Quilts for May

Was a bit slack for the start of the month, up until yesterday I had only made two. Pulled my finger out and added three more to the total.

I did have the backs already prepped so it was quite easy.

The bottom one is part of a sari that I bought a few years ago to wear for a fancy dress.

Calendar filling up again

As things are reopening and getting back to normal, sometimes to hard to find time in the week.

Warren asked me yesterday if we had time to go kayaking next week.

Humm, I have a coffee morning on Monday and as I am in the area, hoping to be able to get a haircut.

Wednesday he will have tennis and I will have to be at home for the carpet people.

Thursday is coffee morning again with a different group.

Friday he will have tennis.

Which leaves Tuesday, except that is the day we need to move furniture.

Mostly it's morning stuff but we don't want to run into school times or be too tired. Hopefully the next week won't be as busy. We do want to get out on the water before it gets too cold.

Back to Dayboro.

We do like this place and have often gone for a drive just to have coffee sat the bakery.

I did think that the bakery may have been in operation today as cafes and pubs are back but with a limit of ten people at a cafe with proper social distancing.
The bakery is only a walk in and the seating has been out on the verandah usually about eight tables and chairs. There was never any table service. I guess it's because of the sanctions required of tables and chairs.

Anyway there is a great park just across the road where we had our coffee and cheese cake.

After we did a short walk around to find the Heritage plaques and learnt some history. Dotted around were soft toys in trees, on gates and fences. Interesting.

This was outside the butcher's shop.

Crochet rug

Been working on this one for a couple of weeks. It was done with variegated wool. I bought four balls with no idea what I would make with it. I was hoping it would be bigger.

I went back to Spotlight last week and they had one ball left, it was a different dye lot but I can't tell the difference.

Blanket measures 100cms by 120cms.

Granny squares are in the background waiting to be sewn together, that's the next project.

Sunburn!

Back at the park to have coffee with friends. We took our own coffee and chairs as we expected the covered areas were full by the time we got there at 9.45am.

Quite a few people around but the park is big so not a problem to social distance. It was forecast to rain and we all had rugged up a bit as we knew that we would be sitting out in the elements.

It was really nice to see each other after being in lockdown. We had been chatting regularly by video but not the same as being in one anothers space.

That evening as I was cleaning my teeth, I noticed that my nose was red. I had sunburn! My nose was burnt. It's almost winter for goodness sake. I guess it just goes to show that sun cream  should be used when going outdoors regardless of the time or season. Thankfully the next morning the redness had gone and no peeling.

The Great Toilet Paper Chase.

Tuesday was a caching day and I selected to follow an adventure lab. These have been popping up all over the place but a caches has to be selected to place one.

Warren and I got one last year and as we didn't know too much about them, the closest one was an hour and a half away which we did before setting ours up.

Thus particular one started at the bottom of what was the Hornibrook Bridge. I remember this bridge when we first visited Queensland when I was eleven. It was an old wooden bridge that was very bumpy, these days there is a nice new steel bridge.

Anyway we had to locate the toilet block and then a question appeared which we had to answer. We followed the coastline to four other suburbs. Thankfully at one of the parks, there was a mobile coffee cart and even though we had to queue by social distancing, the coffee was good and welcome.

The sand flats, it was rather windy but sunny, good day to walk along the foreshore.

Opposite one of the parks was this nice looking church. It was also an off lead dog area which Lucy loved running free. Too quick for me to get a photo though.

Back Pain

Wow, it certainly can bring one to their knees.
I did grocery shopping yesterday mid morning and Warren carried it inside as usual. About 9pm last night, I got a couple of  spasms in my back. Didnt think much of it, Warren blamed the shopping and said he should/would come with me in future. I think it was too far apart but cant think what else it could be.

I slept okay until 4am when I think I went to turn over and the sharp pains when I moved woke me. My groaning/yelping woke Warren, he helped me to roll over and then massaged my back. I did manage to get a bit more sleep once I had a hot water bottle on it. More yelping when it was time to get up for a shower. The hot water helped then it was another hot pack and watch a movie.

We had family coming for lunch, luckily I had decided on a ploughmans platter and I was able to prep it during the morning. Warren went to tennis and I had asked him to pick up a box of ice creams for dessert.

Still painful but not as bad but back on the couch with a hot bag, hopefully it will be okay by tomorrow.

Hello Fresh (2)

The second meal from Hello Fresh was creamy bacon pasta.

This was what was left over which we had for lunch the following day. Warren said he didn't want a "restaurant" meal for dinner so I made chicken and corn soup.

Tonight's meal was Italian cheesy hamburgers. There were two cook in the oven bread rolls and after cooking the burgers, grated cheese was put on top and finished in the oven with the rolls. Each meal has a salad to go with it.

Rejection!

Warren lopped one of our trees.

Next of course was to get it in the trailer and take it to the tip. Warren told me that I neednt help if I had things to do. I can always find things to do but felt I should help after all, there was a lot there.
Some of the branches needed to be cut again so that they fitted and we got a lot on before we secured it and then put a tarp over it.

Warren backed the car up and I told him that I would lock up. .docked both doors to the garage and the back door, went out the front door locking it behind me.

I was just in time to walk to the back of the trailer to check the lights. He put the brakes on and I gave the thumbs up to indicate they were working. He drove out the gate, I was expecting him to do the blinkers and I followed and shut the gate only for him to keep going!

He drove off without me! Which meant I was home, locked out, no key, no phone, not even a pen and paper. I had thought that I would write some notes.

Lucy was with me but she decided she would go inside through the doggy door. I thought about it but even if my shoulders went through, Im sure that my bum wouldnt had fitted. Nothing else to do but wait, luckily the tip wasnt too far away so I wasnt locked out for too long. Thirty minutes.

Hello Fresh!

Sheridan gifted me a box of meals from the company Hello Fresh. I didn't know too much about them except the ads on TV.

After I accepted the box through their email, they announced that the box with menus would be delivered on the weekend.

Each bag is colour coded and has the ingredients for a meal for between 2 and 3 people. Meat cheese and salad dressings were in the silver bag.

  Pictures of the food, on the back is step by step instructions. So far the only extras is olive oil, salt and pepper.

A visit to Dayboro

Now that we are allowed to travel 50kms from home, we took a drive to Dayboro. The bakery was open for takeaway and we got a coffee and sat in the local park.

Outside one of the shops advertising that they were open.

Cute use of water cans and added to the main street.
We took a wander around to the showgrounds.

This piece of heavy equipment was being used to hold an advertising sign in front of a pet and rural supply place.  We could only assume it was a scrub clearing piece of kit.

Grabbed two caches on the way and then Warren skimmed up a tree to grab the last one.

Rice paper rolls

These were my favourites when we visited the P.o. Vietnam restaurant in China. I had bought the rice paper rolls some months ago but I was nervous about using them.

Decided to take the plunge. I had some prawns, spinach feta cheese sweet potatoes.

Took the papers out of the freezer and read the instructions.

Yea, I got this, so easy. Wet the rice paper in warm water until it was soft, then fill and roll it.

Look alright, these were the second ones with the prawns. Made four with spinach and feta.

 This was after they were cooked. The rice paper stuck to the steamer and ended up like this. I cooked the second lot by putting some baking paper in the bottom. Didn't make that much different. I served it up to Warren saying Maccas is a short drive away. We had burgers and chips for dinner. The rest of the rice papers have gone out. The use by date was Aug 2017.

The BAT in the lounge room.

So with holidays off the agenda for awhile, I suggested to Warren that we replace our TV. It had been playing up a bit for some time. No ABC unless we rerouted it through the set top box.

The plan had been to wait until next year. We had checked out prices and sizes a few months ago so we knew what was what.

During our time together, we have always bought things quickly but we decided we should check the three different places in our area that sold Tv's. We also decided to look for two new chairs.

Four hours later with our heads reeling with information, we went back to one place to sit in the chairs again. That was it, we put down a deposit, downside was the one we wanted was not available for six weeks.

Next was TV, we couldn't face continuing so went home for a very late lunch. Warren went back the next day to collect the TV we had chosen. They had sold out so he went with a different brand and got a bigger screen for less money. Warranty etc was the same. So far so good.

Old tv removed.

New TV installed. It had now been mounted on the wall and painting hooks removed. Had to name the TV so as to have some features start working, its name Big Assed Tv or BAT for short.
Warren listed old tv for sale and it was gone in 40  minutes some guy wanted to play netflix through it so wasnt concerned about no abc.

Dinner

The other day Coles had an advert on TV using one of the local chefs with his two daughters.

It looked yummy and easy so I made it last night. Don't thin there was a recipe as such. 

A sheet of pantry, spread with pizza sauce which I just happened to have some then topped with tomatoes and zucchini olive oil salt and pepper.

It went well with pork chops and enough left over for lunch today.

Warren's turn to cook tonight so he has gone to collect fish and chips!

Trees

I find trees fascinating, no two are the same.

 Such a straight tree with almost no bark and then the one to the right is so white.
In the same park were these were ivy growing up them.

Walking out in the sunshine

Been north of the township a couple of times since our resistrictions have been loosened.

We are trying to meet a challenge of finding a cache on every calendar day. Things were going well with Feb and March completed. In April we only had one to find on 24 April but we didnt go out because then it was only allowed out for grocery shopping, doctors or other essential.

In May we have/ had ten dates empty and already we have filled three of them.

Luckily for us, there are another two caches up this walk.

Freedom!

Yesterday was the first day of our stay at home restrictions being lightened. From midnight, we can go for a drive within 50kms from home, go to the beach or a national park, social distancing is still in place. Can have up to two people visit.

Sheridan drove up to have lunch with us. After lunch I was going to watch Netflix while Warren had a snooze. Well, great plans which fell in a heap as I couldnt get my phone to connect to the TV so I read my book but could feel that I wanted to go somewhere. Spotlight it was, even though I didn't need anything but I had read a pattern for a monkey and of course I didn't have brown wool.

It was nice to be able to drive out and see other people. Grabbed some extra wool that I thought would be good for slippers as the weather is getting cooler at night.
Finished the second one tonight.

 

The Touch up guy!

So the guy came a couple of days ago and worked on the car in the garage. We just needed to angle it in a bit different and give him access to power point.

He arrived at 7.30am and worked until about 10.30am.
This was the result.

From this.

Could not be happier. The quote was for $330 and that was what we were charged.

Oops!

A couple of months ago we were out to lunch. We walked back to the car which was parked down the hill a bit.

We both saw it at the same time.

Somebody has hit us!
Realised that the car on the left had been there when we parked so couldn't have been them. Driving home we must have both been thinking about it and then Warren said that he thought it may have happening when we had the trailer on behind a couple of weeks earlier. Thank goodness it wasn't me.

Repair guy was in the street and Warren asked him to have a look and cost it out.

Stay tuned for the next installment.