Memories

Steve's mum Barbara left us on September 30th after a long long journey with Alzheimers, she's flying free with Eric now xx 
We are so grateful to the caring staff of their nursing home for looking after Barbara and Eric since 2012. 
After all this time Steve felt ready to have a look through Barbara and Eric's possessions that we packed up in 2012, and we had a healing time reminiscing over hundreds of slides of days gone by, and remembering the stories behind ornaments and trinkets.
Goodbye dear Barbara, we miss you, and we miss you too dear Eric xx

 One night last week we drove up to the War Memorial in Albany, there is a wonderful art installation to see.  It's called Field Of Light by Bruce Munro.  He has installed 16000 lights all along the Avenue Of Honour, that pay homage to the 41000 troops that left the shores of Albany destined for the battlefields of WW1.  I believe the lights are representative of the souls of those who lost their lives. 
We parked the car, and with many other people, walked slowly in the dark up the long, winding avenue, surrounded by magicial, beautiful lights and the shadows of the enormous trees lining the road. It was amazing, not only in its beauty, but is also really made us reflect on the devastating loss of life in wartime.  It is well worth a visit, and the installation will remain in place until just after ANZAC Day 2019.

 Until next time...xx

Softly, Slowly, Gently

It's good to remind ourselves of the beautiful things around us, no matter how small and insignificant.  My cliveas are bursting into bloom, huge, happy orange flowers that last for weeks.  So vibrant and lovely.

 We are still abounding in citrus, this was my haul of lemons, limes and oranges the other day.  Leaving the oranges until they fall off the tree seems to be the trick here, they are so lovely and sweet now.

 I love this sight.  Steve is the bread maker of the household and when he makes rolls he lets them rise by the fire.  Which reminds me, looking at that photo, that glass needs a clean! :-)

 Walks along the beach, rugged up against the cold.  Cosy Corner is a beautiful place, and I love the sight of the line of wind turbines off in the distance.

 A wee rest on the steps before we walked back to the car.

 There are more and more bulging pouches, and the start of the tiny joey faces popping out.  This mum is Jane, so named because she has no markings and is plain as plain, but I am interested to see her joey has a nice big white mark on its forehead...makes it much easier to identify them later!

 This mum is Nibble, so named because her right ear has all these little bits missing on the edge, like it's been nibbled.  Her joey is a little overdue for becoming independent, look at this size of that pouch!

 And here is said joey, who popped out of the pouch a few minutes later, had a big scratch and then proceeded to wallop mother.  Feisty little one!  It's amazing something that size can fit into the pouch.

 This is Rabbit with her very first big pouch, Steve caught a glimpse of a tiny nose poking out yesterday, my ambition over the next week is to get a photo.  I am feeling very grandmotherly towards this joey.  Rabbit is Lucy's last joey and we have known Rabbit since she was a baby, so feel very close to her baby and looking forward to meeting it.

 And here's the dear old girl Lucy, up at the house for breakfast.  She is accompanied by Brows who is scouting around for any oats that Lucy might have missed.  Brows is the chick of Peg, a one footed female magpie that we've known for the whole 6 years we've been here.  Sadly Peg broke her other leg a couple of months ago and we were unable to catch her and she disappeared, presumably she has died.  Brows was still learning the ways of a magpie from her mum Peg and has sort of adopted us.  Her name is Brows at present because she has little white eyebrows in her juvenile feather colouring.  She is rather daring the way she wanders around under Lucy, who could squash her any time.

 Oh yes, I can finally show you my secret crochet project, now it has been delivered to its new owner.  I made dad a lap blanket for Fathers Day, it's called an Ellipse Blanket.  Just the right size for keeping legs warm when watching the tellie. 

 I went so far as to add Dad's initials on a little crocheted disc in the corner, the design taken from his wedding ring.  I'm so glad you like your blanket Dad, I enjoyed making it for you.  xx

Until next time... xx

Special Occasion for Special People

We popped up to Perth overnight to see some special people and help them celebrate a huge milestone - 60th wedding anniversary!  Congratulations Mum and Dad!

 We had a lovely dinner at Chez Pierre in Nedlands, yummy yummy food and great service.  Sorry for the crap photos, I couldn't remember how to make the flash work on my camera!

 When Steve was doing his half of the drive to Perth, I was working on my crocheted cardigan, it's coming along slowly.

 I finished the second oven cloth, I think they look quite nice sitting there together. 

 I used old denim as the cloth, it matches my tiles reasonably well.

 I made another joey night bag for my friend Claire.  I'm doing them one at a time to begin with until I get the size right.

 Speaking of kangaroos, here is the lovely Lucy.  She is definitely a lady of many years, she is getting some grey in her fur now.  She is adorable.

 We've had lots of rain the last few weeks, so the creek is belching out masses of water at the lower end.

 We noticed one of the very old trees alongside the creek, which had a huge overhanging branch, suddenly looking lower than we remembered it.  For a few days we made a point of not walking underneath it.  Just as well!

 This is what greeted us a few mornings later, the whole thing fell down.  It was pretty much dead and had snapped off at the base.  Steve got busy and it's now all chopped up and on the woodpile!

 Have a look at this fascinating fungi.  There is a small area in the back garden where these pop up.  They stink!  Like something has gone off.  Hence their name. Aseroe rubra, or Anemone Stinkhorn. 

 This is a sight that pleases me, this is Callistemon Little John, a mini bottlebrush that grows to about 3/4 of a metre tall.  I love the dark red flowers, and the little nectar birds are very happy to see the flowers too.

Until next time... xx

Foggity Fog Fog Fog

It seems that the south of WA has been very foggy lately.  We woke up to this pea souper this morning, it didn't clear until after 11am. 

 Eerie and beautiful

 It's rather chilly too

 Even a fog enshrouded Acacia fimbriata in flower is a beautiful thing

as is the Silvereye enjoying nectar from the flower of the Moonlight Grevillea behind the shed

 Our little Navel orange tree has surpassed itself this year, look at all that fruit!  It needs to stay on the tree for a while longer though, they are still a bit sour.

The garlic is starting to grow.

Here is Pawly watching what's going on.  He is so named as he was very very poorly as a joey, but he's okay now.  I think his growth was a bit stunted but he starting to fill out now as a five year old.

 This is the mess of the chook yard's nets, they were ripped to shreds by the recent storms and are full of huge holes.  We are going to take it all down and replace it with wire to make it a lot stronger and more permanent.

 We had a ripper hail storm a week ago

 The blueberry plants are appreciating the cold snap, and this variety has put on a magnificent show of colour with its foliage.  Interestingly, only one variety is doing this, the other has still got green leaves. 

 This is my African Violet that was grown from a cutting.  It is very happy sitting in the kitchen window and is rewarding me with lots of pretty, frilly flowers.

 This time of year is good for cooking and stocking up the freezer.  These are Steve's apple and rhubarb pies, it was hard to find space in the freezer amongst the containers of soup, curries and cottage pies that I'd been busy doing.  Nothing better than grabbing dinner out of the freezer for a quick meal.

 Neo is happy, he loves it once we start lighting our fire to keep the house warm.  Here he is atop the bookshelf, his Man Tower, and refusing to put on a cute face for the camera.  He is a very stubborn cat when it comes to photography! :-)

 We dashed up to Perth overnight as it was present giving time!  Happy Happy Birthday to Riley who is now eight!  Riley chose Timezone as her birthday outing so off we went, walking through the park to the shopping complex near Paul's house to  watch a frenzied hour of fun.  This is a basketball hoop shooting thing that the girls enjoyed.

There is another birthday coming up too, our darling baby boy Paul is turning the BIG 30 in a few weeks!  We feel old!  ha ha

I crocheted Paul a lap blanket, I was amazed to find a multicolour yarn that had all his favourite colours in it.  And it's gradient yarn that has lovely gradual colour changes, so it was very enjoyable watching the colour movements as I crocheted it.

 At the beginning of the year, Steve has a lump of sheoak timber and an idea in his head to make Paul a box.  This is the start of the many hours of routing to create the holes within.

 Lots and lot of smoothing, measuring and routing continued

 And this is the end result, isn't it beautiful. 

 Sheoak has the most magnificent grain, photos just don't do it justice.

 And this is what's within when the doors are opened.

 A nice bottle of Glayva - a whisky liqueur, two etched glasses from the Torbay Glass Studio near us, and a little piece of family history - one of Steve's father's pocket watches.

Happy Happy Birthday to you dear son xx

Until next time.... xx