spent the morning singing happily at the top of his voice, he sounded good too.
We find out if Pete has a Canberra job in mid January 08. Some of my workmates are unhappy to have me go. I keep thinking I am not going to get to work in the new hospital which is due to open in March08. We are having a garden in honour of Dr Potts, who was the town doctor for well over 30 years here. I had the idea of doing a clay mural of a big old tree with spreading protective branches. On the leaves we could have the names of all the different towns and areas
serviced by the hospital and cut up into tiles. Having as many people as possible hands on in the making. Fired to 1200 Celsius in buff raku clay which goes brown and speckled at that temperature. There are no other potters on staff so I will be busy.
Two of the doves, a male and female, that were let out of my cage on Christmas day have come home of their own accord. One of the young doves born earlier this year is also back in the cage but we don't know how it got back in there, none of us let it in. The young dove is pure white and has not got its adult markings yet. So I have 3 of the original 5 birds back. Rufus got the other adult dove and killed it yesterday. Rotten little doggie. They keep laying eggs and we keep removing them from the cage, we don't want any more doves , they are good breeders.
When I lost my post written earlier tonight I was trying to put some pictures on it to share, I don't know what I did but I lost the draft and my son would not help me fix it because he wanted to sleep. I was so frustrated. I can never remember how to get the photos put on here without his help and I am quite sure he enjoys seeing me frustrated by it. So no pics. Sorry.
Bye Love Linda.
I want to scream, fight, cry, hit. I just spent an hour in here writing and lost the lot. So... I have to start again.
Well ya not gonna beat me!
Here goes, now let me try to remember.
I was writing something about this being the third of 7 days I have to work then I get 5 days off. For the past 3 days I have been in the acute care ward cleaning. I had hoped that it would be closed down for a few days over christmas but that wasn't to be. I was to have 3 days scrubbing, stripping and re- polishing floors. I might be weird but I actually enjoy doing that and having the vinyl floors in that area sparkling, especially if I have the whole ward to work in by myself. I did get two rooms stripped and polished though. They do look good. One of the rooms had a Mr F in there, one of our regulars and an easy to get along with type of patient with whom I always have a joke. I had him worried today though. He was dropping sultanas on the floor and I told him not to dirty my floor. He threw out the rest of his sultanas, I felt so mean. Sultanas are not good when you run over them a few times with a wheel chair and spread them around to dry hard on the floor.
I really hate policemens boots the most, they are every bit as bad as farmers boots after it has been raining. They have deep treads that fill up with mud which they march up and down the halls with, just when you have them looking good. Lol. Also funny at work today was a palliative care patient who was feeling no pain, nope no pain at all, because of his medication. He spent the morning singing happily at the top of his voice, he sounded good too.
We find out if Pete has a Canberra job in mid January 08. Some of my workmates are unhappy to have me go. I keep thinking I am not going to get to work in the new hospital which is due to open in March08. We are having a garden in honour of Dr Potts, who was the town doctor for well over 30 years here. I had the idea of doing a clay mural of a big old tree with spreading protective branches. On the leaves we could have the names of all the different towns and areas
serviced by the hospital and cut up into tiles. Having as many people as possible hands on in the making. Fired to 1200 Celsius in buff raku clay which goes brown and speckled at that temperature. There are no other potters on staff so I will be busy.
Two of the doves, a male and female, that were let out of my cage on Christmas day have come home of their own accord. One of the young doves born earlier this year is also back in the cage but we don't know how it got back in there, none of us let it in. The young dove is pure white and has not got its adult markings yet. So I have 3 of the original 5 birds back. Rufus got the other adult dove and killed it yesterday. Rotten little doggie. They keep laying eggs and we keep removing them from the cage, we don't want any more doves , they are good breeders.
When I lost my post written earlier tonight I was trying to put some pictures on it to share, I don't know what I did but I lost the draft and my son would not help me fix it because he wanted to sleep. I was so frustrated. I can never remember how to get the photos put on here without his help and I am quite sure he enjoys seeing me frustrated by it. So no pics. Sorry.
Bye Love Linda.
Tuesday, 25 December 2007
Christmas Day,
G'Day,
Today is Christmas day. Present opening has been done, Lunch has been eaten. Next on the list is cooking a roast dinner for later tonight when my darling comes home from work. I have a rolled leg pork roast and a turkey breast roll to cook. I tend to over cater so today I will leave it at that. We had prawns, scallops and salt and pepper squid for lunch. Annie had steamed Dim Sim because she won't eat seafood. Probably a hangover from her past when the other kids chased her with prawns and called them cockroaches of the sea. Lol.
David is here with his dog Ruby. She is a black staffordshire terrier about 9 months old, so still a pup in any one's terms. She has had Rufus in a frenzy of wrestling and running and he is absolutely worn out today. She loves jumping in my fish pond, digging in my garden and eating everything within reach, and I mean everything. She managed to get into the doves cage and let them out, I think they will come back when everything settles down again. But her partner in crime, Rufus, caught one of the two baby doves I spoke about a few months back and killed it. He is quite an efficient little doggie and it is in his breeding to chase and kill other animals. Unfortunately he doesn't know the difference between rats and mice which we praise him for catching and my caged birds. It is all just fun for him. Ruby also freaks out my cat Boo. She (Boo) is timid at the best of times and goes into hiding when anything is different in the house. Today she met Ruby and attacked her, it was pure chaos for a minute or so until things settled down again. I guess we won't see her for the rest of the day. She gets on fine with Rufus whom she has played with since she was a kitten but ruby is a lot more scary and bigger than Rufus. Poor doggie though, she hadn't come across a cat who didn't know her and wouldn't play with her before, she was very shocked! Ah well Christmas at the funny farm eh! Ruby is now asleep at my feet with one big paw resting across my foot, being rubbed with my other foot.
On Sunday we all went out to Pete's brothers house in Wagga, for the family Christmas party. It was nice catching up with people I don't see otherwise. I got to watch the great niece and nephews (little people) from that branch of the family open some of their presents. It was lovely and I was thinking "Isn't that what Christmas is about" Grace who is 3 years old and I hadn't met before, got a princess dress which she had to wear straight away and enjoyed swanning around in. Princess Grace! Beautiful. The little boys got an assortment of trucks and tools, just what takes little boys fancies. And there is nothing as beautiful as hearing a baby rocking with toothless laughter. Every year I worry about these Christmas events, there have been things in my past relationship that makes me dread certain people who attend and I try to avoid, but I guess that is silly as when I get there everything is usually o.k.
I met (Annie's) Michael's dad yesterday when he dropped the kids off for Christmas. He said they used to call him hurricane Michael, I thought mmm, well we used to have a Mickle pickle at our house. What's in a name. We also had nick names from the other kids. Annie is still braticus or Bub and Dave was davy gravy.
Today is Christmas day. Present opening has been done, Lunch has been eaten. Next on the list is cooking a roast dinner for later tonight when my darling comes home from work. I have a rolled leg pork roast and a turkey breast roll to cook. I tend to over cater so today I will leave it at that. We had prawns, scallops and salt and pepper squid for lunch. Annie had steamed Dim Sim because she won't eat seafood. Probably a hangover from her past when the other kids chased her with prawns and called them cockroaches of the sea. Lol.
David is here with his dog Ruby. She is a black staffordshire terrier about 9 months old, so still a pup in any one's terms. She has had Rufus in a frenzy of wrestling and running and he is absolutely worn out today. She loves jumping in my fish pond, digging in my garden and eating everything within reach, and I mean everything. She managed to get into the doves cage and let them out, I think they will come back when everything settles down again. But her partner in crime, Rufus, caught one of the two baby doves I spoke about a few months back and killed it. He is quite an efficient little doggie and it is in his breeding to chase and kill other animals. Unfortunately he doesn't know the difference between rats and mice which we praise him for catching and my caged birds. It is all just fun for him. Ruby also freaks out my cat Boo. She (Boo) is timid at the best of times and goes into hiding when anything is different in the house. Today she met Ruby and attacked her, it was pure chaos for a minute or so until things settled down again. I guess we won't see her for the rest of the day. She gets on fine with Rufus whom she has played with since she was a kitten but ruby is a lot more scary and bigger than Rufus. Poor doggie though, she hadn't come across a cat who didn't know her and wouldn't play with her before, she was very shocked! Ah well Christmas at the funny farm eh! Ruby is now asleep at my feet with one big paw resting across my foot, being rubbed with my other foot.
On Sunday we all went out to Pete's brothers house in Wagga, for the family Christmas party. It was nice catching up with people I don't see otherwise. I got to watch the great niece and nephews (little people) from that branch of the family open some of their presents. It was lovely and I was thinking "Isn't that what Christmas is about" Grace who is 3 years old and I hadn't met before, got a princess dress which she had to wear straight away and enjoyed swanning around in. Princess Grace! Beautiful. The little boys got an assortment of trucks and tools, just what takes little boys fancies. And there is nothing as beautiful as hearing a baby rocking with toothless laughter. Every year I worry about these Christmas events, there have been things in my past relationship that makes me dread certain people who attend and I try to avoid, but I guess that is silly as when I get there everything is usually o.k.
I met (Annie's) Michael's dad yesterday when he dropped the kids off for Christmas. He said they used to call him hurricane Michael, I thought mmm, well we used to have a Mickle pickle at our house. What's in a name. We also had nick names from the other kids. Annie is still braticus or Bub and Dave was davy gravy.
Friday, 21 December 2007
Mornin' walk. Jail.
G'Day,
It is just a few days until Christmas. I think I have all the prezzies ready. Just the fresh food to go. I am going to leave that until the last moment because I want seafood. Though, I am not looking forward to tackling the Christmas shopping, last minute crowd in Wagga, to go and get it.
I have been busy and tired for the last week or so, and yesterday I had a catch up on my rest type of day. So, this morning I woke early and couldn't go back to sleep from 4.30 onwards. I gave up about 5.30 and got up and had something to eat before taking Rufus for a walk. I took him up along the golf course. It was beautiful at that time of the morning with the dew still on the grass and all of the birds out for their early morning feed. I was a bit nervous about snakes so I kept Rufus well away from the gully and rough areas around the granite boulders up there. There are lots of snakes up there, it is safer to go there in the winter. But all was well. Rufus was very well behaved today for me. He stayed off the lead most of the time except when we were near the road, and came back when he was called and didn't stray too far. He did find a rabbit to chase though. And I got him a nice big cicada to play with, which he really enjoyed. I saw lots of Galahs, top knot pigeons, minors, wattle birds and red rump parrots. There were a lot of baby Galahs around, making that funny noise they make when they want to be fed. They seem to still get fed by their parents for quite a while after they have learnt to fly.
Canberra is still on the agenda and on my mind a lot. Pete has submitted his application, so here's hoping. I have been spending some time looking at real estate sites on the puter, renting costs are pretty terrible compared to this area but I guess they would be on a par with the other cities. For a house you are looking at $400 and upwards per week, depending on the area etc. I have been thinking that maybe it would be more cost effective to sell our house here and buy there. Even though the prices there are high it would be better that giving our money to some one else. Also if we rent his house out it most likely wouldn't get looked after and deteriorate therefore loose value. I don't know, maybe I am jumping ahead, we don't even know yet if the job application will be accepted. I guess I should explain.... The jail in Canberra is only new, opened less than a year and it is the first in the state, before that crims were sent to N.S.W. jails. They are new to the game and have been trying to attract experienced workers for it. Pete has been working in the industry for over 10 years and has his certificate 4 in correctional management and is working as a supervisor, he also had a few stints working as correctional manager of operations so I reckon he has a good chance. Canberra is in the A.C.T. (Australian Capital Territory) it is about 3 hrs drive from here and Australia's smallest state, where all the govt. stuff is run from. Canberra is a fairly new place, inland, in south east aust. Small compared to cities in other parts of the world, and carefully designed not just grown around the centre of the C.B.D. The jail there is govt run, not private like the one here in Junee, so it has better working conditions and pay.
We are having a wet summer this year. I don't know if we are out of the drought but for the last few weeks we have been getting a nice lot of rain, above average for this time of year. The weather man says we are in a La Nina cycle. Ti's good. Closer to the coast they have had a lot more than us. There is not a lot of grass around yet but it is starting to grow and as the rain has come so has the weather cooled down and been kinder to my garden than it would otherwise be this time of the year. The temperatures have been in the mid twenties each day, very pleasant. Most of the flowers are gone by now normally, but with the rain I still have some nice ones around the yard. In flower now I have day lillies, geraniums, roses, viola, snapdragons, fushia, gladiolis, margurite daisies and the black panther agapanthus that hasn't flowered for me before is in bud, plus other stuff I can't think of at the moment.
One thing I have noticed about Canberra is they don't go in for a lot of gardens. What is there, is mostly environmentally responsible drought tolerant native type gardening. I will miss my garden here and have to redefine my ideas if I move there.
My cat boo is enjoying the christmas tree, like she did last year, she attacks the ornaments and bites them. I have also caught Rufus sneaking the christmas baubles and playing with them, he chewed one of them up, not good for the digestion. I better go rescue the tiy knitted christmas stocking off the cat before she kills it.
Bye. Love Linda.
It is just a few days until Christmas. I think I have all the prezzies ready. Just the fresh food to go. I am going to leave that until the last moment because I want seafood. Though, I am not looking forward to tackling the Christmas shopping, last minute crowd in Wagga, to go and get it.
I have been busy and tired for the last week or so, and yesterday I had a catch up on my rest type of day. So, this morning I woke early and couldn't go back to sleep from 4.30 onwards. I gave up about 5.30 and got up and had something to eat before taking Rufus for a walk. I took him up along the golf course. It was beautiful at that time of the morning with the dew still on the grass and all of the birds out for their early morning feed. I was a bit nervous about snakes so I kept Rufus well away from the gully and rough areas around the granite boulders up there. There are lots of snakes up there, it is safer to go there in the winter. But all was well. Rufus was very well behaved today for me. He stayed off the lead most of the time except when we were near the road, and came back when he was called and didn't stray too far. He did find a rabbit to chase though. And I got him a nice big cicada to play with, which he really enjoyed. I saw lots of Galahs, top knot pigeons, minors, wattle birds and red rump parrots. There were a lot of baby Galahs around, making that funny noise they make when they want to be fed. They seem to still get fed by their parents for quite a while after they have learnt to fly.
Canberra is still on the agenda and on my mind a lot. Pete has submitted his application, so here's hoping. I have been spending some time looking at real estate sites on the puter, renting costs are pretty terrible compared to this area but I guess they would be on a par with the other cities. For a house you are looking at $400 and upwards per week, depending on the area etc. I have been thinking that maybe it would be more cost effective to sell our house here and buy there. Even though the prices there are high it would be better that giving our money to some one else. Also if we rent his house out it most likely wouldn't get looked after and deteriorate therefore loose value. I don't know, maybe I am jumping ahead, we don't even know yet if the job application will be accepted. I guess I should explain.... The jail in Canberra is only new, opened less than a year and it is the first in the state, before that crims were sent to N.S.W. jails. They are new to the game and have been trying to attract experienced workers for it. Pete has been working in the industry for over 10 years and has his certificate 4 in correctional management and is working as a supervisor, he also had a few stints working as correctional manager of operations so I reckon he has a good chance. Canberra is in the A.C.T. (Australian Capital Territory) it is about 3 hrs drive from here and Australia's smallest state, where all the govt. stuff is run from. Canberra is a fairly new place, inland, in south east aust. Small compared to cities in other parts of the world, and carefully designed not just grown around the centre of the C.B.D. The jail there is govt run, not private like the one here in Junee, so it has better working conditions and pay.
We are having a wet summer this year. I don't know if we are out of the drought but for the last few weeks we have been getting a nice lot of rain, above average for this time of year. The weather man says we are in a La Nina cycle. Ti's good. Closer to the coast they have had a lot more than us. There is not a lot of grass around yet but it is starting to grow and as the rain has come so has the weather cooled down and been kinder to my garden than it would otherwise be this time of the year. The temperatures have been in the mid twenties each day, very pleasant. Most of the flowers are gone by now normally, but with the rain I still have some nice ones around the yard. In flower now I have day lillies, geraniums, roses, viola, snapdragons, fushia, gladiolis, margurite daisies and the black panther agapanthus that hasn't flowered for me before is in bud, plus other stuff I can't think of at the moment.
One thing I have noticed about Canberra is they don't go in for a lot of gardens. What is there, is mostly environmentally responsible drought tolerant native type gardening. I will miss my garden here and have to redefine my ideas if I move there.
My cat boo is enjoying the christmas tree, like she did last year, she attacks the ornaments and bites them. I have also caught Rufus sneaking the christmas baubles and playing with them, he chewed one of them up, not good for the digestion. I better go rescue the tiy knitted christmas stocking off the cat before she kills it.
Bye. Love Linda.
Wednesday, 12 December 2007
Black flowers, Pets, and Pottery.
G'Day,Is it really 7 days since I have written in here? I am slipping aren't I.
I might write about my flowers tonight. Well Um!
I have been trying out different flowers for quite a while, trying to find something that has black in it's name and actually has a black flower. The poor straggly gladioli in the above picture is called black stallion. You can see how black it is. Most of the things I know of, that are said to have black flowers are darker shades of red or purple. I tried hellebore's, roses, gladiolus, and a black scabiosa or pincushion. I have seen black tulips that came close. I like Tulips when they flower but I reckon otherwise they are the biggest rip off out. You get one flower from one expensive bulb that might last a few days if you are lucky and it doesn't get too hot, then it is gone for another year. There is also a pittosporum that has tiny black/purple flowers on it with a yellow spot in the throat, I used to have one but it has gone to heaven now.
This is the first flower on one of the day lilies that I got at the Melbourne flower show. Pretty isn't it? I can't remember its proper name, lost the tag.
This is my acanthus in flower beside the cocky cage. Also known as oyster plant and bear's breeches. It is a pretty thing but it doesn't like the heat of summer so I cut it back then. It is at it's best in winter. I got it years ago at the Anglican church fete.
Here are Rufus and the kitten that we got for Michael (Annie's boyfriend) for Christmas. Annie named him cheese burger. Where does she think up these names from? He made friends with Rufus easily but our cat Boo wasn't going to put up with an intruder in her house and was very unhappy for the few days that we looked after the kitty. The wool you can see on the rug is from Rufus's tug of war toy. He had great fun shredding it. Cheese burger now rules Michael's house and terrorises his house mates.
This is a pic of the weird succulent thingy in flower at the side of the house. I don't think I have seen it flower so well in all the years I have had it. Why is it that you can water all you like but a few showers of rain can make a plant do what you have been struggling to do for ages and make it thrive. I don't know how to flip the picture around.
This is the black scabiosa or pincushion. It is the closest I've come to having a black flower. The bottom of the flower head is like black velvet, and tiny dark purple flowers come out of that. I love it, there is some measure of success here! The pot it is sitting in I made years ago, as a plant surround and is one of my favourites, it is about 60 cm tall. I filled it up with soil and the pincushion seems to like it. It has no bottom in it. It was made by rolling a large terracotta slab and decorating it with ball clay which gives a crackly pattern when stretched, then drawn on and bits of glass poked into it that melted down the sides. I remember writing a little poem for the pot when I made it. "Earth's Garden, Ancient, Trailed and Scarred, With Love and Water Blooms." I liked it anyway.I spent most of today in my shed making a large flower pot. I used white stoneware clay and painted it with a slip made from frit, ball clay, manganese and red iron oxide in it, then cut into the slip to expose the white clay underneath. If it survives the drying and once firing it should look good. I retreated to my shed because I was sad. I had a fight with second son David yesterday. We went in to Wagga to have Annie's braces finally removed and had to go back later in the afternoon for the second appointment and had a few spare hours to kill. I decided to go up to David's place, and do some gardening. Mum always complains about the garden and that Dave isn't looking after it enough. Anyway he came home and went crook on me because he thought the fact that I had turned up to do the garden was an insult to him. We argued. As usual I bore the brunt of his anger. I left. Who wants to be a mother! I don't think I want to any more. It is too hard and I'm not good at it!
Back to work tomorrow for 4 days, after 2 days off, with a 6.30 start.
Tomorrow night I have a christmas party to go to for the stained glass group, I have to take something green (salad) . On saturday night it is the hospital christmas party, I have to take nibblies, and next wednesday is the hotel services department christmas party and I have to get looked after by the restuarant proprieters. Sounds Good. I went out for lunch yesterday with Edie and Kath, my 2 favourite potter friends, for christmas.
Next year Pete and I are thinking about moving to Canberra. Better employment opportunities, services and facilities, better mental health help for my son Michael, and better pottery for me. I am still changing my mind each day. One day liking the idea, the next day being scared of change and leaving what I have behind, starting out with a new group of people etc, which is not easy for me. I think Canberra is winning at the moment though. I have already started trying to de-clutter some of my cupboards in anticipation.
O.K. enough for tonight, I am going to get a cuppa and go to bed early. Goodnight.
Tuesday, 4 December 2007
Christmas in Australia.
G'Day,
Tonight I have been looking at other peoples blogs and following links from them. Lots of them are in the northern hemisphere and people are talking about cold and snow and the soon to be here Christmas time.
In Australia we have Christmas in the middle of summer and more often than not, where I live it is with the air conditioner up full bore. We put out our Christmas lights a few days ago and have them switched on at the moment. It always amuses me that people in Australia always put out decorations with northern hemisphere snowy Christmas themes included. Santa is rugged up in his warm warm suit and his sleigh is pulled by reindeer.
Years ago Pete made a Santa and sleigh to put on the roof of our garage that is pulled by white kangaroos. The idea for which came from an old Christmas song by Rolf Harris called "Six White Boomers". Meant to be the Australian version of Santa's transport in our southern hemisphere version of Christmas. Boomers are big Kangaroos. The ones purported to pull Santa's sleigh were white. I have seen white roos before, (albinos), but they are pretty rare and probably wouldn't survive very long in the wild. They are very pretty . The one we have is in the shed now, in need of repainting, but I always liked the idea of having our Aussie Christmas done in line with what we have in this country. I also had the idea of doing some gum nut babies (Australian children's stories by author and artist May Gibbs), in Christmas dress, though I never did get around to that. Anyway our lights are up. We keep adding a few more each year to our collection. I haven't decorated the Christmas tree yet which is out in my front yard. It is a nice sized book leaf pine, about 8 ft tall. We used to have some neighbours next door who moved away and gave me a few bits and pieces they didn't want anymore, including a half dead stick in a small pot that grew into my front yard Christmas tree. So it was meant to be, after surviving its earlier existence.
In the days before air conditioning the poor old early Australian Mum, had to cook the traditional roasts, ham and boiled plum pudding with all the trimmings over a wood fired stove in the middle of summer for Christmas day. English style. Nowadays we have changed things around a bit and many people have cold meals. Usually including beautiful seafood , like prawns, oysters, crabs etc. Yum. Though lots of people still opt for the traditional hot Christmas dinner. I cheat a bit and have a mixture of both. We usually have prawns & salads for lunch and roast turkey breast roll and ham for tea. And of course the Aussie adaption to the Christmas dessert the Pavlova. Home made of course, it is much better than the shop bought ones. Pavlova is a meringue crust with a soft chewy middle topped off with whipped cream and whatever nice fruit you can get like peaches, berries, passion fruit, kiwi fruit and grated chocolate. Or that is how I do mine anyway, there are lots of variations.
I haven't finished my Christmas shopping yet. Wagga shopping is absolutely mad the closer you get to Christmas. I always have good intentions of getting finished early, but yeah, you know what happens. The main street gets more & more crowded, people get hassled & cranky with the traffic and the extra people in the shops and their manners go out the window.
I feel like that trying to shop in the city with all the crowds. I have always wanted to walk through the markets or down the street in the city with both my hands on my hips and my elbows out at the sides and hit anyone who crowds me in. I never would, but it is funny to think about. Get out of my personal space you mongrels, oomph! I was talking to someone once who was telling me about how crowded it is in India to walk down the street every day. I don't think I would enjoy that. I'm definitely a country girl. Give me a dawdle down a quiet street any day versus a crowded city.
Today was a warm day here, not overly hot, 29 degres was forecast, I don't know what it got to officially. It was humid as we had a nice heavy shower yesterday. My water tank has about a foot of water in the bottom of it now. I worked as early cook today so I got home nice and early at 3.00 and was able to get a granny nap in before tea time. We had a cold tea tonight, B.B.Q. chook and salad. I have 3 days off now to enjoy. I have a bit to get done though. It is Annie's birthday tomorrow. My baby is 19.
O.K. goodnight.
Love Linda.
Tonight I have been looking at other peoples blogs and following links from them. Lots of them are in the northern hemisphere and people are talking about cold and snow and the soon to be here Christmas time.
In Australia we have Christmas in the middle of summer and more often than not, where I live it is with the air conditioner up full bore. We put out our Christmas lights a few days ago and have them switched on at the moment. It always amuses me that people in Australia always put out decorations with northern hemisphere snowy Christmas themes included. Santa is rugged up in his warm warm suit and his sleigh is pulled by reindeer.
Years ago Pete made a Santa and sleigh to put on the roof of our garage that is pulled by white kangaroos. The idea for which came from an old Christmas song by Rolf Harris called "Six White Boomers". Meant to be the Australian version of Santa's transport in our southern hemisphere version of Christmas. Boomers are big Kangaroos. The ones purported to pull Santa's sleigh were white. I have seen white roos before, (albinos), but they are pretty rare and probably wouldn't survive very long in the wild. They are very pretty . The one we have is in the shed now, in need of repainting, but I always liked the idea of having our Aussie Christmas done in line with what we have in this country. I also had the idea of doing some gum nut babies (Australian children's stories by author and artist May Gibbs), in Christmas dress, though I never did get around to that. Anyway our lights are up. We keep adding a few more each year to our collection. I haven't decorated the Christmas tree yet which is out in my front yard. It is a nice sized book leaf pine, about 8 ft tall. We used to have some neighbours next door who moved away and gave me a few bits and pieces they didn't want anymore, including a half dead stick in a small pot that grew into my front yard Christmas tree. So it was meant to be, after surviving its earlier existence.
In the days before air conditioning the poor old early Australian Mum, had to cook the traditional roasts, ham and boiled plum pudding with all the trimmings over a wood fired stove in the middle of summer for Christmas day. English style. Nowadays we have changed things around a bit and many people have cold meals. Usually including beautiful seafood , like prawns, oysters, crabs etc. Yum. Though lots of people still opt for the traditional hot Christmas dinner. I cheat a bit and have a mixture of both. We usually have prawns & salads for lunch and roast turkey breast roll and ham for tea. And of course the Aussie adaption to the Christmas dessert the Pavlova. Home made of course, it is much better than the shop bought ones. Pavlova is a meringue crust with a soft chewy middle topped off with whipped cream and whatever nice fruit you can get like peaches, berries, passion fruit, kiwi fruit and grated chocolate. Or that is how I do mine anyway, there are lots of variations.
I haven't finished my Christmas shopping yet. Wagga shopping is absolutely mad the closer you get to Christmas. I always have good intentions of getting finished early, but yeah, you know what happens. The main street gets more & more crowded, people get hassled & cranky with the traffic and the extra people in the shops and their manners go out the window.
I feel like that trying to shop in the city with all the crowds. I have always wanted to walk through the markets or down the street in the city with both my hands on my hips and my elbows out at the sides and hit anyone who crowds me in. I never would, but it is funny to think about. Get out of my personal space you mongrels, oomph! I was talking to someone once who was telling me about how crowded it is in India to walk down the street every day. I don't think I would enjoy that. I'm definitely a country girl. Give me a dawdle down a quiet street any day versus a crowded city.
Today was a warm day here, not overly hot, 29 degres was forecast, I don't know what it got to officially. It was humid as we had a nice heavy shower yesterday. My water tank has about a foot of water in the bottom of it now. I worked as early cook today so I got home nice and early at 3.00 and was able to get a granny nap in before tea time. We had a cold tea tonight, B.B.Q. chook and salad. I have 3 days off now to enjoy. I have a bit to get done though. It is Annie's birthday tomorrow. My baby is 19.
O.K. goodnight.
Love Linda.
Saturday, 1 December 2007
Potter's Club, Pets, Griffith.
G'Day,
Today was my monthly duty and meeting day at the potter's club. Usually an enjoyable day, catching up with good friends etc. I spent the morning doing a slab work lesson with a new member, Milton, who is a retired farmer and is keen to get into playing with clay. He has done a sculpture class and enjoyed it which took his interest. He is doing well. We have had 5 new members join in the last 2 months so things are looking good. Two of the new members have already done a lot of potting.
Coming up next month we have the painting of the gallery and also the sanding and resealing of the wooden floors taking place.
Rufus the pup had a very adventurous day today. He caught a rabbit in our back yard. Very exciting for him, I'm glad I wasn't here to see it though. Rabbits are feral animals here and are quite a nuisance and very destructive to the environment. He has often been excited by their scent and chased them on out walks to the golf club but has never caught one until today. In our enclosed yard is very different than chasing them on the golf club where the bunnies know the terrain and have space to run at full speed. We don't take him to the golf club this time of year because it has too many snakes in the warm weather.
Rufus also suffered from misadventure today. When Pete took him in the car down to the shops he saw another doggie walking down the street and leaned out of the car window too far, and fell out. He was left in the middle of the road stunned and was lucky to not have been run over by Pete or another car. He has a few grease spots on him and I guess a few bruises but other than that he appears to be unhurt. Pete would be heart broken if anything had happened to Rufus as he treats him like his baby. Which is funny, because he has never been like that with another pet before until we got Rufus , who seemed to instantly win his heart.
My new water tank was connected up on Thursday. We have had a nice bit of rain over the past week. I don't know the figures but it was good anyway. There are already a few inches of water in the bottom of the tank. Things are a bit greener and cooler, but humid . We have had thunder storms over the last few days, the thunder doesn't seem to worry Rufus too much, not like my poor old Freddy dog who was absolutely terrified of it. Like chicken little who thought the sky would fall on him, or the world was going to end. Nothing could ease his terror. The best we could do was lock him outside and not make eye contact with him, or he would panic more, until he made himself vomit. He was the same with fire crackers.
This morning when we went in to Wagga we took a ginger kitten in to Michael. (Annie's Boyfriend) Annie wanted to give him a kitten for Christmas and this one was ready to go now so Christmas came early. Annie has named the kitten cheese burger, yeah! I know! Why? Our cat Boo, was completely unimpressed by cheese burger. As cats are with an intruder to their homes. So that was another reason for him to go to his new home earlier. He is quite a little character and was only here for a few days but had in that time decided he was quite at home and that he owned the family. Including Rufus who was trying to mother him. The sight of the week was Rufus laying quietly on the mat with the kitten on top attacking him, and Rufus carrying the kitten, puppy style, in his mouth, by the scruff of his neck.
On Tuesday and Wednesday last, I took Mum over to Griffith for a visit. She decided to stay for a couple more days and will come back late next week. She still has 2 sisters and 2 brothers and their families living there and it is her home town. We stayed overnight at Auntie Joan's place and had a nice B.B.Q. tea together with them and 2 of my cousins. My Uncle Wal got bitten on the hand by a snake a few weeks ago and spent a few days in intensive care. He is alright now though. Not good practice for an 81 year old. He was doing some work cleaning up in his neighbours yard.
Griffith is only 2 hours drive north west of here. It is in an area known as The M.I.A (Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area) which is a big fruit, veges and winery area. It is a multi cultural town with people from India, Turkey and the Pacific Islands settling there for work. It is also known for its large Italian community which has been there for quite a few generations working in the fruit & wine industries. It is a progressive place nowadays with lots of growth in related primary industry and lots of building going on. I checked out the new shopping mall. There is good shopping there too and I got Annie's birthday pressie for next week. Australians also know it for its infamy because of the italian mafia and related drug growing, which is a hard reputation to shake off once it is there. No, I don't have any of those in my heritage. I have English, Welsh and Scots blood, but I am a 6Th generation Australian, maybe more, 5 generations back I have aboriginal blood, if such a tiny bit can be counted. We are Australians and we all come from somewhere else.
In the news! We had our federal election last weekend and we have a change of government. We are now lead by the Labor party. I am a bit sceptical, as are quite a few of the people I have spoken to since the elections. People I might add, I hadn't expected to feel like that knowing their comments to be against the Liberal party whom were in power previously. My thoughts! Well I am pleased that the labor party might be the ones to spend lots of money on education and health and environment ( where there is desperate need of repair) but worried they will go too far the other way and get the country into big debt like they did last time they were in power. We will see won't we. Also the labor party has traditionally been associated with unionism which can also be taken too far and make things on the employment side unstable.
I hate politics, I don't even pretend to understand its intricacies. That is my version. You don't have to agree.
Today was my monthly duty and meeting day at the potter's club. Usually an enjoyable day, catching up with good friends etc. I spent the morning doing a slab work lesson with a new member, Milton, who is a retired farmer and is keen to get into playing with clay. He has done a sculpture class and enjoyed it which took his interest. He is doing well. We have had 5 new members join in the last 2 months so things are looking good. Two of the new members have already done a lot of potting.
Coming up next month we have the painting of the gallery and also the sanding and resealing of the wooden floors taking place.
Rufus the pup had a very adventurous day today. He caught a rabbit in our back yard. Very exciting for him, I'm glad I wasn't here to see it though. Rabbits are feral animals here and are quite a nuisance and very destructive to the environment. He has often been excited by their scent and chased them on out walks to the golf club but has never caught one until today. In our enclosed yard is very different than chasing them on the golf club where the bunnies know the terrain and have space to run at full speed. We don't take him to the golf club this time of year because it has too many snakes in the warm weather.
Rufus also suffered from misadventure today. When Pete took him in the car down to the shops he saw another doggie walking down the street and leaned out of the car window too far, and fell out. He was left in the middle of the road stunned and was lucky to not have been run over by Pete or another car. He has a few grease spots on him and I guess a few bruises but other than that he appears to be unhurt. Pete would be heart broken if anything had happened to Rufus as he treats him like his baby. Which is funny, because he has never been like that with another pet before until we got Rufus , who seemed to instantly win his heart.
My new water tank was connected up on Thursday. We have had a nice bit of rain over the past week. I don't know the figures but it was good anyway. There are already a few inches of water in the bottom of the tank. Things are a bit greener and cooler, but humid . We have had thunder storms over the last few days, the thunder doesn't seem to worry Rufus too much, not like my poor old Freddy dog who was absolutely terrified of it. Like chicken little who thought the sky would fall on him, or the world was going to end. Nothing could ease his terror. The best we could do was lock him outside and not make eye contact with him, or he would panic more, until he made himself vomit. He was the same with fire crackers.
This morning when we went in to Wagga we took a ginger kitten in to Michael. (Annie's Boyfriend) Annie wanted to give him a kitten for Christmas and this one was ready to go now so Christmas came early. Annie has named the kitten cheese burger, yeah! I know! Why? Our cat Boo, was completely unimpressed by cheese burger. As cats are with an intruder to their homes. So that was another reason for him to go to his new home earlier. He is quite a little character and was only here for a few days but had in that time decided he was quite at home and that he owned the family. Including Rufus who was trying to mother him. The sight of the week was Rufus laying quietly on the mat with the kitten on top attacking him, and Rufus carrying the kitten, puppy style, in his mouth, by the scruff of his neck.
On Tuesday and Wednesday last, I took Mum over to Griffith for a visit. She decided to stay for a couple more days and will come back late next week. She still has 2 sisters and 2 brothers and their families living there and it is her home town. We stayed overnight at Auntie Joan's place and had a nice B.B.Q. tea together with them and 2 of my cousins. My Uncle Wal got bitten on the hand by a snake a few weeks ago and spent a few days in intensive care. He is alright now though. Not good practice for an 81 year old. He was doing some work cleaning up in his neighbours yard.
Griffith is only 2 hours drive north west of here. It is in an area known as The M.I.A (Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area) which is a big fruit, veges and winery area. It is a multi cultural town with people from India, Turkey and the Pacific Islands settling there for work. It is also known for its large Italian community which has been there for quite a few generations working in the fruit & wine industries. It is a progressive place nowadays with lots of growth in related primary industry and lots of building going on. I checked out the new shopping mall. There is good shopping there too and I got Annie's birthday pressie for next week. Australians also know it for its infamy because of the italian mafia and related drug growing, which is a hard reputation to shake off once it is there. No, I don't have any of those in my heritage. I have English, Welsh and Scots blood, but I am a 6Th generation Australian, maybe more, 5 generations back I have aboriginal blood, if such a tiny bit can be counted. We are Australians and we all come from somewhere else.
In the news! We had our federal election last weekend and we have a change of government. We are now lead by the Labor party. I am a bit sceptical, as are quite a few of the people I have spoken to since the elections. People I might add, I hadn't expected to feel like that knowing their comments to be against the Liberal party whom were in power previously. My thoughts! Well I am pleased that the labor party might be the ones to spend lots of money on education and health and environment ( where there is desperate need of repair) but worried they will go too far the other way and get the country into big debt like they did last time they were in power. We will see won't we. Also the labor party has traditionally been associated with unionism which can also be taken too far and make things on the employment side unstable.
I hate politics, I don't even pretend to understand its intricacies. That is my version. You don't have to agree.
Wednesday, 21 November 2007
Happy Birthday to me.
G'Day,
Today was my birthday. I am now 48 years old. No silly secrets about my age, that's nonsense to do that. Its not an issue with me, in fact I am quite pleased to be this age. There's nothing I want to go back for, (though I have had some fun along the way) .You should work with what you are given and not try to be something you are not.
I worked today and told Di that it was my birthday so she snuck down the street and got me a birthday cake which we all shared for lunch. We always get a cake to share when it is someone at work's birthday. Nice. Pete is going to get me a worm farm for my birthday, I guess that sounds funny to a non gasrdener. Annie got me a necklace, Dave got me a Santana cd. The rain water tank is still not connected but Pete spoke to the plumber Ray today so maybe it will be done next week. We went down to the Junee ex serviceman's club (exies) and had a Chinese tea tonight. I have been spoilt!
Yesterday was another extra hot day, it got to 40 degrees here. Today was a bit cooler , tomorrow it is supposed to be just 25 degrees. The sugar cane mulch seems to be doing its job well in my garden. My plants don't appear to be suffering with the heat after the few nasty hot days we have just had. S'good. I planted out a punnet of 6 Grosse Lisse tomatoes last evening. They are small but should take off pretty quickly. I planted 3 tomato plants a while ago but they were not a success as I left them sitting in a plastic tub in the sun before planting them and they got stewed. One died the other 2 are still struggling. They are probably not worth the trouble to keep trying to rescue.
Today was my birthday. I am now 48 years old. No silly secrets about my age, that's nonsense to do that. Its not an issue with me, in fact I am quite pleased to be this age. There's nothing I want to go back for, (though I have had some fun along the way) .You should work with what you are given and not try to be something you are not.
I worked today and told Di that it was my birthday so she snuck down the street and got me a birthday cake which we all shared for lunch. We always get a cake to share when it is someone at work's birthday. Nice. Pete is going to get me a worm farm for my birthday, I guess that sounds funny to a non gasrdener. Annie got me a necklace, Dave got me a Santana cd. The rain water tank is still not connected but Pete spoke to the plumber Ray today so maybe it will be done next week. We went down to the Junee ex serviceman's club (exies) and had a Chinese tea tonight. I have been spoilt!
Yesterday was another extra hot day, it got to 40 degrees here. Today was a bit cooler , tomorrow it is supposed to be just 25 degrees. The sugar cane mulch seems to be doing its job well in my garden. My plants don't appear to be suffering with the heat after the few nasty hot days we have just had. S'good. I planted out a punnet of 6 Grosse Lisse tomatoes last evening. They are small but should take off pretty quickly. I planted 3 tomato plants a while ago but they were not a success as I left them sitting in a plastic tub in the sun before planting them and they got stewed. One died the other 2 are still struggling. They are probably not worth the trouble to keep trying to rescue.
Sunday, 18 November 2007
Grafton trip, wedding, gardens
G'Day,Today is the last day of my 2 weeks annual leave. I that time I've been to my niece's wedding in Grafton and visited the Hunter Valley Gardens in Pokolbin near Cessnock. When I got home I arranged the annual curry night food for the Potter's club. Thank god that's over for another year. It must be someone else's turn next year to do the organising. I never can get the amount of food right and we always end up with too much.
Anyway I took some good pics while I was around and about. The pic at the top is at the gardens and is of a male water fowl, I know them as coots but I don't know what their proper name is.
This is my great niece Ivory. She is a gruby faced angel in this picture. She is now 14 months old.
This is a double pink hibiscus flower in my sister's front yard.
It rained all the while we were in Grafton. This shows the Jacaranda trees in flower, for which Grafton is famous. They were past their best because of the rain but were still beautiful, forming a carpet across the road and footpaths. The car is David's Commodore coated in fallen flowers.
A jacaranda dam in the gutter out the front of my sister's.
This is a sculpture that I loved in the Hunter valley gardens. It is a tribute to grandmothers and is situated in the centre of the rose garden.
These are called water poppies. I hadn't seen them before. Very delicate, aren't they pretty.
At the gardens again. Taken about half way up the man made water fall.
The gardens were divided up into themed areas. This area is the indian area. The doors behind my Mum are antique elephant doors inported from india and are about 150 yrs old, made of solid teak. The guide bloke said that if elephant statues have their trunks pointing up and one foot forward and raised it is a sign of good luck.
This is part of the beautiful detail on the Indian tea house. All hand carved, it is also very old and solid teak and over looks a good sized dam.
I love this pic of a magnolia grandiflora bloom . Please click on it to get a closer look. There are several bees busy working on it. The little fallen bits on one of the petals are bits off the stamen. You see lots of these trees around the parks in Sydney. They grow huge and the flowers are about 20cm across. They don't grow in my area. Not that I have seen anyway.
This is a huge antique cast iron urn imported from spain. It had to be set in place by 2 big cranes when it arrived at the gardens. I wanted to take it home but it wouldn't fit in the car, it was a bit heavy too. The gardens are owned and run by the Roche company and are only 5 yrs old.
A baby coot. There were a lot of these around the gardens.
Me being silly. I'm not a big swimmer. The water thing was a carved piece of granite.
The centre bit with the grandmother sculpture in the rose garden. There was a rose extravaganza on at the gardens while I was there but the rain they had had had spoiled most of the blooms. But I got the idea. (Had in triplicate)
My threee metal heads dressed for the wedding. Right to left, David, Annie and Michael. At the wedding Dave got up after much coaxing and had a dance with us all. He even danced to an Abba song which I thouht was hilarious considering his musical tastes and I took a picture to prove it too. I told him he was never going to live that down. Lol.
The bride and groom with my mob. Who is that fat lady?
Genevieve (Cassies 1/2 sister) with the bride Cassie and Ivory.
My youngest neice Tatham. She is 17. We call her Tato or Tatie, with her boyfriend Lee. She was the chief bridesmaid. All my babies are grown up. Ohhhhh!Below is a pic taken of my 2 beautiful neices, Cassie and Tato. The headpeice she is wearing was handmade by her husband Guy's step grandmother. She used 27 foot of solid silver wire and treaded garnets and crystals throughout it. Something worth keeping eh!
Monday, 12 November 2007
Wedding, Grafton trip. Home.
G'Day,
I have been away for a bit over a week attending my beautiful niece's wedding in Grafton. We drove up there, Pete drove the caravan and I took David's car as we couldn't all fit in one vehicle. Dave's car is newer and nicer than my old car, and as he has lost his licence I was chauffeur. He has a black commodore with mod cons. Including cruise control which I learnt how to use, good for keeping to the speed limit and avoiding speeding fines. Pete and I slept in the van as I am a princess when it comes to my bed. It has to be just right or it is Just not right!
The wedding was lovely but of course a busy couple of days for all involved. I was general gopher, (go for) on the morning of the wedding and did the first reading during the ceremony. Cass is lovely and tried to give everyone jobs to do so they all felt included and a part of things, which was nice. Her dress was stunning as were the brides maids. Hers was ruby red , beaded, shot silk looking like and 18Th century ballgown, and the girls wore black. When she walked down the isle i got all teary. I don't cry at weddings and had to pull myself up real quick to do the reading. I do get teary over babies and new life though. I was not happy with 2 of my children's behaviour. My eldest is a boring, cranky, self spoiled, stick in the mud and my daughter got drunk so she missed most of the reception . Not funny, not impressed.
On the way there we dawdled and took the coast road through Sydney and stopped at Cessnock to visit the Hunter Valley Gardens. I have wanted to go there for the last couple of years since seeing them on a gardening show. ( we tried o visit there once before but it was a 40 degree day so we gave up on it) They were great, well worth the visit. I didn't feel so dumb there as I knew what the guide was talking about with my bit of garden knowledge. Lol. I took lots of photos.
Second night we stopped at Forster in an apartment. A very nice apartment !!! But we probably should not have paid quite so much. It was 2 bedrooms, 2 and a 1/2 bathrooms and a big balcony which overlooked the town/ocean beach. We all had a turn in the spa bath and I over did the bath bubbles a bit. I only had a little bit of water in the bath but when I turned on the spa they overflowed. Shhh! don't tell the owners.
At the wedding I met my 2 great great nephews for the first time. They came down from Brisbane. Jaiden is 7 and Caleb is 2 yrs old. That's pretty bad that I haven't met them before isn't it. Brisbane is a long way away. I also got to spend some time with my great niece Ivory who is 14 months old. She is a real cutie and I think she will be a strong willed little person next year when she reaches the 2yr old phase. She had a few days of being handled by different people during the lead up to the wedding and was pretty tired. At the wedding when they were doing the speeches she was really funny because when people applauded she thought they were clapping for her and sat up and looked around proudly and smiled from behind her dummy (pacifier). So cute! I spent time with my 2 sisters Thelma and Ellen, the brides mother, and saw my niece Janelle whom I haven't seen for about 6 years since my Dad's funeral.
They have had a lot of rain up there on the nth coast, the Clarence river was quite high and everything was lush and green. Diffrent plants to what grows around here too, I collected some seed pods to bring back. Grafton is known for it's Jacaranda trees which were in flower but not at their best because of all the rain. I need a magic wand to get the rain back here where we need it, they have got enough up there. It is also hotter here than on the coast despite it being further north that us, the temps were in the low to mid 20's while we were there.
That's all of my ramblings for tonight, I have another few days left to organise the potter's club dinner so I will be busy and get back to this blog later.
Bye . Love Linda.
I have been away for a bit over a week attending my beautiful niece's wedding in Grafton. We drove up there, Pete drove the caravan and I took David's car as we couldn't all fit in one vehicle. Dave's car is newer and nicer than my old car, and as he has lost his licence I was chauffeur. He has a black commodore with mod cons. Including cruise control which I learnt how to use, good for keeping to the speed limit and avoiding speeding fines. Pete and I slept in the van as I am a princess when it comes to my bed. It has to be just right or it is Just not right!
The wedding was lovely but of course a busy couple of days for all involved. I was general gopher, (go for) on the morning of the wedding and did the first reading during the ceremony. Cass is lovely and tried to give everyone jobs to do so they all felt included and a part of things, which was nice. Her dress was stunning as were the brides maids. Hers was ruby red , beaded, shot silk looking like and 18Th century ballgown, and the girls wore black. When she walked down the isle i got all teary. I don't cry at weddings and had to pull myself up real quick to do the reading. I do get teary over babies and new life though. I was not happy with 2 of my children's behaviour. My eldest is a boring, cranky, self spoiled, stick in the mud and my daughter got drunk so she missed most of the reception . Not funny, not impressed.
On the way there we dawdled and took the coast road through Sydney and stopped at Cessnock to visit the Hunter Valley Gardens. I have wanted to go there for the last couple of years since seeing them on a gardening show. ( we tried o visit there once before but it was a 40 degree day so we gave up on it) They were great, well worth the visit. I didn't feel so dumb there as I knew what the guide was talking about with my bit of garden knowledge. Lol. I took lots of photos.
Second night we stopped at Forster in an apartment. A very nice apartment !!! But we probably should not have paid quite so much. It was 2 bedrooms, 2 and a 1/2 bathrooms and a big balcony which overlooked the town/ocean beach. We all had a turn in the spa bath and I over did the bath bubbles a bit. I only had a little bit of water in the bath but when I turned on the spa they overflowed. Shhh! don't tell the owners.
At the wedding I met my 2 great great nephews for the first time. They came down from Brisbane. Jaiden is 7 and Caleb is 2 yrs old. That's pretty bad that I haven't met them before isn't it. Brisbane is a long way away. I also got to spend some time with my great niece Ivory who is 14 months old. She is a real cutie and I think she will be a strong willed little person next year when she reaches the 2yr old phase. She had a few days of being handled by different people during the lead up to the wedding and was pretty tired. At the wedding when they were doing the speeches she was really funny because when people applauded she thought they were clapping for her and sat up and looked around proudly and smiled from behind her dummy (pacifier). So cute! I spent time with my 2 sisters Thelma and Ellen, the brides mother, and saw my niece Janelle whom I haven't seen for about 6 years since my Dad's funeral.
They have had a lot of rain up there on the nth coast, the Clarence river was quite high and everything was lush and green. Diffrent plants to what grows around here too, I collected some seed pods to bring back. Grafton is known for it's Jacaranda trees which were in flower but not at their best because of all the rain. I need a magic wand to get the rain back here where we need it, they have got enough up there. It is also hotter here than on the coast despite it being further north that us, the temps were in the low to mid 20's while we were there.
That's all of my ramblings for tonight, I have another few days left to organise the potter's club dinner so I will be busy and get back to this blog later.
Bye . Love Linda.
Saturday, 3 November 2007
Rain!!!!!!
G'Day,
It is raining.
The strange things that make us happy eh! I am obsessed with rain. It has been raining for half the afternoon and has been raining intermittently ever since. Yee Ha!
I was in Wagga today for my monthly duty day and potter's club meeting. I rang Fran tonight, who lives in north Wagga, and she said it was still raining there too. She had emptied out her rain gauge earlier today and had 6 points in it again this afternoon. Very nice. When I was driving home this evening there was actually water running down the sides of the roadway. Something I haven't seen for a long time. The arrangements for the annual curry night are falling into place. It is getting very close, just 2 weeks away. We are aiming to cater for 6o invited guests this year, which is more than the last few years.
Years ago, up until this drought hit us hard around here, along the Harefield road on the way home from Wagga, if it was raining the road used to be covered with tiny little frogs (and some big frogs as well) that came out to play in the rain. (or play squash on the road) They haven't been there of late of course, because of the drought, but maybe they will come back with this rain.
Side story; I have found burrowing frogs before when digging in my garden. The are frogs which store water in their bodies and they burrow underground to stay damp until there is rain again, so are drought proof, and then come out to party in their particular froggy way. Interesting little critters. Well, they aren't actually that small as froggies go they are a good size frog. I have also found big orange and brown frogs at night when it is rainy in my garden, hunting insects under my solar garden lights. I don't know if they are the burrowing frogs though they might be because there is no other ponds or creeks around close by that they might have come from. The fish in my pond would have eaten any eggs if they were laid in there.
I also re fired the pots today that didn't reach temperature in my kiln because it had a blockage. It took 9 hrs in the club kiln, which is a tad slow, (my fault, late start and non attention) but I don't really mind as long as it is finished.
The firing I did on Thursday at home in my old kiln was way over fired. The cones that read the temperature can be hard to see in a raging kiln and I couldn't see if they had bent over, and therefore reached temperature, so the glaze ran down onto the shelves and made a mess. The glaze , because it was over fired and had melted too much, was pooled in the bottom of the bowls and had formed pretty green crystals which looked really good. I had to grind the excess off the pots and shelves with the angle grinder but they came out passable in the end. I bet if I was trying to get crystals in my glaze like that they wouldn't have worked.
We got a big quarterly electricity bill yesterday, a bit over $500. With the bill for getting my kiln connected by the plumber that I have yet to pay, the water tank will have to wait a bit longer to get connected. That's a shame because of the rain we are getting that would have been able to fill it up, but never mind I will get there. I am still annoyed about the councils well advertised rebate not being available to us. Rip off merchants!
Annie, David and her Michael are down in Sydney last night and tonight to see bands again . Annie will be home tonight and Dave will be coming back tomorrow as he is visiting in Canberra on the way home. Nice to be young and have fun eh! Good on them I reckon, I wish Annie had a job to pay her own way though. She has applied to go to university next year, she had enough points to get in, we don't know if she is accepted yet. I guess that depends on who else and how many others put in for that particular course. Books for uni courses are notoriously expensive though, especially if you have to buy them new.
O.K. I had better stop whining about money, or scarcity of it and go to bed, it is late and I have another busy day tomorrow.
Bye - love - Linda. :)
It is raining.
The strange things that make us happy eh! I am obsessed with rain. It has been raining for half the afternoon and has been raining intermittently ever since. Yee Ha!
I was in Wagga today for my monthly duty day and potter's club meeting. I rang Fran tonight, who lives in north Wagga, and she said it was still raining there too. She had emptied out her rain gauge earlier today and had 6 points in it again this afternoon. Very nice. When I was driving home this evening there was actually water running down the sides of the roadway. Something I haven't seen for a long time. The arrangements for the annual curry night are falling into place. It is getting very close, just 2 weeks away. We are aiming to cater for 6o invited guests this year, which is more than the last few years.
Years ago, up until this drought hit us hard around here, along the Harefield road on the way home from Wagga, if it was raining the road used to be covered with tiny little frogs (and some big frogs as well) that came out to play in the rain. (or play squash on the road) They haven't been there of late of course, because of the drought, but maybe they will come back with this rain.
Side story; I have found burrowing frogs before when digging in my garden. The are frogs which store water in their bodies and they burrow underground to stay damp until there is rain again, so are drought proof, and then come out to party in their particular froggy way. Interesting little critters. Well, they aren't actually that small as froggies go they are a good size frog. I have also found big orange and brown frogs at night when it is rainy in my garden, hunting insects under my solar garden lights. I don't know if they are the burrowing frogs though they might be because there is no other ponds or creeks around close by that they might have come from. The fish in my pond would have eaten any eggs if they were laid in there.
I also re fired the pots today that didn't reach temperature in my kiln because it had a blockage. It took 9 hrs in the club kiln, which is a tad slow, (my fault, late start and non attention) but I don't really mind as long as it is finished.
The firing I did on Thursday at home in my old kiln was way over fired. The cones that read the temperature can be hard to see in a raging kiln and I couldn't see if they had bent over, and therefore reached temperature, so the glaze ran down onto the shelves and made a mess. The glaze , because it was over fired and had melted too much, was pooled in the bottom of the bowls and had formed pretty green crystals which looked really good. I had to grind the excess off the pots and shelves with the angle grinder but they came out passable in the end. I bet if I was trying to get crystals in my glaze like that they wouldn't have worked.
We got a big quarterly electricity bill yesterday, a bit over $500. With the bill for getting my kiln connected by the plumber that I have yet to pay, the water tank will have to wait a bit longer to get connected. That's a shame because of the rain we are getting that would have been able to fill it up, but never mind I will get there. I am still annoyed about the councils well advertised rebate not being available to us. Rip off merchants!
Annie, David and her Michael are down in Sydney last night and tonight to see bands again . Annie will be home tonight and Dave will be coming back tomorrow as he is visiting in Canberra on the way home. Nice to be young and have fun eh! Good on them I reckon, I wish Annie had a job to pay her own way though. She has applied to go to university next year, she had enough points to get in, we don't know if she is accepted yet. I guess that depends on who else and how many others put in for that particular course. Books for uni courses are notoriously expensive though, especially if you have to buy them new.
O.K. I had better stop whining about money, or scarcity of it and go to bed, it is late and I have another busy day tomorrow.
Bye - love - Linda. :)
Thursday, 1 November 2007
G'Day,
It is nice and cloudy this afternoon, I hope we get a bit of rain out of it, it is looking good. The clouds look full and heavy, where it will drop is pure luck and guess work. I hear that in the U.S there are floods in the south and fires have been in the Sth east. Wouldn't it be good if we could invent a way for one disaster to quench the other. Maybe have a big magic wand to put things where they are needed most. Yeah I know, I'm being silly. Not very amusing if you have links to these areas. But seriously, I feel sorry for the people who have lost homes and property.
I have my old kiln going at the moment with an earthenware glaze in it. It should be finished soon. The probe that measures the temperature inside the kiln has decided to pack it in this afternoon and is not giving me a proper reading, so I am carefully watching the cones. Cones are a little steeple shaped bit of clay that you sit inside the kiln in sight of the spy hole that will melt and bend over at a specific temperature to tell you the temp you want to get up to has been reached. I still have not seen the plumber to get him to look at the new kiln as I think it has a blockage in the system somewhere. I did however get the bill for him setting up the new kiln. It was over $400, so I might have to wait a while before I get him to come back to fix it. I also need to get him to hook up the water tank I got recently. When you buy a new water tank the govt and local councils will give you a rebate. Ha,I am quite annoyed because Pete went down to the council office to apply and they had all these conditions to getting the rebate which practically cut us out of getting the rebate. Some of the conditions were, the tank must be used to run the toilet and / or washing machine. I asked about getting the tank hooked up to run the toilet off and was told it is very expensive and is better done when building a new home. Which put me off that idea. I read a chart the other day which said that something like 50% of household water usage is used on the garden, which is what I wanted it for, and a much smaller percentage is used in the toilet and washing machine. No rebate for tanks used to supplement garden watering! C'mon! Also when Brian from the farm supplies place delivered the water tank he said that Junee people were so good at saving water that the amount of water going through the treatment plant is barely enough to run it. What a rip off. typical govt departments.
I cooked a batch of biscuits this afternoon. My not following the recipe version of Anzac biscuits. They are yummy I have already eaten 3. I like them thin and crunchy.
Recently on the news there as a story on blogging. It told of cases where people have followed up on reading others blogs to get information i.e. names, addresses, photos, birth dates, spouses names etc then having all the info they need to steal their identity. It made me pretty nervous. We as bloggers want to share a bit of ourselves and our lives and most probably wouldn't think twice about including details. Please beware.
O.K. thats about all of my ramblings this afternoon.
Bye Love Linda.
It is nice and cloudy this afternoon, I hope we get a bit of rain out of it, it is looking good. The clouds look full and heavy, where it will drop is pure luck and guess work. I hear that in the U.S there are floods in the south and fires have been in the Sth east. Wouldn't it be good if we could invent a way for one disaster to quench the other. Maybe have a big magic wand to put things where they are needed most. Yeah I know, I'm being silly. Not very amusing if you have links to these areas. But seriously, I feel sorry for the people who have lost homes and property.
I have my old kiln going at the moment with an earthenware glaze in it. It should be finished soon. The probe that measures the temperature inside the kiln has decided to pack it in this afternoon and is not giving me a proper reading, so I am carefully watching the cones. Cones are a little steeple shaped bit of clay that you sit inside the kiln in sight of the spy hole that will melt and bend over at a specific temperature to tell you the temp you want to get up to has been reached. I still have not seen the plumber to get him to look at the new kiln as I think it has a blockage in the system somewhere. I did however get the bill for him setting up the new kiln. It was over $400, so I might have to wait a while before I get him to come back to fix it. I also need to get him to hook up the water tank I got recently. When you buy a new water tank the govt and local councils will give you a rebate. Ha,I am quite annoyed because Pete went down to the council office to apply and they had all these conditions to getting the rebate which practically cut us out of getting the rebate. Some of the conditions were, the tank must be used to run the toilet and / or washing machine. I asked about getting the tank hooked up to run the toilet off and was told it is very expensive and is better done when building a new home. Which put me off that idea. I read a chart the other day which said that something like 50% of household water usage is used on the garden, which is what I wanted it for, and a much smaller percentage is used in the toilet and washing machine. No rebate for tanks used to supplement garden watering! C'mon! Also when Brian from the farm supplies place delivered the water tank he said that Junee people were so good at saving water that the amount of water going through the treatment plant is barely enough to run it. What a rip off. typical govt departments.
I cooked a batch of biscuits this afternoon. My not following the recipe version of Anzac biscuits. They are yummy I have already eaten 3. I like them thin and crunchy.
Recently on the news there as a story on blogging. It told of cases where people have followed up on reading others blogs to get information i.e. names, addresses, photos, birth dates, spouses names etc then having all the info they need to steal their identity. It made me pretty nervous. We as bloggers want to share a bit of ourselves and our lives and most probably wouldn't think twice about including details. Please beware.
O.K. thats about all of my ramblings this afternoon.
Bye Love Linda.
Saturday, 27 October 2007
A bit a rain!
G'Day,
Yes we actually got a bit of rain. Yesterday and the day before. I don't know how much but it wasn't a lot. I got to try out the wheelie bin (holds 240 litres) I bought to catch rain water under the back down pipe. It filled up very quickly as it collects water from a large roof area in comparison to the bins small capacity. I was scooping it out and putting it around the yard where the rain couldn't get, i.e. under the eaves. The 4500 litre rainwater tank that Mum got me for my birthday isn't connected to make use of it yet but never mind it will be soon. I also got 3 more bales of sugar cane mulch for the garden beds this morning. I have only spread 1 of them so far. Covering all the garden beds with mulch has become quite an expensive event this season. Last year I used pea straw which was cheaper but isn't available this year due to the drought. I guess the farmers are keeping everything available that they can for stock feed.
Today was the Junee show. I took Mum there for a while. I guess we stayed for about 2 & a half hours. I only ever go to look at the flowers,cooking and craft, and of course to have a dagwood dog. They taste better from a country show than anywhere. They are a frankfurt on a stick coated in batter and deep fried then dunked in tomato sauce that always manages to get blobbed on your shirt. The badge of a country show. I don't bother to go into sideshow alley.
I also like going into the poultry shed to have a look. The prettiest ones I saw today were the big Rhode Island red chooks and the funny looking Indian runner ducks.
There were no horsies at this years show because of the horse flu out break. I usually enjoy the dressage events though.
We sat in the grandstand and watched a young bloke doing jumps and tricks on his motor bike. He was still 15 and was eagerly awaiting getting his learners driving license shortly. It was a bit funny to think that someone so well skilled wasn't old enough to have a license yet. The best part was the 3 little boys sitting with their Nanna in front of us. They were absolutely thrilled and excited by the bike tricks and their faces were priceless to watch. There was also a family , dad, mum and 2 mid teenage sons, doing whip cracking demonstrations and tricks. One of the whips they were using was 27 ft long. The elder son was a world champion whip cracker for his age group or something like that. There weren't a big lot of flowers this year. I have put some of mine in a couple of years and won prizes, but I usually don't bother. Mostly because I have been at work most years.
Today I started wrapping Christmas presents. The ones that need to go to Grafton to my sister and nieces. We will have an early Christmas with them because I know they won't be able to wait to open them and we won't see them at Christmas time.
Yes we actually got a bit of rain. Yesterday and the day before. I don't know how much but it wasn't a lot. I got to try out the wheelie bin (holds 240 litres) I bought to catch rain water under the back down pipe. It filled up very quickly as it collects water from a large roof area in comparison to the bins small capacity. I was scooping it out and putting it around the yard where the rain couldn't get, i.e. under the eaves. The 4500 litre rainwater tank that Mum got me for my birthday isn't connected to make use of it yet but never mind it will be soon. I also got 3 more bales of sugar cane mulch for the garden beds this morning. I have only spread 1 of them so far. Covering all the garden beds with mulch has become quite an expensive event this season. Last year I used pea straw which was cheaper but isn't available this year due to the drought. I guess the farmers are keeping everything available that they can for stock feed.
Today was the Junee show. I took Mum there for a while. I guess we stayed for about 2 & a half hours. I only ever go to look at the flowers,cooking and craft, and of course to have a dagwood dog. They taste better from a country show than anywhere. They are a frankfurt on a stick coated in batter and deep fried then dunked in tomato sauce that always manages to get blobbed on your shirt. The badge of a country show. I don't bother to go into sideshow alley.
I also like going into the poultry shed to have a look. The prettiest ones I saw today were the big Rhode Island red chooks and the funny looking Indian runner ducks.
There were no horsies at this years show because of the horse flu out break. I usually enjoy the dressage events though.
We sat in the grandstand and watched a young bloke doing jumps and tricks on his motor bike. He was still 15 and was eagerly awaiting getting his learners driving license shortly. It was a bit funny to think that someone so well skilled wasn't old enough to have a license yet. The best part was the 3 little boys sitting with their Nanna in front of us. They were absolutely thrilled and excited by the bike tricks and their faces were priceless to watch. There was also a family , dad, mum and 2 mid teenage sons, doing whip cracking demonstrations and tricks. One of the whips they were using was 27 ft long. The elder son was a world champion whip cracker for his age group or something like that. There weren't a big lot of flowers this year. I have put some of mine in a couple of years and won prizes, but I usually don't bother. Mostly because I have been at work most years.
Today I started wrapping Christmas presents. The ones that need to go to Grafton to my sister and nieces. We will have an early Christmas with them because I know they won't be able to wait to open them and we won't see them at Christmas time.
Tuesday, 23 October 2007
Good Morning,I took some more photos around my garden to share this morning. The weather has been hot and dry for the last week. It is pretty early in the season to be so hot and it has resulted in all the flowers coming out in bloom all of a sudden then shrivelling from the heat.
The first one is the little pink pig face out the front.
This is a miniture rose. It changes colour as it ages. I don't know it's name.
Another mini rose. This one is called" mine-no-uki "I think. It suffers from black spot more than the others do.
Another mini rose called over the rainbow.
This is the big rose at my side gate. I have to cut it down this afternoon as Mum has bought me a water tank as an early birthday present which is being delivered after lunch and has to get over and past it. It is about 12 ft high and reminds me of the roses you see in the chintz patterened fabrics. As it is so big the flowers get damaged in the wind.
A mini rose out the back. it fades to a pinky peach colour.
A pure yellow mini with lots of insect damage.
View through the archway.
Buds on the hanging cactus thingy. About a third of their final size but grow super quick and will probably be opening in another week or so.
Mini rose out the side.
I love this boring looking rose geranium. In the evenings when I hand water it the perfume from disturbing the leaves floats up to me and is absolutely heavenly.I got it at a church fete years ago. There is another one in my yard with bigger leaves but the scent isn't so strong, from Jim Webb an old gardener who was in our hospital a while back and who used to run a gardening show for years on A.B.C. radio.
My favourite red rose, the big strong Mr Lincoln.
Two Poppy eyes.
Black aeonium. I hope thats the right name. I got it at the melbourne flower show last year.
The big chintzy rose again.
Poor thrip damaged seduction bush rose. Seduction is a variant of the famous Iceberg rose. The autumn flowering is much prettier.
This medium sized rose is called Cassandre'. I am in the process of training it to go around the archway in the back yard.
A russet coloured Iris out the back.
This is my apple blossom rose. The flowers are tiny, about 3cm across and it is a climber but gets badly affected by hot weather.
Pink columbine.
Yellow snappie. Thrip affected. In a pot. 2nd season. Click on any of the pics for a bigger view.
Martha said she is sharing my flowers as hers have been replaced by autumn colours now. Thanks Martha. I share her autumn colours we don't get them much here.
O.k. I have to get going and dress and then cut down my big chintzy rose. My flu bug has reached a turning point over night and my throat is beginning to improve. I took the day off work today to recover and I have tomorrow off as well so I'm doing o.k. Or will be in a few more days. I'm Tough. Australis Robustus Clayii.
Bye Love Linda.
Monday, 22 October 2007
Misery
G'Day,
It is 1/4 to 3 in the morning here and I am sitting up at the puter writing and reading because I can't sleep. I have the flu and for the last 4 days have been a misery guts and feeling sorry for myself. My sinus are blocked, my ears are too, my eyes won't stop running and I have no skin left on my nose and my throat is dried out and very sore. Woe is me, I haven't had a bug hit me so hard for a long time. Pete has it too so I got out of bed about an hour ago to let him sleep without disturbing him. Luckily Mum hasn't caught it. I am worried though as it would spoil her trip to my niece's wedding in a few weeks if she does catch it.
Two of my offspring, Michael and Anne Marie are in Wagga tonight, there was an all day heavy metal concert at the uni today and they both went to it. Mike was so looking forward to it as 3 of his favourite bands were playing and having them so close to home is a rarity. I hope all went well for them both and they enjoyed it. I made sure he took migraine medication with him.
The firing of my new kiln that I spoke about in my last post was a dud and I was very disappointed. The temperature got to 1240 degrees which is not far from maturity but something went wrong and the gas pressure kept dropping and wouldn't go up again. I changed gas bottles but that was not the problem as there was still gas left in the old bottle so I guess there is a blockage in the burner jet or in the lines somewhere. It wouldn't let any gas through to relight. I ended up wasting 9 and a half hours of gas. The glaze on a few of the things were almost mature but I will need to start again with most of them. The up side to this is I now know where the hottest spots are in the kiln. I just have to remember where for next time, not easy for me, ha.
On Saturday I went to a Raku firing with potters club members at Fran's house. It was done in the new kiln the club bought recently. I didn't take any pots along to do as I was feeling yuck, so I sat and watched and stayed for lunch. The 2 new members were there and they seemed keen. I also raided Fran's garden and came home with a few seedlings of a geranium she had growing. It was nice sitting under the shade of her alder tree, especially as I can remember how it looked when she first planted it 12 years ago. I have little bits of friends all around my garden. There is Fran's iris, Kath's Iris, Edie's bulbs, Marion's bulbs, Betty's ivy geraniums, Auntie Marion's cast iron plants, grandma Trennery's begonias, June Herbert's funny succulent tree thingy, June Bennett's columbines, Auntie Joan's poor struggling hydrangea, Ellen's fern, Mr Webb's rose scented geranium, Linda's cornflowers, the list goes on. I think it is really nice to have little bits of everybody to remind me of them as well as share bits of my plants around with everybody else who wants them. I have heard it called a friendship garden. That is about all for now. I think I will try to go back to sleep now, even though I don't really feel tired. Bye.
Love Linda.
It is 1/4 to 3 in the morning here and I am sitting up at the puter writing and reading because I can't sleep. I have the flu and for the last 4 days have been a misery guts and feeling sorry for myself. My sinus are blocked, my ears are too, my eyes won't stop running and I have no skin left on my nose and my throat is dried out and very sore. Woe is me, I haven't had a bug hit me so hard for a long time. Pete has it too so I got out of bed about an hour ago to let him sleep without disturbing him. Luckily Mum hasn't caught it. I am worried though as it would spoil her trip to my niece's wedding in a few weeks if she does catch it.
Two of my offspring, Michael and Anne Marie are in Wagga tonight, there was an all day heavy metal concert at the uni today and they both went to it. Mike was so looking forward to it as 3 of his favourite bands were playing and having them so close to home is a rarity. I hope all went well for them both and they enjoyed it. I made sure he took migraine medication with him.
The firing of my new kiln that I spoke about in my last post was a dud and I was very disappointed. The temperature got to 1240 degrees which is not far from maturity but something went wrong and the gas pressure kept dropping and wouldn't go up again. I changed gas bottles but that was not the problem as there was still gas left in the old bottle so I guess there is a blockage in the burner jet or in the lines somewhere. It wouldn't let any gas through to relight. I ended up wasting 9 and a half hours of gas. The glaze on a few of the things were almost mature but I will need to start again with most of them. The up side to this is I now know where the hottest spots are in the kiln. I just have to remember where for next time, not easy for me, ha.
On Saturday I went to a Raku firing with potters club members at Fran's house. It was done in the new kiln the club bought recently. I didn't take any pots along to do as I was feeling yuck, so I sat and watched and stayed for lunch. The 2 new members were there and they seemed keen. I also raided Fran's garden and came home with a few seedlings of a geranium she had growing. It was nice sitting under the shade of her alder tree, especially as I can remember how it looked when she first planted it 12 years ago. I have little bits of friends all around my garden. There is Fran's iris, Kath's Iris, Edie's bulbs, Marion's bulbs, Betty's ivy geraniums, Auntie Marion's cast iron plants, grandma Trennery's begonias, June Herbert's funny succulent tree thingy, June Bennett's columbines, Auntie Joan's poor struggling hydrangea, Ellen's fern, Mr Webb's rose scented geranium, Linda's cornflowers, the list goes on. I think it is really nice to have little bits of everybody to remind me of them as well as share bits of my plants around with everybody else who wants them. I have heard it called a friendship garden. That is about all for now. I think I will try to go back to sleep now, even though I don't really feel tired. Bye.
Love Linda.
Wednesday, 17 October 2007
New kiln, Gardening. horse flu.
G'Day,
Here are some flower pictures from my beloved garden. The first one is a bloom from the big old climbing rose on the back of my house. I don't know its name.
This orangie rose is beside the red one. I think it is called rouge de marmande or something like that.
A bit of my yard. Perennial wall flowers, snap dragons and little daisies.
This one was taken looking back towards the house. Early spring. I take a pic from here for each season, but as they are from different folders I don't know how to put them side by side to compare them.
A snowball bush, it is also called a guelder rose or a viburnum sterile'. It is out the front. Behind it is a may bush, named from the month it flowers in the northern hemisphere.
A beautiful Iris. I bought this in Canberra last year, this is the first flower. The plant behind it is a big fuchsia, not flowering yet but a good value plant.
And a columbine, also called grannies bonnets. These didn't flower last year and I was going to get rid of them if they didn't this year. A friend gave me the seeds.
A silvery white iris, at the back fence.
The baby doves are almost fully feathered now and can fly and feed themselves, though they still don't have their adult colours and markings.
The new kiln is having it's first firing today. It has a cone 9/10 glaze in it. The pressure gauge I got yesterday from Wagga is not registering. I don't know why. I will get Ray our plumber, to come back and have another look. So I am turning it up a little at a time, so far so good. It is at the 7 1/2 hr mark at the moment with about a hundred degrees to go until it reaches temperature. I can't wait to open the kiln up in the morning to see how it all went. For some reason the primary air intake at the burner has silastic glue in the holes. I don't know why the previous owner would have done that.
My second son had a shocker of a weekend last week. He lost his drivers licence for drink driving. He was very upset and didn't need me to rub it in, he already knew what I would think of it so I didn't. He will get a hefty fine and 6 to 12 months suspension and have to go to court. Serves him right.
I also brought from Wagga yesterday 3 more bales of sugar cane mulch and spread it around my garden beds out the back. With the 2 I put out before that makes 5, but I reckon I could use 3 or 4 more to finish it off properly. I also got a punnet of sweet basil, a golden nugget pumpkin and a white verbena to put in. As mulch,I have used pine bark fines, lucerne hay, meadow straw, pea straw, horse manure, stones and home made compost in the past. They all work, you get more weeds pop up with some more than others. I didn't like the stones much though, as the kids were little and enjoyed scattering them and so did the dogs and I had to pick them up all the time. They also sunk into the ground after a while and became hard and compacted. The idea of mulching is to conserve moisture, add humus, and protect the soil and plant roots from extremes in temperatures. We have had no rain over the past week an a half, not even a sprinkle. One of the nursies at work said the other day, that her farm usually gets 20 inches per year, this year they have had 7 inches of rain. Surely this can't last forever.
In Australia up until recently we didn't have horse flu. Now we do. There has been a campaign going for the past few months to try and stop it spreading but it is spreading, the Riverina area where I live is now on alert. Anyway, the campaign to stop the spread of the disease has stopped horse racing in certain areas in its tracks. Some enterprising people have been finding fun alternatives. Recently in Lockhart instead of their annual picnic races they held sheep races. I heard on the radio this morning of another funny alternate race. They are getting farm dogs to have a race by eating food. The first dog to the bowl of food to empty it wins. Of course there are alternate race meetings held in other places annually. In Hillston I think, there are camel races, In Queensland there are cane toad races, at picnics we have gum boot races and Alice Springs has their regatta where they build boats with no bottoms and race them down the dry bed of the Todd river. Darwin has the beer can regatta, boats or rafts are built out of beer cans. An old saying is that Aussies would have a bet on 2 flys crawling up a wall if there was nothing else to bet on.
Time to check my kiln, get up , get out, get on with it.
Bye, Love Linda.
Here are some flower pictures from my beloved garden. The first one is a bloom from the big old climbing rose on the back of my house. I don't know its name.
This orangie rose is beside the red one. I think it is called rouge de marmande or something like that.
A bit of my yard. Perennial wall flowers, snap dragons and little daisies.
This one was taken looking back towards the house. Early spring. I take a pic from here for each season, but as they are from different folders I don't know how to put them side by side to compare them.
A snowball bush, it is also called a guelder rose or a viburnum sterile'. It is out the front. Behind it is a may bush, named from the month it flowers in the northern hemisphere.
A beautiful Iris. I bought this in Canberra last year, this is the first flower. The plant behind it is a big fuchsia, not flowering yet but a good value plant.
And a columbine, also called grannies bonnets. These didn't flower last year and I was going to get rid of them if they didn't this year. A friend gave me the seeds.
A silvery white iris, at the back fence.
The baby doves are almost fully feathered now and can fly and feed themselves, though they still don't have their adult colours and markings.
The new kiln is having it's first firing today. It has a cone 9/10 glaze in it. The pressure gauge I got yesterday from Wagga is not registering. I don't know why. I will get Ray our plumber, to come back and have another look. So I am turning it up a little at a time, so far so good. It is at the 7 1/2 hr mark at the moment with about a hundred degrees to go until it reaches temperature. I can't wait to open the kiln up in the morning to see how it all went. For some reason the primary air intake at the burner has silastic glue in the holes. I don't know why the previous owner would have done that.My second son had a shocker of a weekend last week. He lost his drivers licence for drink driving. He was very upset and didn't need me to rub it in, he already knew what I would think of it so I didn't. He will get a hefty fine and 6 to 12 months suspension and have to go to court. Serves him right.
I also brought from Wagga yesterday 3 more bales of sugar cane mulch and spread it around my garden beds out the back. With the 2 I put out before that makes 5, but I reckon I could use 3 or 4 more to finish it off properly. I also got a punnet of sweet basil, a golden nugget pumpkin and a white verbena to put in. As mulch,I have used pine bark fines, lucerne hay, meadow straw, pea straw, horse manure, stones and home made compost in the past. They all work, you get more weeds pop up with some more than others. I didn't like the stones much though, as the kids were little and enjoyed scattering them and so did the dogs and I had to pick them up all the time. They also sunk into the ground after a while and became hard and compacted. The idea of mulching is to conserve moisture, add humus, and protect the soil and plant roots from extremes in temperatures. We have had no rain over the past week an a half, not even a sprinkle. One of the nursies at work said the other day, that her farm usually gets 20 inches per year, this year they have had 7 inches of rain. Surely this can't last forever.
In Australia up until recently we didn't have horse flu. Now we do. There has been a campaign going for the past few months to try and stop it spreading but it is spreading, the Riverina area where I live is now on alert. Anyway, the campaign to stop the spread of the disease has stopped horse racing in certain areas in its tracks. Some enterprising people have been finding fun alternatives. Recently in Lockhart instead of their annual picnic races they held sheep races. I heard on the radio this morning of another funny alternate race. They are getting farm dogs to have a race by eating food. The first dog to the bowl of food to empty it wins. Of course there are alternate race meetings held in other places annually. In Hillston I think, there are camel races, In Queensland there are cane toad races, at picnics we have gum boot races and Alice Springs has their regatta where they build boats with no bottoms and race them down the dry bed of the Todd river. Darwin has the beer can regatta, boats or rafts are built out of beer cans. An old saying is that Aussies would have a bet on 2 flys crawling up a wall if there was nothing else to bet on.
Time to check my kiln, get up , get out, get on with it.
Bye, Love Linda.
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