Wow!

I came home from visiting my lovely Ma over the weekend, to find not one, not two, not three, but four, (yep, four) parcels, on my doorstep.  Bras from Marks and Spencer, Cardigans from Woolovers, earrings from Cloud Nine Creative, and a mystery parcel.  I love those.  I opened it up to find something entirely unexpected:

You know how it is when sometimes you do something for somebody because you want to, not because you have to... and then bam!  A pay it forward gift.  A very similar scarf to this, courtesy of Mrs Pudding.  Mrs Fluid Pudding.  The extremely generous Mrs Fluid Pudding.   The extremely talented and kind Mrs Fluid Pudding.  Need I say more?

In other news, it was cold and wet in Perth, giving me a fabulous opportunity to take some photos:

It was cold, but just a bit atmospheric... wonderful...

I also got some nice 5" squares at the local market, some smelly soap, and a jar of fabulous Armenian pickled cucumber slices - yummy.

We did a lot of relaxing, and a bit of socialising - OGF Kaz & Az had also come over for the weekend, on their way to a week of wine tasting in the South of WA, and Az cooked one of his special feasts:

which finished up looking like this:

and which was delicious - and so was the scenery:

There were some beautiful blue wrens flying about, and this amazing robin, but they were too quick for me - probably should have put the quick shot thingy on the camera, but hey, I'm old & slow - and trees are easier to take than birds...

Well.  Some birds, anyway:

Truly the fattest bird I have ever seen.  Definitely not a carrier pigeon... and now?  Bed!

Ciao!

Up with the lark...

Or, more accurately, up with the cold.  Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!  TMI Moment approaching!  I woke up with that horrible sensation of something needing to remove itself from my lungs, and rather than wake the soundly-sleeping Mr G, I (being completely awake, you understand), decided to get up.


So, it's now 5.01am.  I've put all the pictures on both cameras into Picasa, and I'm about to make a food collage for MGF* Kaz, who kindly sent me the pictures she took yesterday.  So, I hear you ask, where did you go yesterday?  Well, Gentle Readers, MBF* Deb kindly took Mr G & I up to Palm Beach, where we got on the ferry to Patonga, a little community which is  reachable by car, but is a very long hour and 41 minutes away... whereas via the ferry?  30 minutes.  Hard to resist, especially with views like this along the way:

And we were then picked up by the excellent folk at Pearls on the Beach, a lovely restaurant set in an old weatherboard building, on the edge of the water, where we ate and drank mightily, and I have to say not being constrained by the obligation to drive was extremely pleasant...


And now, sadly, it's 5.30am, and I have to get up - small, very small, joke there - but I will share the picture of the beautiful food with you, before I rush off to make a very ordinary ham & avocado sandwich for lunch and throw myself into Upholstery School today:

As to the occasion?  More, later.  I promise!


Ciao!

Talk about...

Working my fingers to the bone.  Well, kind of.  My very rude friend Ms Creek had the nerve to suggest I was a lazy cow now that I wasn't working, and perhaps my last post about the joys of lunching whilst somebody else (and a man, to boot) cleaned my house, might have led you to believe (especially some of my newer readers, welcome, welcome, sit down, no, here, sit here, have a drink, ice?  Biscuit?  No, I didn't make them, sorry about that.  No, really.) that I was a lazy cow, but you, Gentle Readers, know better.  You know that under this slightly tubby, slightly slovenly** exterior, is a workaholic.  Well, a sew-a-holic.  Well, more of a "I've got to be doing something with my hands-aholic".  


Just as an aside, Gentle Readers, don't you think that there should be a better term than '...aholic' to denote somebody who needs to be doing stuff, all the time?  I don't like that it is derived from 'alcoholic', knowing a few of those, unhappy souls that they are, I don't like it at all, and I want a better term.  I know that the Oxford English Dictionary is looking for people to adopt words that are in danger of dying out through lack of use, and I personally have adopted 'Traboccant', which means 'super-abundant'.  It's kind of appropriate for me, in that I have super-abundant amounts of fabric, ribbon, books, CD's, DVD's, buttons, dust... you get the picture.


Anyway, I'm thinking of digging out the Thesaurus to find a better word than xxx-aholic, and when I do, rest assured I'll let you know.  I know that you'll be worrying until then, but don't fret.  I'll sort it out.


Right, where was I?  Oh yes.  We went to the beautiful Hunter Valley and I made a panoply of presents... (see, big word slipped in there, but more about big words later, perhaps next post?)

And the weather was exceeding kind:

and we had visits from all different kinds of birds, some successful, and some, not so much:

Poor little fire-tailed finch crashed into a bedroom window - how beautiful his plumage is...

And these blurry specks are the local eagles, we saw two breeding pairs yesterday, floating round on the thermals about the house:

And finally, the Jacarandas are magnificently in flower, all over the district:

And now, Gentle Readers, lunch is calling me, and I must then away, away to the sewing machine, for some traboccant Christmas gift-making.


Ciao!


**Slovenly - defined in my book as somebody who buys her clothes from catalogues, and only goes into shops when she has to go to a wedding, funeral or formal function.  Yours?