Boat Totes

Doing some decluttering in the sewing room, I found a pattern that I had downloaded and never used. Actually it was more an intruction with measurements to make the tote.

I used computer paper to make the pattern, very easy and found fabric. It was lined and I thought it had nice handles.

I ended up making three, using up a pretty peacock piece of material that there was not much of but too pretty to throw out. Now it has been put to use.

I think the handles are too long and I adjusted them in the last one I made. These will be used /sent to some penpals that I am in contact with.

The main colour is teal much nicer looking in the flesh as it were. Of course, I knew what I was doing, I had a quilt to finish but didn't like it so I disgressed for a few hours to make these instead. However, I did get back to the quilt and it is almost finished thank goodness.

The lady in the van

We bought and watched this movie the other day. It was one on my radar to see when it came out, primarily because it starred Maggie Smith.

When we were in China and buying dvds for entertainment,  I would be drawn to movies starring her, Judy Dench and Nicole Kidman. As often, the only English was the title and actors names. By buying because of the actors, it sort of guaranteed if not a good movie then at least a watchable one. Someone reccommended movies with Nicholas Cage and we bought about six at one time, I guess two out of six was okay. Actually we still have movies that we bought over there that we havent watched. If we went to the dvd place, we would spend about 100 rmb each time, as they averaged 7 rmb each or less than $2, we didnt mind too much if the movie wasnt that good, we moved it on or threw it out.

I didn't know anything about this movie except the title. It was a strange movie and went over a period of fifteen years with some flash backs. It wasn't one of Maggie's best, although that was subject matter more than acting, definitely thought provoking and I got a lot of crocheting done.

I spent the first thirty minutes trying to work it out then I realised that was what it was about. Two main characters and both have strange or funny quirks. 

Gum trees

We took a picnic to a park about forty minutes from home. Warren had hurt his back so I drove and then walked Lucy in the park while he sat. As long as he was sitting, he was not in pain but sudden moves were painful.

I parked under this massive and magnificent tree. I love big trees and especially ones with little or no bark.

On the other side was the gateway with a plaque stating that the area was the furthest establishment in NSW. What the ? We are in Queensland. The plaque went on to explain that Queensland was not in existance for another twenty years.

Cattle and sheep on one side and horses and axes on the other to show the industries back then.

House cleaning

I had promised myself that I was going to engage a house cleaner when I turned seventy.
In conversation, an opportunity arose for a cleaner and I thought bigger it, why not now.

So, our cleaner has been here two weeks now, once a week for two hours. I have the floors vaccummed and mopped and whatever else to fill in the time. First week our shower was scrubbed, I didn't except for all the grout to be done but it was. This week was cupboard cleaning.

I drove up in the garage and there was a nice clean smell coming from the living areas of the house.

Very happy and now I have more time to do what I want to do.

House insurance

It's that time of the year again.
Each year, I tend to compare insurance companies against who we use, so far I have not changed.
We had a recommendation to look at defence, I think they do insure non military but being ex-service,  we were entitled to a discount.

Warren contacted them a couple of weeks ago and their quote was over two thousand dollars, this was with service and age discount. We thought it must be wrong and we renewed with our existing company.

However it irked me that there was so much difference. When we first heard about them, I did my normal research and from eight different companies, got figures between $750 and $1100, only one was over a thousand.

We figured that they must have miscalculated something to be so out. Not that we were only to change as our insurance has been paid, it was due at the end of the month, it was agreed that I would contact them.

I did drop the contents a little lower as most companies have a minimum of $50k, theirs was 26k, I opted for 35k. I answered a lot of questions about the house and the use of and where situated. Final figure was $1010 or so I thought. Email confirmation was $1710 for house and $326 for contents.

Certainly won't be changing but I do wonder if we are missing something. Dollars to rebuild house was within a few hundred. Strange.

Tuesday is caching day!

Neither of us have any commitments on a Tuesday so I suggested a caching day. So far we have been out three Tuesday in a row and on

each of these occasions it has started to spit when we have been driving home, getting heavier as we get closer to home.

I had selected a walk along a river about two k to the end with four caches to collect. First one was wheelchair accessible, we walked past and into bush area before we realised, it was on a post behind a red reflector, sneaky thing.

Lots of sap from trees.

Love these trees with almost no bark.

A small river crossing.

Warren pointed out a white ant trail and nest, not sure that I have seen one before.

A bush turkey flew in to see what we were doing.

Birthday lunch

It was my birthday a few weeks ago and prior to that we had driven past an icon that had changed hands and decor, it was now a pub. I requested that we go there for lunch.

It did mean driving up the main highway about an hour but being a week day the traffic wasnt too bad.

Decor is very green and yellows and it is now called Banana Bender pub.

The bar is on the ground floor and the dining area is up two flights of stairs, rather steep ones. They told us where the stairs where but not that there was a lift. Very beach looking the colours and the cane furniture.

Food was pretty quick, I ordered lemon myrtle Kalahari came with chips and salad, Warren ordered spring rolls, he got salad only that was good as I handed over about two thirds of my chips. The salad must have been good as I finished it all. Most salads are full of greenery and I usually leave about half.

We finished up sharing a banana split, thank goodness we did as it was massive, two days of limited eating after to make up for it. Just as well birthdays only come once a year.

A wet day out

We heard about an Antiques fair to be held at Esk on the weekend. Not that we wanted or needed anything but we thought we would go and have a look. It was one of the things I wanted to do in England and while we did stop and go to a car boot sale, where I bought three match box cars in their boxes for a pound each. Unfortunately I took them out of their boxes to travel home and of course that reduces their value, antway I digress, great word that, I like using it and the way I rambled there probably is lots of opportunities to do so.

The weather didn't look too good so we had decided to put our trip on hold then it cleared and we changed our mind again. Great weather going out, the fair was good I guess if one was in the market for things like that. I did see some Morecroft pottery and Laleeke glassware that I recognised from watching Bargain Hunt on TV.

They had a catering van parked outside and while we were there we could see the rain coming in.

It was a wet trip home for about half way.

The computer says to fix the lighting but this is how is was mid afternoon. Warren stayed in the car on a patch of tar while I ventured out to collect a cache. I thought it was on the bridge but the phone moved around and I had to step out into wet grass.

Next stop was off to the right and a huge horse outside a property.

We were about 50 metres away and the rain was getting heavier and although we stopped, we chickened out, stayed in the car and decided to that one for another day. It would have been a 60 metre trek in bush, wet, boggy and altogether yuk.

A Grey day at the Beach

Earlier in the week, we went to the beach, mainly to walk Lucy and find some caches. No one was swimmers and the only people we saw were also walking their dogs.

After being blown down the track, we headed for coffee. Lucy doesn't usually like to have a drink when we are out so when I ordered coffee, I also got a small cup of ice cream for her. It was delivered to me along with the coffee.

Unfortunately she can't hold on to it but Warren came up with a solution.

Earlier in the day.

Stopped for one more on the way home and the tide was going out. It took about 30 minutes to get home and it started to rain as we got close to home. Glad we went early.

Yay, footy is on.

First game of AFLW tonight. They start early and overlap by only a week or so. Although this year there is four more new teams making the comp of fourteen teams. They will be playing in two groups with the top three of each group going into finals.

It's amazing to see how the girls have improved, in their skills and just the look of them. They all look like professional players. Length og kicks  has been lacking but already tonight have seen 50 metre plus kicks so that's an area that they much have worked on during the off season.

A bit of a coup is the main umpire tonight is Razor Ray, he would have to be the most experienced umpire, plus the only one that I know by name,  he usually umpires the grand final of the men's game.

A player who was one of the main players at the start and before is Daisy Pearse, she was the captain of Melbourne and after playing the first two years, was a field commentator as she was pregnant with twins. Very knowledgeable and she is back playing this season. Several of the women do have kids but are so committed to be out there.

My favourite player Sabina Fredrick has left Brisbane and is playing for Richmond who are playing tonight. The girls at the moment are only contracted for one year then it's up to the clubs and the players themselves.

A Salmon dinner

The last week of the school holidays Aidan came to stay, I thought he might like a change of scenery before returning to school. He attended an activity at our local library and he was booked into a star wars thing at another library. A movie another day plus ten pin bowling and a day at home plus doing park run with Grampy and that filled the week.

He had told me that he was cooking one night a week at home and asked if he could cook for us one night.

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I said of course, followed by what will you cook.

He tells me salmon mashed potatoes and green beans, luckily I had all of that in the fridge or freezer. I had bought the salmon a few weeks earlier but as I had not cooked salmon before, I wasn't keen to prepare it so it was still there.

Warren did go to the kitchen to assist the cook and help ,locate things that he may have needed. I had dinner delivered to me once it was done.

No mash for me and I had a spoon of sour cream on top, it was very nice. Then even better between they packed the dishwasher and put it on.

Garden flowers

I would have said that we don't have flowers in our garden however I was outside the other day hanging out some washing and actually looked around the garden.

Four of our trees or shrubs had flowers.
First one is what we call Max's tree. When we came back to Queensland to live we bought our little dog with us. I had been out with a group of brownies doing some community work and they found a small dog who had been dumped. She was in a cane basket between a railway line and a busy road. Poor thing looked half starved and scared. We took her home put notices around and when no one claimed her, she stayed with us.

She spent fifteen years with us and of course she moved with us but the heat was too much for her and we had to make the decision to have her put down. Warren brought her home from the vets and we had bought a tree with no name on it and that is where Max is, hence Max's tree. It is a lovely tree and has yellow flowers each year. The parrots love it.

Then I noticed that there were some others out in flower.

This was the first tree we planted in our garden seventeen years ago, my how time flies. It has been flowering for some weeks and is coming to the last. Funny that we put another one of these trees in the front yard about three years after this one but it never did any good, think it was a drought by then and we ended up taking it out.

Finally there is this one with the Bougainvilla flowering behind it. 

We built a vegetable patch but veggies never did any good there. Before they built the house, apparently there was a huge tree in that area and it was poisioned. We assume that there is still some residue there as plants seemed to be doing well and then suddenly died, now it is in too much shade to try to grow anything. Lucy likes to lay in it when it's hot.

Quilts

My latest round of quilts. I do like a target and I decided to do two quilts a month.

I was ironing them to pack away and realised there were five that I have made since Christmas. I had one to make for a grandsons birthday at the end of the year, got it finished just before his birthday and then I started on these.

I like the triangles but they do take up more time.

 The pink one is only cot sized, I don't usually have a lot of pink in my stash and these were pieces that came from the opp shop, with a nursery print for the back.

Mainly greens and pinks this time in strips, I think all fabric from opp shop.

Last time I was there at opp shop, I picked up a big bolt of fabric that has some rust marks on it. They only wanted a dollar for it. I am sure that the marks will either wash out or I will be able to cut around them. It will be suitable for the backs, I am soaking some now ready for the next lot of quilts.

Finished!

I set myself a target of completing my crocheted blanket by the end of the tennis. It involved 20 squares of approx 30cms x 30 cms. Then when asked Warren's opinion he thought I should do a border of cream around all of them. I was only going to do one strip across to make it a little longer but now that its done, I think it does pull it all together.
Some of the edges are just a bit wonky so I may even put a other row right around it. I will ponder for a couple of days.

Tennis grand final tonight and it is done!