Brrrrrr.......................

G'Day,
Today is Monday the first Monday of winter! I don't like winter but it surely is here. There was a thick fog this morning when I left home for work at 6.30 and it was cold like it is now. With the winter comes the aches and pains in my muscles and joints. My shoulders and neck have been sore and aching and so has my neck and my arm and my sciatica, have a whinge why don't ya Linny! I went to the Dr on Thursday last as I had a couple of bouts of chest pain and he gave me an e.c.g. and blood tests. I found out today that my heart is fine so its muscular pain which is a relief. I went back to taking the anti inflammatory drugs and all but my shoulder blade has stopped aching. Paracetamol doesn't work on it. I hate this weather. The temperature is supposed to get down to 1 degree here tonight. We have already had a couple of frosts in the last week.
I have moved some of my frost sensitive plants to safer spots. We have had some rain over the last week as well so the ground is nice and damp and my plants are enjoying that, the claret ash and cratageous ( don't know how to spell that , but it sounds right) trees around my yard are starting to loose their leaves. My roses are still flowering but slowing down and the little bits and pieces around the yard like geraniums, snapdragons, salvias, verbenas still have some flowers on them. The lilly pilly berries are perfect to eat now, and I have been. The little mandarin tree is heavy with fruit that won't be ripe for a few more months but is weighing the branches down. I have had the tree for ten or more years and it hasn't grown much so it must be a dwarf. It didn't say that on the tag when I bought it though. The apricot and nectarine trees still have their leaves.I might get rid of the apricot tree as it is where we park the caravan and we will have to keep it cut back out of the road. Apart from that we have fruit fly, ants and birds that compete with us for its fruit. Not insurmountable I know, but a nuisance just the same. It does have beautiful big juicy fruit if we get them first though.
I have got back my enthusiasm to make pots again. ( It disappeared with the hot weather and the snake in my shed ) I was inspired the other day by a lovely piece of wood that I saved from the wood heater and went out to the shed and made a pot from it. I made slabs from grogged red stoneware clay then impressed the clay onto the wood and got a great texture which I made into a cylinder and threw a neck for. I made another one since and I like that too so I might do a couple of smaller ones to match. The ones I made are about 40cm tall. I think a well reduced hard ash glaze that I know might suit them, if I put it just on the neck and dribble it down the texture part. It gets me back to my gutsy potting style.
I often look at things and wish I had a bit of clay with me so I could take an impression and play with it later. A tree, a rock, a bit of wrought iron or a plaque or something often takes my fancy and I want to do something about it. I think maybe I see things differently to the way others look at them. I look at a piece of fire wood and see color and texture not something just to burn. I remember when my daughter was a toddler we were going along in the car and there was a paddock full of Patterson's curse in flower and she pointed and said "Look at the blue" maybe she sees things like I do. I don't know if she still does. The flower was actually purple and it is still one of her favorite colors. We seem to have got her past the horrible selfish teenage period at 14 quite smoothly but it has caught up with us all now and she is being a pain. Of course everyone knows that when you are 18 you know everything and can do just what you want while mum and dad pay your bills, play taxi service and wait at home for you. I guess that will come full circle too if we wait a while, because she really is lovely. Somewhere in there is the lovely little girl we always knew.
Mum and I went to Wagga on Sunday looking for something to do to pass the time. We drove out along the old Mangoplah road and took a look at the way the town has grown. I hadn't been out in that direction for quite a while and was surprised to see that the suburbs of Hill Crest and bourkelands have joined together and there is a constant flow of new homes where just a few years ago there was none. We had a look at a display home in hill crest and it was great, one of the nicest floor plans I have seen and views all the way to Estella and the hills of the university on the opposite side of the city. The cost was reasonable by todays prices. $276.000 built on a flat block minus land price. 4 bedrooms, study and theatre room, en suite, walk in wardrobe & pantry, all things modern and spacious. When I was in school I would day dream out the window at the new houses being built nearby and was shocked at the prices of them. The city's growth has long since left this area behind it. That was 25 + years ago and a very good house was $50,000. You could get an ordinary house for $20 t0 $30,000 then. What will housing costs be like in another 25 yrs. In the cities, housing costs have become beyond ordinary peoples reach and many home owners are unable to keep up payments for the great Australian dream loosing their homes to the banks who have become more and more greedy, putting profit before people.
Oh well that's enough for tonight. Bye.
Love Linda.