My Secret Santa wool

I was gifted a box of wool and a crochet book from secret Santa (Em) and is what I made. 

There were 12 balls of wool all with a sparkle thread through them. I had a bit of a pattern, 30 chains square which meant 21cms 21 rows then change colour. I got two squares out of each with a tiny bit left over. This one will be used on the guest bed. The left overs will go into the silver box with other left overs and I will make a blanket with granny squares with them.

Currently working on a pair of fingerless gloves from a pattern in the book.

 

Possums

 This morning I went to my usual meet up with friends for coffee. When I arrived I saw one of my friends was talking to Warren on the side of the road. He had been to tennis and was on his way home. I set up my chair and joined them. A small dog came running across the road towards us, stopped in the middle of the road and looked confused, turned and went back. When it turned we saw the long bushy tail, it wasnt a dog but a possum. 

It sat in the gutter for a couple of seconds looking at us, then came back to the middle of the road, we gathered that we were in its way, stopped again then went behind Lesley's and scampered up the large tree on the footpath. The large tree that we sit under for our coffee. 

It's a big old snarky tree with lots of leaves for shade. The possum was in the stem of the tree about five feet up, then it went further up and out on a smaller branch with very little foliage cover. Out to almost the end and then he twisted around and dived into the building that was there. It's a small locked shed that belongs to a sporting club, no windows and only one way in except if you are a possum.

I think someone forgot to tell this guy that hes supposed to be nocturnal.

A tree of Soles

 Yesterday as we were walking through mud flats, we came across this tree. It has been dubbed the Tree of Soles.

No idea of the story behind it, the ground underneath did look a little muddy, maybe people lost a thong in the mud and then placed the remaining one in the tree. Rather amusing to come across.

Christmas Stockings

 Got a request on Monday to make Jordan's girlfriend a Christmas stocking. Apparently she has never had one.

I was about to go out so asked for a photo of his so I could make a similar size.

I ratted around in my stash and discovered a panel of a stocking that I had bought a couple of years ago. That saved me a trip to Spotlight. I got one done and was going to do the second one yesterday but a phone call saw me up the coast a bit tree fishing. 

I had to complete them this morning, luckily for me lunch had become dinner. 

Old scars

 Today was a cache day and Warren Lucy and myself made our way over to Sandstone point. There was a nice bush walk, the path was cleared and sometimes we were walking in sand, grass or rocks. One side of us was bush, the other was mangroves and d we could see the sea through the mangroves. Mangroves can be smelly and sticky with mud, luckily for us today, it was sweet smelling and we only needed to walk in a little, on the mud.

For Boxing day, the temps were mild and we were home by eleven. The traffic coming home was terrible, we had to cross over the main highway and that was almost at a stand still with people heading north.

Driving into the garage, I felt some pain in my scar. It happened 24 years ago, I worked out. A motor bike fell onto my leg and the brake lever went into my leg. At the time, it took six months to heal and I was left with a bruise like scar on the back of my leg about the size of a tennis ball. It's never caused me any problems except there is a small patch in the middle where I have no feeling.

Well I certainly had feeling today, it was quite painful for a few seconds and then okay and then like a painful stab again. Weird! 

Warren offered to massage it and since then it has been okay. I did notice earlier in the week that the scar has actually become smaller and lighter in colour.

My secret santa gift

 Last weekend was our family get together for Christmas. We always have it early so as not to clash with other extended family commitments.

We tried meeting at the beach for a couple of years and the weather was terrible. The last few we have had at Jason's as they have a pool. This year it was too cold for swimming or even being outside.

This year the kids decided we would have secret santa for the adults.

This was my gift, twelve balls off wool, same ply but different colours all with a silver fleck through them plus a crochet book. How neat. I am currently crocheting a blanket for the guest bedroom, six squares in a strip and joined together.

Dragon's Lair

 What a great name for a cache. It was an oldie too and near a railway tunnel. 

Apparently there used to be a school too.

Rain!

 Very wet and woolly weekend.  The rain started on Friday and we got a little wet while we were at the event. It rained at Parkrun but stopped just before and nothing during the run. Pies at Dayboro for lunch and a child hand over, no rain there.

It was being saved for overnight and Sunday.

I took Lucy for a quick walk with an umbrella as we were out for the rest of the day. I needed the umbrella.

This was one of the paths through the houses near home, we don't usually take that one but Lucy decided that she wanted a drink, it is covered with water for at least half way.

The drain is running too.

 

 

Granite falls

 Friday Sheridan collected me and with another caches Chamad we slowly made our way to Toowoomba for an event. Chamad had offered to climb trees and I think the ladder came out four times. Sheridan keeps a fold out ladder in her boot.

We went to a set of water falls with granite rocks on either side, had to view and answer some questions about them. The walk down was four steps then a platform of about two metres and then down again. It had started raining just as we got there but it was very pleasant.

Sheridan gave me the umbrella and she had a hat.

Mountain climbing

 I went out early Sunday morning with my daughter. We headed north.

We did an adventure lab which included getting some information from information boards. It was detained to be a hot day 36 degrees.

At one place, the foot of a mountain, I was amazed to see people setting off to walk up the mountain. We were there for five minutes and that was hot enough at 9.30am. 

We were back home by 12 noon in the cool thank goodness. I didn't hear about any rescues which was good.

Total of caches were Sheridan 13 and us 8, we had got some of them before that Sheri hadn't. All in all a good day.

Heidi the horse

 I finished Heidi on Saturday and yesterday I put her together. She is not the one that I started as to me, she is a bit of a cartoon type horse. 

Who ever sees a horse sitting like that?

Anyway she is finished and ready to be wrapped for Christmas. She is destined for Jordan's girlfriend who loves anything horses. She has two of her own and a foal that was born about this time last year. 

Heidi is the last of our gifts to organize, which seems early but we always have our family Christmas a couple of weeks beforehand due to other family commitments.

A Snowman

 I was having trouble with the horse I was making, it's chocolate brown and hard to see at night when I do most of my crocheting, so I went to a snowman.

It only took a couple of nights and then I had to stitch it together.

I redid the hat twice and I think it looks more like a bowler hat than the black straw that it is supposed to be. 

I will have a Secret Santa from a website that I am involved with, so when I get the person's details, Mr Snowman will be going in the post.

Nanowrimo

 Yep November is over and so is Nanowrimo. I didn't have an idea this year that I thought would be suitable for 50000 plus words, had lots of ideas but nothing that had legs. On the first day of November with a blank screen in front of me, I decided to write a series of short stories and tried different genres. 

I even attempted a mystery, not sure that it's much good but as that is mainly what I read, I should be able to write one.

Anyway, this year there was no fanfare when finished, I had got to a particular part in what I was writing and updated my word count, which was at 50,035 and the website told me I was finished and then a congratulatory email came in. 

In previous years, everything had to be downloaded to their website to be validated and often their word count was a little different to mine.

I think I wrote about 23 or 24 short stories, a couple were about 5000 words or more. I did have an extra piece to add to the last story but getting to the magic amount and they tell me I am done makes me wonder about adding it or leaving as it is. Hence I have not even looked at it since the magic 50035 came up. 

Park run is back

 Eight and a half months since it was stopped, park run returned today with a few changes. Social distancing does of course has to be in place.

No touching of barcodes, all tokens need to be wiped and there can be no communal key holders. 

I worked as a scanner today and Warren was going to walk. Of course that didn't happen. 

He did run some of the way. His hand still has a light bandage on it which is almost flesh coloured. 

Not a good time for him, coming in 100th at 42.43seconds but plenty of room for improvement. There were 128 runners this morning, average is about 110.

Fish and chips on Bribie

 An online friend of mine mentioned that she and her sister had met on Bribie Island a couple of days ago, had a nice walk along the beach followed by fish and chips.

That sounded like an ideal couple of hours out so we did the same yesterday before it got too hot. I was amazed at the number of people in the water for a Friday but we think it was an end of school bus trip.

It has been a couple of years since we have been to the other side, ocean side of Bribie and I didnt realize that it is a patrolled beach. The patrolled part was only about 50 metres.

We ordered a platter for two, should have got the platter for one!

Granny square blanket

 I have been crocheting for just over a year now and I had tried granny squares. Most people start with these. My granny squares ended up with rounded corners which made it very difficult to stitch together after. 

I left them for ages, after all I can crochet rugs or blankets with a straight edge. Two weeks ago at crochet class I thought I should try and I did the centre fine, then asked for help. Pam showed me how to do it and talked me through it. I continued last week and thought I was doing okay and then Gail askes if I am doing rounds or turning it?

What. Some agreed that if it is turned so crochet around and then turn and go back it squared it up, a couple of others never do it. I found it easier to start on the next round if it is turned. Here is the finished result.

It measures about 130 by 130, I still have a couple of ends to sew in. I was debating putting another row of white around but Warren thinks it should end with a darker colour. I did use up all the green that I had.  

Garden art

 Sunday morning we were out at a new park. Lucy loved all the new smells. It's a new suburb that had opened up just across the highway from us.

Glad we don't live there though, the roads were tight with lots of bends and corners, I would suppose to keep the speeds down. We could see a two metre high wooden fence between each house, zikes that is close. 

There was a nice park for kids with play equipment and this.

The houses were behind us and nothing the other side of the park as yet.

A what of geese?

 Lucy and I were in the park a couple of weeks ago. We had gone further afield to go for a walk but as I stopped the car, it pelted with rain. I told Lucy that I was not going out in that and we headed for home.

As we were coming up to Centenary Lakes, the rain had stopped so I pulled in there as that way we got in our walk and I didnt have to put up with her sad looks for the rest of the day.

The weather must have put everyone off as we were the others ones there and we came across these geese. It is a gaggle of geese. Personally I like a murder of crows.

Half way around, the rain came down and we were both quite wet by the time we got back to the car. Lucy shook herself before she in the car, I felt I should but instead my hair just dripped on my shoulders.

Santa

 When I showed Warren the rabbits I made, he said great, can you make me a Santa.

Oh, yeah, sure, that would be so easy. I think it was the tone of my voice. He said well you made them! Yeah, I did have a pattern for them. 

Thinking about it, I thought I maybe I could have a go at it.

I started with a ball for the face, half a circle in red for the hat, this has some stuffing in it.

I think the body ball is a bit too big but Warren says its good. Apparently he wants to put it on his bike.

Rabbits

 I saw a pattern for rabbits, they looked cute and easy to do so I had a go at them. All crochet except the first one, the grey does have a felt eye, that one took me three days. The purple one took one night and a lunchtime. We usually watch something on tv Netflix for 45 minutes. I changed the eye by crocheting one round of black then one round of white, saved a lot of time.

I thought they were a little small then I realised that it said 12cms high not 12inches. I used a bigger hook and I think they are both about ten inches high or24cms.

Last week at crochet class, my tutor Robyn asked if the charity that I donate my blankets to Knitting for Brisbanes needy K4BN, could use some small blankets that she had done. She had been trying out new stitches. 

This is what she gave me for k4bn.

The last one is a pocket scarf using up spare wool

Rams

 It's an Australia new movie out with an all Australian cast except for Sam Neil, he's a New Zealander but we usually accept him as an Aussie.

Nice country feel to it with underlying problems faced in the country.

There wasn't many people at the movies but probably the same number as before Covid, going on a Tuesday morning. 

There is another Aussie movie out as well with many older actors set in a nursing home, I think the stort line is that a group of then decide to break out of the home. Penciled in to see next Tuesday, Tuesday being cheap ticket day, only $8. 

It's snowing?

 Our tree out the back started flowering a couple of weeks ago. Within a few days, it was covered in white flowers and some of the earlier flowers started to fall.

On Friday morning, the smell was incredible, there had been a couple of showers of rain during the night and as soon as I stepped outside, I could smell it, so nice, fresh and clean smelling.

Early morning hospital visit.

 Warren had to be at the hospital at or before 7am this morning. There is virtually no parking as there is construction work happening so it was a drive in, drop and drive out again. As he was staying over night and it appeared he was the first one on the surgery list, he had to be booked into a ward first.

He rang me at 4.30pm, sounding like normal. He said he was back in the ward at 12.30 and had slept on and off for a few hours.

The surgeon will see him in the morning and give instructions of what he needs to do, I know that he will need to wear a splint on it 24/7 for ten days.

This was his hand last night.

 

Christmas Decorations

 I saw something on face book a few days ago and wondered if I could make one.

First thing I needed was a ring. The guy went through it on YouTube. He spoke well while crocheting and said that a fancy ring wasn't needed. He had used the ring that comes around milk bottles, the piece that is left when the top is cracked.

We rarely use milk bottles but we do have a couple of  bottles that had had iced coffee in them. They are a nice size for cold water in the fridge, if we take them out with us, it doesnt matter if they get left as does happen sometimes.

As luck would have it, two still had the ring on them. Bit hard to get off though.

The guy said any hook, any wool and off we went, he used 32 stitches, I didn't count just did enough to make a solid ring.

The red is French knots, if I had a thin red ribbon, I would probably put a bow on it but I didnt so I didnt. Very quick little project.

From AFL to cricket all in a week.

 This year's grand final was played in October rather than September.

It was played in Brisbane, first time ever outside of Melbourne and the MCG (Melbourne cricket ground)

Due to Covid, quarters had been reduced to sixteen minutes instead of twenty. Of course that is actual playing time, each time the ball goes out of bounds or there is a score, the clock is stopped and then restarted once the game starts again so a quarter could go out to around twenty six or seven minutes.

Anyway it was a good game a couple of bad injuries in the first five minutes but thankfully it was part of playing not fights. I did see a bit of push and shove but not more than usual. 

The entertainment was pretty good, there was a welcome to country with 20 local indigious dancers on the field before. All the entertainment was Brisbane based, bands that I hadnt heard of but once the music started, I did recognized it. There was Wolfmother, Shepherd and Cub Sport. 

Yesterday and today we were watching women's t20 cricket, those girls are very good and thankfully they are getting more and more exposure. 

Storms

 Oh, boy had we had a time of it with storms. Since Saturday we have had six maybe seven, currently the third one for the day is happening. 

We have missed a few and only received some rain. 20ml yesterday and yet places to the south, east and west of us about 20kms received over a 100ml. 

Poor Lucy is terrified of storms, she is better than she was but still not good.

She is sitting on the bed with me as she can get closer to me than Warren, he is in the lounge and she can only get under his chair. It's unusual that she gets on the bed and stays there.

She has her head turned to the door, not sure if she is turning away from the window or if she is keeping an eye on Warren. She pants and drools while the storm is happening so she has a towel under her head. I dare say we will be washing the doona cover tomorrow

A Productive day

 After a sleep in this morning, I had quite a productive day. Because it is/was Sunday, I don't like to do washing or vaccumning in the house. Basic house cleaning, like making the bed and wiping down benches is okay but not big stuff. However, I have no problems with doing craft work. 

When I was young, say under ten, if we visited my grandparents who lived in the city and bought weekly comics for the grandkids, but if we were there on a Sunday, we were not allowed to read the comics. Only reading on a Sunday was the bible.

Anyway, today I finished two quilts, one needed some buttons sewn on it, the other was about half done and I made a bag.

I love the colours of this. It is a print and the print is actually not square on the fabric, which is a shame. I had made a quilt from jt and this was left overs.

I also crocheted a pair of slippers while watching TV. I had a new pattern sent to me and it is much easier and therefore quicker to make. They will be my main project over the summer months as well as some toys.

Then dinner which Warren thought was pretty good.

Portuguese chicken with salad and wedges, I thought the chicken may have been too hot as it seemed to have quite a lot of paprika in it but it was mild thank goodness. 

  

Christmas baubles

 These are a dime a dozen and we have several, probably too many as we dont get too carried away at Christmas these days. However I saw a crochet pattern for them and decided to have a go at them. 

I had a ball of cotton in the yellow, just one ball so I made these two. I am making advent wall hanging for a friend and putting some small gifts. As it needs to be posted to Victoria, I need to get on with it and things need to be small and light. 

Plastic shrubs

 Lucy and I walked the Parkrun path today. Two reasons, its nice and shady and I needed to replace one of our caches that we put over there in June.

I haven't been back since our caches were published and I was surprised to see how dry and sparse it is along the path.

I noticed a shrub that looked a little odd, at first I thought someone had thrown out a fake house plant. One side is the backs or sides of houses and the other side is a large high metal barrier as the main highway is just the other side. It is surprisingly quiet though.

The photo does show it very well, the branches are quite green with segments and pink flowers.

Very dry and the metal barrier in the background.

Snakes and lizards

 It is that time of the year.

Warren was walking Lucy the other afternoon and used a shortcut path, a snake slipped along the path in front of him and went into the undergrowth. 

There are houses nearby with kids so he knocked on the door and told them what he had seen. 

I am always on the lookout but hadnt seen a snake in about three years when I nearly stepped on one in the bush. Prior to that it had been years and years since I had seen a snake, probably back when I was a kid on the farm.

This morning Lucy and I were out early, earlier than usual as it is starting to get hot so I need to get going before it gets too hot and I saw a blue tongue lizard just off the side of the path. It could have been a stumpy as it was short and stout, about a foot long. Lucy noticed it after me and was interested but I pulled her away and we kept going.

It's nice walking in the shade of the trees but sometimes it's easy to miss seeing things.

Toys

 As its too hot to crochet blankets, I have moved on to toys.

First one was a cube in bright colours, it's about five inches square. I put a bell inside of the stuffing but it is hard to hear it.

Second toy was a pattern that I got from the internet, called Humpy bumpy. 

Quite easy to do although each segment took a day/night of crochet.

The mouth and horns are a roll of crochet that is stuffed as making and then sewn on.

I have made a second one, finished it tonight, that's not quite and big and I made the mouth flat, it's also in more pastel colours.

Garden clean up take two.

 We have one tomato bush in the garden bed nearest the house along with some herbs and a couple of shrubs.

Somewhere in there is a solar fountain. Warren picked several bowls of tomatoes, the plant was growing over the edges.

He wanted to mow the lawn so decided to trim everything.

Oh, there is the solar fountain and the little pond. I had forgotten that I had planted some spinach in there as well and a couple of Lucy's tennis balls were hiding under the foliage.

 

Garden cleanup

 Last week there was a knock on the door, very unusual. It was a guy who is a tree arborist and he asked about our big tree.

We had thought that several limbs needed to be cleaned up but it was a daunting task and we hadnt done much about it. 

Warren came back inside and told me about it plus the quote, gulp $650 and that was with a discount normally it was $900. No idea why we got a discount or if it just sounded good. 

It was a bigger job than I thought with him here for about six hours and there was a second guy for the last couple of hours which was the clean up. 

All the limbs were taken away as well.

I didn't get a before photos but this is the tree after he had finished.

Earth Cache day/weekend.

 Each year at this time, there is a weekend to find and log an earth cache. I must admit that some earth caches when need to answer lots of questions make me feel quite dumb.

We did a few while we were away and I liked them as they were reasonably simple. The closest one to home that we hadn't done was at Glass house Mountains. Thankfully we didnt need to climb a mountain but drive to the lookout, answers a couple of questions and take a photo. 

The mountains are actually lava plugs.

We went to the look out cafe after for morning tea? Looked more like lunch. We did share the plate.

We were home by 10.30am and bypassed lunch for the day.

A Christmas Shop.

 It was our last break before home at Tiario, hum not sure of that spelling, its 2 hours up the road. We grabbed a drink, a toilet stop and a sit in the park, not neccessarily in that order.

There is a Christmas store there, it's open all year round but I have never visited. Decided that we needed to stretch our legs so we went for a quick walk, there was also a cache that way but that was further and it stayed where it was.

All things Christmassy, Warren liked the red robins so I asked if we could just take it off the tree or did they have others. I was told that everything could come off the trees except one, a white one as she had just sold it complete. Apparently someone had been in earlier, seen it, went home and rang back to buy the whole thing. As it was highly decorated, I wouldn't like to think what it would cost.

Trains

 We saw lots of train lines mainly cane trains tracks. We didn't ever have to stop for a cane train but we did run alongside of a couple.

The cane train tracks are a lot smaller and criss crossmany roads and even though some towns up north. 

One day while driving, we saw four trains in less than an hour, two passing each other as we drove past.

Breakfast at Childers

 As we set off so early and it was our last day, it was decided that we would have breakfast at the nearest Maccas, which was Childers. Found the golden arches and it was suggested to drive in from the side, Warren had the blinkers on then we saw the dip to get into the parking area, it looked at though it dropped half a metre over a metre, quickly changed and we ended up in a side street.

Walking back I saw this tree which told me that it's Oct in Queensland.

The garden was on a corner block and stunning with several areas to sit.

When I grow up, I want a garden like that!

Our last night of our trip.

 From Mackay we were going to take three days to get home. We got to Marlborough where the jade was for an early lunch. ( PHOTO now)

Warren says we are making good time, we could go on for another hour, pulling up at 4pm and then that would give us 400k to home. I offered to drive but he said he was fine So we packed up lunch and continued.

The camp site that he had chosen looked deserted when we got there, we did need fuel so I was tasked to check out the caravan park which I couldn't see any. It is a bush stop at the start of a small national park called Cossulum park. A roadhouse with some motel rooms and in front if them was space for three caravans. We could have power but no water as they operated on rain water. It was the cheapest at $20. Probably the noises as we were that far off the main highway but the noise was kind of comforting, certainly didn't keep me awake yet we were both awake early 5.30am. It felt a bit cold as well. We had coffee inside the camper and as we didn't unpack much we left at 6.20am. 

The back road as we left, the couple who lived at one end of the motel rooms was heading to work/open the roadhouse as the top of the van was coming down so we were able to give them back the key for the shower/toilet. It was like having an ensure except we had to go down a few steps to the next level.

Australian Jade

 Yeah, right that's what I thought when I saw the phrase but apparently it's real!

We stopped at Marlborough to have lunch. As usual once we stopped, I checked my phone to see if there were any caches near by. Yep there was one and an earth cache within 100m.

The earth cache was about Aussie Jade and there was a big lump of it in a sheltered cage in the park. It is called crytslaprase, maybe the spelling is not quite right. It is mined about 20kms away, owned by a private company. There is nickel in the soil which helps to give the colour. Most of it is mined, packed in drums and sent/sold to Hong Kong to be made into jewellery.

I certainly did not know that there was such a thing in Australia.

Mackay

 We stayed for the long weekend. Caravan park was full but we didnt see many people around in the park, think they were like us and went out for the day and they stayed out.

We had read about sculptures and so we went to look at some of those, we parked and walked ending up clocking up about 6 kms.

This one was called sugar cubes and most of them had a ship's name on them.

Walking up to these I thought they were helicopter blades but they are in fact whale bones. The red one looks a bit grisley and it has been done in small red tiles, they are quite large.

One was called cane fields and it was in the middle of the road and just looked like pieces of silver tubes piled on top of one another.

Not exactly a sculpture but it is a levee wall and every year, there was something about what happened in that year. The wall was 300 metres long. We were ready for a coffee after that. The weather was good not too hot and each evening about 5pm we were reaching for a jacket, first time that we had worn them.

Bowen part two.

 After the tyre blow out we headed back to Bowen for new tyres. Bridgestone place  had a couple of jobs in front of us so we went for a walk and a coffee.

This was down at the jetty. We didn't walk out there as it was blowing a slight gale.

Some nice old buildings, we were debating if it was a bank in a former life, I opted for a court house. Around the corner and yep, it was the court house.

These palms look like they have the fruit of a pineapple, wouldnt want to be under one when it fell.

Back to Bridgestone and the guy asked if it was windy at the jetty, when we said yes, he went on to tell us that the town used to be called Blowen because of the wind. Warren told him he was talking bull...... but he insisted that he was correct. It was only changed to Bowen when there was a massive wind that blew the L right out of it! Bloody hell, and I thought he was telling us about the history of the place.