You're doing what???

Yes, Remaining Gentle Readers, I am up at 3.09am blogging, but as usual, there are sound reasons for this (you know I can justify just about anything, don't you?)... I've had a very sore throat since returning from Bali, probably thanks to the four-year-old screamer on the plane who kept everybody else from sleeping - poor little mite, his cough sounded like he could do with cutting down to 60 a day, no, really -  so I trotted off to the Doctor today, and have been dosed up with antibiotics and antihistamines.  In addition to the hayfever and sinusitis, I have something called 'glue ear', which my lovely Ma tells me is what little kids get, and yes, I am too old to have grommets.


Apparently.


Anyway, these antibiotics have some interesting side-effects, one of which is the inducement (is that a word?) of heartburn.  I've done heartburn.  I don't want to do it anymore.  I spent months taking Nexium, sleeping upright, not eating after 7.30pm (very boring if you want to go out for dinner & have more than one course!), keeping the pack of chewable quickeze by the bed, in the handbag, in the desk drawer, and I don't want to do it any more.  Did I just say that?  Oh.  Well, it is 3.14am.


The other factor could well be that I made an amazing thing for dinner (and note the date and time, Remaining Gentle Readers, because I am going to talk about cooking here), with sausages, sweet potatoes, potatoes, corn and a jar of Butter Chicken sauce.  The rest I leave to your imagination, but suffice it to say, I ate too much of this culinary marvel, and the combination of greed and antibiotics has me up at 3.16am.


I have spent some quality time this morning reading other blogs, including the lovely FlickettySplits, who is now in Bahrain, working on her jetlag and in training for the Bahrain Marathon, the end result of which will be me being mentioned in her will, and the arrival of lots of fabric on her demise, which we both think will be part way through afore-mentioned Bahrain Marathon.  


What else is there for me to tell you?  I am working on some stuffed christmas trees for the lovely Kerry, who is my beautician, to put in her window (and I mean 'stuffed with fibrefill, not 'rooted'*), and the lovely lady who runs one of the nicer homewares shops in our small town has said she will look at my handmade wares (once I  get over being sick) with a view to selling them in her shop.


What's driving this?  When we went to the Southern Highlands we saw a rather nice shop selling some nifty things, but the prices were unbelievable - a doorstop for $80.  Matryoshka dollies stuffed* with fibrefill and with a bell inside, for $21 (each) and felt badges for $25.  Now, Remaining Gentle Readers, I know what you're thinking.  If they're in a  shop, they must be good, right?  This comes right back to the argument about handmade funky versus mass-produced funky, and the reasoning behind paying exorbitant amounts of money for funky stuff if it's in a shop versus on, say, Etsy, or MadeIt, or some other online store.  


Anyway, I figure if somebody can stuff* a Matryoshka doll with fibrefill & a bell & sell it for $21, I can sell a set of three dollies stuffed* with lavender for $15.  So, all you readers with money and more sense, go to my shop and buy from me.  It's much better value!  

Now.  It's 3.32am.  I am going to attempt to return to my bed and sleep.  If I seem a little tetchy next time, you'll know why!


*stuffed - insert filling
*rooted - had the dick
*had the dick - had the bomb
*had the bomb - knackered
*knackered - bought the farm

What else, huh? Huh?

Well, we went to the Duck Carving village, where we saw men carving ducks, and to the Silver Village, where we saw men polishing silver, and we went to the Volcano, where we didn't see men carving a volcano, but we did see this:

and I focussed in a little bit on that hut over on the left hand side & came up with this:

Kind of puts it all in perspective, doesn't it?

And we stopped at an amazing temple, where we all had to don Sarongs.  I must admit I'm a bit fond of this picture, and may stoop to blackmailing the people in it:

And we saw amazing carving and painting:

And some rather beautiful waterworks:

and some nice aquatic plant life:

So peaceful!

Where have you been, my blue-eyed son?

Well, to be honest, Remaining Gentle Readers, I never really wanted to go to Bali.  Did I mention that in a previous brain dump?  Perhaps I did.  No matter.  I had heard plenty plenty bad things about the Ugly Australians who go, get drunk, do Bad Things, make a Bad Name for our country, you know, yadda, yadda.


Ahem.  My first indication that it was another world should have been when we arrived at the hotel via a taksi from the Airport.  Instead of having to stand in line and wait, they whisked our luggage away from us, made us sit down, gave us cold towels smelling ever so slightly of sandlewood, and put a cold drink in front of us.  I was in love, right there & then.  I got to fill in the registration form sitting down on the lounge in front of the Koi pond, then we were whisked to our room, shown all the lovely features and left alone.  Tip optional.

Breakfast was included, and in the morning, after a good sleep in the king-sized bed, Mr G and I wandered down to breakfast and enjoyed nasi goreng (well, I did) and chicken-something... Mr G had the most anemic looking sausages I'd ever seen (chicken, apparently), before being joined by my lovely Ma & Hank.  Whoosh, into a taksi, and off to Carrefore, which is the biggest supermarket I've ever seen, sort of a combined Woolies and Big W, where you could buy everything from a pushbike to washing powder, a fridge to mens socks.


Back to the restaurant for lunch, joined by the other two partners in crime, and the six of us ate like kings for not very much money, before being collected by Wayang, our driver for the duration.

Wayang spoke excellent English, had a wicked sense of humour and apparently endless patience, and he had us out of the Denpasar traffic and noise molto rapidamente.

It was kind of weird going up into Ubud, as the suburbs never really die away, all along the route from Denpasar to Ubud there are little roadside shops and stands, people doing business, waiting for business, hoping for business... then... whoosh.  Nothing but the village, and little roads with sharp turns, and then a sign "very nice house for sale", and the villa, a completely private, self-contained universe but with an excellent view of the local activity and colour, including this man who was herding his ducks through the rice paddies.

Quack!

Introducing Elliot Casper...

Mr Elliot Casper R* has been delivered, both physically and metaphorically.  I believe his new owner was delighted, both with her colour choices and the outcome, which I think was pretty spiffy; small problem in that I got his eyes every so slightly out of alignment, but hey, there are no straight lines in nature!

So, here is Miss Nelly with Elliot Casper (and we had to have a secret ballot to determine his name) - I thought Felix and Gilbert were pretty spiffy but it became clear quite early that, true Sagittarian that she is, although she asked for opinions as to the name of this pooch, and quite a hilarious time was had flicking through the baby book, she had already made up her mind and was not going to be moved from Elliot, but she did compromise in the best Sagittarian fashion by allowing the unexpected introduction of a middle name.
   

Now all we have to do is make him a collar & he's done.  The nose, in case you're interested, was a 10-year-old's stroke of genius (no pun intended), it's made of flannelette, and is extremely touchable.


Also, yesterday I lent a neighbourly hand to My Best Friend (aka Mother of the Kidlets) who cracked a bone in her spine, get this, when she was in the wheely bin, tamping down the garden weeds.  The bin toppled over with her in it, and she landed on her back.  Lucky she wasn't crippled, if you ask me.  Anyway, much pushing of trolleys, nipping in and out of shops and consuming of lunch was done yesterday whilst the Kidlets had some fatherly interaction, and then I nipped home to check on the Weeding Wonder and her progress.  OMG.  The garden looks amazingly messy, but it's because all the Trad is now in piles throughout the garden, along with various other piles of things she's collected, which need to GO.  

After that, I made a pouch, based on this pattern, but which I have amended slightly to make it a bit easier - I do like the way she's cut the corners out before sewing up the seams, but if you want to vary the corner sizes, of course you need to do your calculating beforehand & it's not as accurate as the original method but it is probably quicker.  Probably.


Anyway, these are gifts, one for my lovely Ma, and the other for Tonee, who is coming to Bali with us, on Monday.  

And that's it for me, for now.  If I get a chance, Remaining Gentle Readers, I will post from Bali, but no promises.  I fully expect to be working on my tan *snort* and drinking G&T by the infinity-edged pool, rather than burning up the bloglines.  See you soon!


Ciao!

Woof!

He's here!

Delivery date is Friday.  I don't want to spoil the surprise in case the lucky owner happens to read this (unlikely, she's 10 & has no internet access on her PC) but I feel I should wait until he's been handed over before doing the big reveal.


Today, Remaining Gentle Readers, news from the West is good, with a positive outcome from the latest visit to Specialists, so I'm a bit happier.  Also, Mr Golightly & I are jetting off to Bali on Sunday, where we've never been, for some quality time with lovely Ma & Hank, and we're staying here, which should be amazing.  I intend to return with the tackiest souvenirs I can find, for distribution amongst family members and friends, so if you're one of those & you're reading this, watch out.


Today I will also go to the post office & post off the frogs I made for Alix & Claude's wedding, which was rather a long time ago now, but they're going to double as a birthday present for Alix, which I know is rather cheating, but hey, they're handmade, so all should be forgiven.  I'll include some nice smelly things too, to make up for it.


I'm also going to be knitting frantically to finish the scarf I'm making for my friend Gill, in Brighton; her birthday was in September but that kind of came & went - I was only knitting on the bus, but of course that's gone by-the-by now, so I'm busily inflicting tennis elbow on myself by knitting at night, during the lunch break, anytime really.  Ouch.


I also spotted this on Tuesday morning:

Rather gorgeous, with all the sun on him. Sadly the web didn't survive the arrival of the Weeding Lady, who used his home to shift all the weeds - she did an amazing job removing all the Trad (Tradescantia albiflora) [also known by a rather pejorative name which I won't repeat here] from the garden, and is coming back on Friday to do the same with the other weeds - I love having a garden, but I'm not a gardener.  It's a bit obvious, really, when you see the weeds! 

That's it for now.  I am going to get dressed & wash up, and then go & work on the Sydney Pies.  Yum!

Ciao!

Cassettes... want some?

Way, way back in the 1970's & 1980's, probably before most of you were born, Remaining Gentle Readers, I had a nice boyfriend (not Mr Golightly, I should add), who was a bit of a music buff (and still is, I should also add) (hereafter referred to as My First Boyfriend).  He was fanatical about his vinyl (I had to check how to spell that, would you believe?), and would often play a record only once, in order to do what we now call 'ripping', which in those days meant creating a cassette tape.  A 90 minute tape would usually do an Album (aka 'A record'), one side per.  

He made lots of cassettes, and of course as I was also a music fan (and still am), made me lots too.  This is well before the days when you could rip your music to a hard disk, store it indefinitely, play it back from your PC, your DVD player, your iPod, your iPad, your MP3 player, your phone... so a cassette player was needed.  Everybody had one in their cars, in their houses, we all had Walkman's when they came out, some people even had recording Walkman's.  Phew.  


In addition to the ones he made for me (which I'm sure was all highly illegal and probably still is), there's a bunch of tapes I bought myself, but never listen to anymore, even though we have a functioning cassette player.  So when I said the other day I had to nerd, what I was doing was trying to convert the files from Cassette to MP3, using this excellent tutorial from YouTube... but the sound quality was terrible.  

So, apart from the five or so pre-recorded ones I haven't been able to source replacements for via the Interweb, I've got a box full of recordings by My First Boyfriend that I can't bear to part with, and a couple of pre-recorded ones that are the same - I opened my Boz Scaggs 'Silk Degrees' tape today to find I had written '16th Birthday present from Dad, 20 December 1977' in it.  Couldn't throw that away, now could I?  The rest?  Toast.  Honestly, who wants 'em?  If you can think of anybody who does, let me know, the usual way.  I'm sure we can arrange something!

Sewing-wise, I'm making another pooch - this one is for Miss Nelly, after she helped me stuff the black & white one, I think she fancied one herself, so a green monster is being created - with these fabrics:

For the face:

Inside the ears, the green dots:

Hard to find a picture elsewhere on the net of this particular fabric, it seems not to have been as popular as the pink version, but I love it.

Body is a really nice turquoise, purple & olive-y green spot, ear fronts are a striking orange, blue & green diamond on a brown background. Underneath is green, featuring spots in red, blue, yellow, grey & green triangles, circles, rectangles & squares. All the shades of green are different and I love it! He's going to look fantastic!


Here's proof - this guy was made with a bunch of unrelated fabrics and he turned out alright!

OK. Gotta go now, Mr Golightly (aka The Provider of Bed and Board) will be home soon & I want to be knee deep in scrubbing something. Just in case he thinks I've done nothing else except blog all day! Ciao!

Eat your heart out, Tiny Tim

Well, Remaining Gentle Readers, I'm a bit bemused by the numbers of Gentle Readers popping in and out... 20, 21, 20... it's a bit difficult for poor little me, trying to keep track of who's in, who's out, who's up who & who's on top, as they say down here...


However, enough of that.  We popped down to Bowral yesterday, to check out the beautiful tulips, and it was the 50th anniversary of Tulip Time, so well worth seeing.

Magnificent!  Also, we found a new shop, whose name I will not mention here, where they were selling one, yes, one, Russian Doll softie, with a bell in it, stuffed with fibre-fill, for $21.00.  I need to put my prices up, honestly.


More later, gotta nerd now!  Ciao!