Voldemort The Younger

We've had a nice quiet week, all the washing is finished, the house is clean, so we've enjoyed a bit of 'do what we want' time.  I rearranged my sewing room, it looked like a bomb had gone off as that was the place we shoved everything to get it out of the way whilst all our visitors were here.  I took the opportunity to change the positions of the cupboards and am much happier with it, I suddenly have a lot more room to move around.  This is my acrylic yarn stash (the cottons and wools are now in a drawer), this is in the forefront at present due to my Mandala Madness crochet mission.

 This is my progress so far, lots of hours but it is still a wee small thing.  I have different feelings about the colour scheme with every layer.  I hated it after the pink and orange petals, soooo bright!  But the next few colours have toned it down, and the following few layers I am choosing to use light yellow then cream so that will be interesting.

 I really like the textures that it's creating, raised edges and flappy petals.  I'm learning a lot too.

 I am also in the process of making myself a bag.  My friend Ruth helped me get started so now I must gamely continue on alone.  I'll show you a photo next time when it's hopefully finished!

 Neo is loving the sunshine, he has his sunbath in the doorway every morning when the sun streams in the sliding door.  Then he gets too hot and moves to the cool floor and plops himself down with an oomph. :-)

 He's a beautiful boy.

 Whenever we venture to Boston Brewery, where as well as nice food and drink, they also have a beautiful garden, I have always admired a grassy plant they have amongst other things.  With some research I found out that it is Purple Fountain Grass, and finally I bought myself one a few months ago.  It looked like crap for months, a small half dead thing, but suddenly it has decided to become magnificent.  Do you like it?  I think it's a great accent plant and I love the fluffy tails.

 Here's a close-up.

 I was sitting out the front crocheting the other day, and I glanced idly at a section of forest, admiring the trunk of a huge old marri tree, when it struck me.  It has a face!  Can you see it? On the big trunk in the middle of the photo.

 Here it is again after I've accentuated the eyes, nose and mouth with Photoshop.  The serene, sleepy face of a old tree, lovely.

 Talking of faces, what do you think of this one?  This is a black skink who lives in our shed and is known as Voldemort The Younger. 

 

There is an original shed dwelling Voldemort who is much bigger and we see occasionally, but Voldemort The Younger has taken up residence atop the timber up in the racks, just above eye level.  If you are not aware he can give you quite a start with his malevolent stare!  Black skinks are very useful albeit in a slightly alarming way, they eat bugs and the occasional mouse so we are quite happy for them to live in the shed.  What we don't like is when they are at ground level, underneath something so that just the end of their tail is visible, then you have to work out if you are looking at a snake or a skink!

On a sad note, Marx was put to sleep by the vet a couple of days ago.  Here's a photo of her with her boyfriend Big Ben, taken mid November.  Those legs hanging out of her pouch belong to Noelle, who is being cared for with four other joeys about the same age.  She is doing really really well apparently, so I'm very glad about that.  See ya Marx xx