Well, stuff has happened

So, Remaining Gentle Readers, and welcome to newest Gentle Reader BlueLambb, who I believe some of you may know under another name, Miss Yvette #1 (oooh, hope that wasn't supposed to be a secret - you know what Benjamin Franklin said, "three people can keep a secret if two are dead"...)... I have given up work for some time.  There are other things happening in the world which I don't really want to discuss in detail here, but suffice it to say, time to be able to get on a plane and fly westwards as required became very important to me, and the New Day Job turned out to be an unmitigated disaster, so it wasn't a very hard decision to make.


I'm quite sure that the August Institution will cope admirably without me - Our esteemed IT leader got a $1.4 million dollar payrise, so I'm pretty sure they won't miss paying me for six months.  Part of the 'time off' deal was that I wouldn't have to go back to the New Day Job, so they've already advertised for my replacement.  Good luck with that.  They need somebody with the patience of Job, the psychic powers of Uri Geller and the constitution of a Draught horse.  You know me, Remaining Gentle Readers, I have none of those things. I can only make one section of the Sydney Pies quilt a day before I start looking for something more interesting to do, unsurprisingly I never predict the winners of the football, and I get a backache lifting the Vegemite out of the fridge.


 Yesterday, my first official day as part of the great unwashed, was spent... um... washing.  I whipped through it all quick smart, and it was a lovely warm day, so it was all dry by 5.00pm, so Mr Golightly was able to come home to a gourmet dinner of leftover pasta and Kentucky Fried Chicken (his choice!).  He often likes to indulge after a weekend of hard labour in the vineyard, and who am I to deny him that little pleasure?  


Speaking of washing, am I right in my understanding that some people in the US of A do not hang their clothes out to dry in the sun and wind, but instead insist that they must use clothes dryers?  I found this article on the net, and whilst I realise that the Colbert Report is satire, I was a bit worried that there was a germ of truth in this article - one of the previous owners of the house my friend Deb just bought was American - it had two (yep, two) tumble dryers, but no clothesline.  Somebody, please, tell me this is not true!!! 


We had a fabulous weekend in the Hunter, the kidlets had an excellent time with the dog, the dam, the pizza oven, the wineries... just kidding about the wineries.  


Some pics:

Oh yes, and I finally finished this cute little guy, for Kaz's niece Charlene:

The stuffing was done with help from the kidlets and the innards of a cushion, sacrificed for a good cause!  I believe Miss Nelly wants one for herself now, so I'm expecting a visit this week to carry out fabric selection.  Hope I've got enough... *snort*.


Ciao!

What a day...

Well, after all that, we didn't end up going.  Deb went to the Rugby on the Saturday night, and we went out to dinner with friends.  She rang me at 10.30am to say, in a very small voice, that she had just woken up, with a hangover, and did I mind very much if we didn't go?  Well, frankly, I didn't mind at all... 


I stayed at home & pottered... herewith:

and we found this in the garden today:

when we first bought this house, there was a hideous pink fibro shed in the backyard... when we demolished it, we moved a bunch of pots with 'things' in them from out the front - that was back in 2001, and this surprised us today - I have no idea if it's ever flowered before, it was just up the back by the fence, but the flowers are so beautiful that I had to bring it a bit closer to the house so I can see it:

I also made a pouch from a pattern from here, which is quite a nice shape:

those of you who know me will know that I would never choose anything quite so pink... mine is actually made from this:

and lined with this:

and I'm going to keep making them until I perfect the pattern - the instructions are a bit vague about how to stitch up the sides and keep the zip end covers looking even, but I'll get it right, never fear...

And then... next week is my last week in the new job - things are afoot, Remaining Gentle Readers, and I will keep you apprised.

Have a great week!  Ciao for now.

Scotland Island

Today, Remaining Gentle Readers, my friend Deb and I, her mother and the kidlets, are venturing out to Scotland Island for the Bi-Centennial Celebration of Existence (or something) - the official blurb says "Enjoy Scotland Island and offshore Pittwater's bicentenary celebration with a traditional fair day; displays, stalls, re-enactments, wandering minstrels and dusk lantern parade, and an exhibition "Postcards from Pittwater" of images than explore our history and sense of place and community."


Should be a blast - I'm taking the camera, of course, so there should be an abundance of photos of people eating, drinking, minstrelling, parading, stalling, re-enacting and whatever else they get up to over there - which includes an oft-repeated rumour of wife-swapping and general licentious living, but as we'll have the kidlets with us, there won't be any of that being done by us, unless a glass of wine qualifies.  



I won't be partaking of that because things are still not quite normal on the TMI front, but I made a flying visit to the Doc yesterday and she sacrificed a chicken, shook the rattle and beat the drums, then gave me more antibiotics.  Can't beat modern medicine.  




I also bought some lovely fabrics yesterday, to fill the small (non-existent) hole made by the creation of the nine birdies from last week, and now I'm looking for a home for quite a lot of dress-making fabric, and a box of yarn... oddments... is probably the best way to describe them.  Ah!  I have a friend who crochets!  Yvette #1, would you be interested?  Let me know, the usual way.  You might be lucky and get them at the same time as I finally hand over the lavender bags for your winning comment on the Sydney Pies.  





Progress on the Pies is... slow.  I was going to Pie today, but the lure of Sun, Minstrels and Good Company proved too strong - it's going to be too hot to venture out soon enough, so while it's just warm & sunny, I'm going to get some Vitamin D.  





Mr Golightly has made fantastic progress on the new shoe cupboard/bench/storage unit in the bedroom, but I'm not posting pictures until it's painted, which will be real soon now, I promise.




And that, Remaining Gentle Readers, is it for me, for now.  Provided I'm not off roistering with a minstrel, I will try & post some pictures from today's adventure, tonight.




Have a wonderful Sunday!

OK, so maybe it was TMI?

However, remaining Gentle Readers, I felt that your loyalty should be rewarded with a deeply personal detail of my life - I keep so much from you in so many other ways that I thought you might enjoy this information overload... obviously I was deluded from the Giardia, and now that I'm not quite as sick, I realise that I was completely wrong.  Nobody wants to read about somebody else's gastrointestinal problems.  Honestly.  What was I thinking?


Also, I'm now constipated.  Meh ha ha ha ha...


Ahem.


I made three sets of birdies today, for lovely Yvette at work.  It's weird, isn't it, that I know two women called Yvette?  I never knew a single one before I started work at this August Institution, and now I know two.  Weird.  Also?  They couldn't be more different.  Anyway, the lovely 2nd Yvette requested three sets of birds, one for her in pink:

A set for either her mother or mother-in-law in blue:

and a set for either her mother or her mother-in-law in black:

Shake shake your tail feather!

And a doorstop for young Hogan, who wanted floral, but not too girly:

Hopefully this will fit the bill.  Back to work tomorrow, hopefully with things more... ordered.  That is all.

Life's odd, isn't it?

All I'm going to say is that bits of my week away were lovely.  I spent some quality time with my lovely Ma & Hank, the dogs, the beautifully landscaped garden, did a spot of sewing and I took some nice pictures.


I also picked up Giardia, probably at the Airport (the toilets were pretty gross, I have to say) - and I've had what they so delightfully refer to as 'explosive diarrhea', which you probably didn't want to know... but if you're still reading, there are some nice pictures.

and I did a little bit of sewing... but I bought some lovely fabric at a great shop, which doesn't have a website, otherwise I'd have included the link - Handcrafters House, full of lovely fabrics, patterns, sewing machines, and really nice staff, and here's a sample, hanging on the lines drying:

Vote early, vote often...

The truly excellent Baino, over at Baino's Banter, has provided a comprehensive guide to the upcoming Federal (read 'national') election, which is being held on Saturday.  I, along with every other Aussie of eligible age, will be required to vote, because voting is required by law, just like in Italy, and New Zealand, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Fiji, Argentina and Uruguay, amongst others.  


It's just as well it's compulsory, because if it wasn't, no bastard here would vote, that's for sure.  The old saying about 'getting the guvinmint you deserve' is very true, because we wouldn't get one.  We surely deserve no government at all, when you look at what's on offer.  Ugly madmen and evil atheists, by all accounts.  I heard a woman on the radio say that our lives were going to go to rack & ruin if we elected an atheist to run the country.  Not quite sure why the PM's lack of belief in imaginary deities should mean we're all doomed... but who understands how the minds of the religious nutters work?


Not me, that's for sure.


Anyway, remaining gentle readers, I fly tomorrow to Perth, way out West, to visit my lovely Ma & Hank for a few days.  I will try to pop in the occasional post about life in the wild wild west, and progress on the Sydney Pies quilt,  plus whatever else we get up to.  No promises, mind, as my Ma always said when I was little.


And here's a little light relief while you're waiting:

It's an oldie but a goodie - the Prince Regent standing outside the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, hanging onto the remains of a bike - his?  Who knows!


Ciao!

Ooops there goes another one

Another follower has departed, back into the ether.  Any more of these departures without an explanation & I'm going to stop doing this, I swear.  It's quite interesting, actually, what motivates people to write a blog.  I started originally over on MySpace & I still have a profile, but I never update it.  It's a bit too much the Facebook sinkhole, where you get sucked in & never fight your way out.

The first few posts I wrote were about my Dad dying, and all the dramas I had to go through to sort out his estate - he died intestate, in a typically self-centred act, and left it to friends and family to clean up the mess.  Not so bad, really, you might think, except that we hadn't spoken for 27 years, so I was a bit surprised to find out that the NSW Police considered me to be the next of kin.  

The other thing that amazed me about the whole ugly mess was how they traced me - my Dad had the original Document of Identity that we travelled to Australia on, with our full names & dates of birth - assisted passage migrants didn't need passports, in those days.  In 1984 when I was sharing a flat in Fairlight with my good friend Deb, we were burgled and the Police attended.  When the Police ran my name from the Document of Identity through the computer in 2007, they were able to match me to the 1984 burglary, then found my current address in the electoral roll and phone book.  Scary.

Anyway, I found the whole experience surreal, and so I started writing the blog.  Then I started sticking in the craft stuff, with the occasional rant about life, the universe and everything, picked up a few followers here & there, and now they're dropping like flies.  Not that I wanted thousands like some bloggers, but I do like the feeling that somebody is out there listening - apart from friends, of course (hello MM & Kaz)... 

Other news?  Went to a nice 50th Birthday lunch today, and the weather was amazing - we had hail, rain, sunshine, gusts of wind and complete calm all in the space of an hour:

  

and... Sunday night television is still shit.  So, remaining gentle readers... off to bed.  Ciao!