Family pics across the years

 First time we have all been together for over six years when Rob and Lindsay flew up to visit.

It wasn't planned but goes oldest on left, then middle and youngest on the right.

Cleaning out a couple of drawers a few days later, I discovered some old photos.

I think this one is the oldest, not sure where or when it was taken. I think it is a professional photo and Rob, middle has braces on his teeth so he would have been 16 or 17, now 48.

A couple of years later, the house we were in was in Canberra and Jason, oldest must have been visiting as he never lived in that house. As we have lived in lots of houses, we identify photos and time by where we were living.

Eggs Benny.

 Warren ordered these for breakfast at one of our bnb stops whilst walking Hardians Wall in England. When it came out I was envious as it looked and smelt so good. I had never had it before.

Our favourite coffee shop at home does a pretty mean one of eggs Benny and we often share one now for lunch. We were there last week and put in an order with a coffee each. As the waitress approached our table with two plates and I could see the eggs, I thought that Warren had ordered one each as I knew I couldn't eat a full serve. She laughed at seeing my face as she said she could tell what I was thinking but they had prepared one dish and already had put it on two plates to save us having to lean over and share from one. We agreed that maybe poker playing was something I should avoid as my face was very telling.

A couple of days later I decided to make eggs Benny at home as I had almost everything.

My version, toasted bread spread with 🥑, lettuce, grilled bacon, poached eggs with Mayo 

Santa's Elf

 Rained in the night and so I took the opportunity to walk Lucy on our longer walk. There's not a lot of shade on the first part so when it's hot I avoid it.

Silly me, I wore my leather thongs as i t was cool but I didn't realise how much it had rained. There were puddles, large ones on many of the paths.

Santa's little helper was too slow getting out the car this morning, quite cute so had to snap a pic.

Bumper stickers.

 Some of these are fun, some are plain stupid.

Today driving to the shopping centre, I saw one that I had not seen before but it certainly made me smile.

It was on the top of a 4wd and stated "Sorry if I am slowing you down, vehicle and driver are both nearing retirement". 

Back Roads

 New to us program on TV, I had heard of it before and seen a couple of episodes. Basically a presenter goes to small towns in Australia and interviews the locals about what is happening in that community.

My small hometown Mundulla in South Australia was one of the first featured when we started watching.

However they featured the agricultural show which is held in March and also the Deb ball which is held in May so it was done over a few weeks.

The show is quite famous in the south east with a big showing of horses, jumping dressage and carriage driving. Some cattle and sheep but the main area is in the town hall with cakes of all types, cut flowers, photography and art. One long time local had 87 exhibits, same as her age, she won a lot as well. When I was a kid she owned the local drapery store, one of four businesses, the others being a tank making business, a garage and a grocery store.

One of my cousin's is the indoor convenor for the show.

Mundulla hotel was a private house when I went to school, now run as an upmarket eatery

First council chambers

Lucy and her hardware

 Last week Lucy presented with a cut leg, quite a big cut and as she hadne been out anywhere we knew she must have got it in the yard.

Being both farm kids, we knew that usually dogs can look after their own wounds but by the second day, it looked to be opening. Warren took her to the vet hospital where they shaved the area and put five staples in. She also had antibiotics for ten days. They were a bit of an issue until Warren discovered that they dissolved in milk.

Today was back to the vets for either staples out or surgery. If surgery she would have had to stay for a couple of days. She arrived home happy as Larry, vet was happy with the progress but did say it will take another week to ten days. Her light haircut is almost over it. Photo was taken three days ago, looking much better now.

Covid day nine.

 I took Lucy for a short walk last night and had a good sleep, waking at 5am.

Showered dressed and ready for a longer walk by 7am. Got 500 metres from home and realised that I wouldn't be able to walk the distance that I had planned, we did just over a kilometre. I did two loads of washing then back to bed for a 40 minute sleep.

In all I had three naps today, I think there tablets that I am taking are making me drowsy but I need them to be able to sleep at night.

Coughing has lessened but I still need lozenges to keep it at bay at times. Supposed to be going back to class tomorrow but not sure if I will feel like driving there, will probably give it a miss.

Covid day four/five

 Well, I thought I had mild symptoms but as the days go by, still feeling blah. Sleep seems to be the key and we have done a lot of that. Watching the Davis Cup tennis on TV a couple of days ago but it was easy to rest the eyes and snooze as well.

Panadol, decongestants and soothers have been centre stage. Good to have a healthy pantry and fridge not that there is much eating happening.

The last two nights I have had trouble sleeping due to coughing.  I do feel as though I am almost though it. Warren says that he is practically back to normal and thought his test was clear this morning only for the positive line to appear after a few minutes. I am about 12 hours behind him so looking forward to tomorrow when I will take a test.

Son and grandson offered to come and shop for us which we didn't need anyway, they are currently mowing the lawns. It's weird that they are outside and we are in but can't afford to get closer. Even though we have been vaccinated covid is not much fun at all.

New crochet stitch

 It's called mosaic and it quite effective, we were asked to bring along four different colours, I chose white lemon yellow and salmon/orange. It was done with two of each going from light to dark.

I liked it but when one of the ladies suggested just one row and then any colour, I decided to do that. I pick up quite a bit of wool from op shops, usually only one ball of part thereof and it would good to make scrappy blanket doing this.

This is as far as I have got, it's 60cms square. Having covid, not really feeling like doing much at the moment but the brain is thinking about the next colours so that must mean I am on the mend. It's quite dense and thick and as our tutor always says, it's easy. It is actually and do while watching TV, no counting!

Covid day two

 Warren has always said that it wasn't a amatter of if we catch Covic but when.

Out to dinner with friends on Saturday night and he tested positive on Sunday morning. We cancelled everything for the week just in case as it was the closest we had been to a covid case. Monday morning we tested and it was negative.

I washed the bedclothes, not the usual day and disinfected our room. Warren felt a bit off in the afternoon and at 5pm, he tested positive. I was fine but started getting cold like symptoms overnight, sure enough got two lines on the covid test.

Warren had arranged a telehealth call to get the antivirus meds, I drove him to the chemist as his muscles were sore, he said he felt like he had been battered with a baseball bat. After a 30 minute wait, I was grateful that it was only 4 KMs toget home.  Panadol and bed for both of us.

Funny that our symptoms are different, his is muscles soreness, mine are cough, sneeze and congestion with a high temp as well. We got up for a couple of hours before heading back to bed at 6.30pm.

Warren walked Lucy this morning only a short walk and said that when he came past the shops he wondered he would make it home. He slept for an hour after. I got up and had a shower but after washing and drying myself, I didn't have the energy to get dressed. I did finally get dressed about 20 minutes later. The word that comes to mind is weary, that's what we both feel like but today is better than yesterday, not by much though.

I made scrambled eggs for lunch, felt good to eat something. Tonight we are back in bed by 7pm. Lack of energy is the main thing but we will get through it.

Our friend ended up in hospital but did get released today.

Train to the Gold Coast

 The Gold coast has a light rail which opened about six years ago. We had always said that we should go down and ride it.

We had the following Friday or Tuesday after Mousetrap free and the weather was not too hot.

Friday it was, we caught the train here, changed in Brisbane, went as far as we could then changed to the light rail. Both trains took about fifty minutes and the light rail about twenty minutes.

Got off at Main beach and it seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, but we followed some people and in two blocks we were in the middle a couple of streets with wall to wall cafes and stores. 

We had not realised it was Remembrance Day but in the street, they played the Last post and most people stood for the minutes silence. I was surprised to see that 5he ones who didn't were around our age.

Enjoyed our lunch then made our way back to the station, the light rail seems to go every few minutes so not long to wait.

We were home again by 4pm

Light rail

On the light rail, smaller than the train

Dogs on the street.

The Mousetrap

 When I was at high school, we studied one of the Agatha Christie books. Well I was hooked and I think I have read all of her novels several times over.

The Mousetrap was the longest running play in West end London, not sure if it is still playing. When I went to London, it had been going for 39 years and that was over 30 years ago.

Anyway, the play was coming to Brisbane and I bought tickets for a Wednesday matinee, cheapest tickets but, I know that in that theatre, you can see and hear wherever you are seated.

Set in rural England in a boarding house, it's of course a who dun it and at the end the audience is sworn to secrecy about the outcome.

We went by train, had lunch and then made our way to the Playhouse, very good day out.

No photos allowed while play is on, I took this at half time.

Eats in the mountains

 I wanted to go and have lunch at the beach while the weather was nice. Checking out our options as well as the tides. Lunch time shown that the tides would be out and so we would only be able to see mud flats.

Change of plan, we will go inland up in the hills.

Now, are we having morning tea or lunch,? It's Sunday so could be busy, maybe we will go early to avoid the crowds at lunch. 

The cafe is just off the side of the road up to one of the Glasshouse mountains, no real car park but there is a pull off area. We had to park down the lot a bit as there were a dozen or so motor bikes parked out the front. Queue to order and then told there was a forty minute wait. 

Nice scenery.

Good coffee.

If it was a 40 min wait, it went quickly

Warren surprised me with the order, eggs Benny and strawberry cheesecake, we shared.

A vintage car even made it up the hill.

Rained on the way home so pleased we went early.

It's November

 That means national novel writing month, nano for short.

I had tossed around a few ideas and didn't sign on until Monday 31 Oct, still not sure if my idea had enough legs to make it to 50,000 words.

First day and we were out in the morning, dropped into a cafe on the way home for lunch. Finally sat down at the computer to start my thirteenth novel. It took me three hours to get 1100 words down, needed 1665 a day. I had emptied my emails, read some stuff and bought gifts online.

In previous years I had started slow and then built up to about 2k words a day so no need for concern. Wednesday was much the same with only 900 or so written.

Thursday is my crochet day so after lunch I sat down, read over what Ihad written and realised that is wasn't very good, all conversation. Then I had a light bulb moment, I didn't have to do it so shut the computer down and walked out of the study, feeling a weight off my shoulders. Definitely done for this year, maybe nano is finished for me for all time time will tell.

Rick Stein

 Flipping around the TV channels, we settled on a cooking show of Rick Stein, he was in France.

I forget what he called this dish but it was very simple, although he has his kitchen elf, Valerie do the prep, he just put it together at the end.

It consisted of tomatoes, eggplant and pastry. We had just picked a mountain of cherry tomatoes from our couple of bushes. I love eggplant so a short trip to the shops for pastry and a couple of egg plants and I was all set. Unfortunately I didn't have a Valerie and had to do it all myself although I did ask for help when it came to flipping it over

Tomatoes and eggplant sliced and cooked slowly in the air fryer.

Layered into casserole dish with a sheet of pastry on top.

Then it needed to be upended and served with the pastry on the bottom, quite a strong taste and filling, would have been better with some sour cream on top. Next time.

Purple season

 October brings the Jacaranda out in flower, I almost missed it this year.

After many wet Mondays and having to resort to cafes, last week was a park day with a Jacaranda in the distance. It had almost finished flowering. One of our group, Lesley to the right

Smells of spring

 Walking Lucy the other day we came through an alleyway and the smell was very strong.

Jasmine on one side 

Gardinia on the other, I only took one pic, Lucy was on a mission to get home once she gets into the alley as it's her breakfast time after she gets home.

Shenh hao

 Found a new to us restaurant closer than ones we have been before. Reviews looked good so we decided to try it out.

The decor looked like many places we have visited in China, wooden tables and chairs with plastic table cloths.

Pictures of the food in the window outside, we were excitedly looked at them when the waitress popped out and invited us in. We told her that we were seeing many dishes that we used to eat when we were living in China.

Warren had found his favourite, twice cooked pork, that he used to order several times a week from the school canteen. That's what he ordered, I went for the braised pork.

Mine, big dishes.

Warren's some la there (chilli).

He said it was the same. We couldn't finish it, did have two spring rolls for starters, came home with enough for dinner. Great value for $40.

Robot Waiter

 Last week we visited a Japanese restaurant, it was early for lunch and at first we were the only ones there for ten minutes or so.

As more people came in, their meals were delivered by the robot Waiter.

Front view going out with music, a little like the Mr Whippy van, on the top it had two eyes and they alternated between blinking and every now and then a wink.

Coming back. It came last us and then turned into the kitchen.

Trying to beat the rain.

 Yesterday we drove to Bribie Island to grab some adventures, walk the dog and have a coffee. Nice clear day at home, grey skies when we got there.

Hitched Lucy up and walked south, 300 metres and sign on the path announces that dogs were not admitted any further as it was the start of a national park. We were 250 m from where we needed to go. I went on, on my own, did what was required and back to the car.

It was starting to rain but had to stop to take this picture of "baby" magpie and mama, they were only a couple of metres off the path. Weren't bothered by me at all.

The last two adventure we did from the car with me getting out and walking the last 30 metres or so. People must have been sheltering from the rain as the cafe we usually go to with Lucy was full. Headed home for homemade hot chocolate 

Craft and quilt show

 The last one I went to was about ten or twelve years ago. I didn't want to buy anything or take up a new craft but just wanted to look.

It was an enjoyable day, first was coffee at Rydges hotel because we couldn't find anything else open on a Sunday morning.

Quilts on display were amazing some I liked, some I wasn't that keen on but the time and effort put in was unreal probably double or triple what I was thinking.

The bottom one was in a section of recycled household materials, a city scape using keys from a computer keyboard as the buildings

Strange birds

 Out walking with Lucy this morning and we came across a pair of strange birds.

It was difficult to take a photo of them,  Lucy would have liked to get closer to them, at no time did they look like flying off. 

Smells

 I was up reasonably early today and Lucy and I set off on our walk before school. It must have rained a little overnight as the smells coming off the trees and bushes as we walked around was incredible. 

Very little foot traffic but the road had a lot of vehicles, we were going to cross the road but we couldn't get a break.  I like a fair break before we cross, Lucy is good but she can get distracted as she is going from a sit down so we/I changed our minds and went along the creek. Lucy even had some time off lead which she loves.

New cafe

 Well, new to us, not sure how long it has been open but there are comments going back three years or more. Funny thing is, it's less than 10ks from us.

One of my crochet group was talking about it so we had lunch there on Friday.

It was down a windy road about two ks off a main road with large trees either side, we were wondering if we were in the right place and then there was a clearing, a car park and a cafe!

The menu was limited but good, coffee and service was good. We sat out side and had views to the mountains.

Warren's lunch I did pinch a couple of blueberries.

Very nice, we took the circular route back home as there had been some roadworks, nothing like a drive in the country.

Fur baby sitting take two.

 A week after Esme went home we had Lockie. Lockie is a Boston and smaller version. Everytime I see him, I am surprised at how small he is. Lockie had been here a few times and he and Lucy got on well so no dramas.

He didn't eat his dinner the first night until several hours after I had fed him, I put that down to, Lucy gets fed fairly early, I fed them at the same time, Lucy outside as is normal and Lockie inside.

He walked very well with Lucy but he doesn't stop to sniff not like Luce, she sniffs everything. Warren did an extra walk on Sunday evening to the shops, we were having fish and chips for dinner. Lockie saw Lucy's harness going on and so he fronted to the front door for a second walk as well.

Monday we picked J up from hospital and delivered him home, when we got home, Lockie seemed to be very anxious, we thought maybe he smelt Jordan. He, Lockie kept going to the gate and if he was inside he was doing laps of the house and coming to a stop at the lounge windows, we think he was looking for their car. 

Talking with J we decided to take him home, at least he would be there with one family member and in his own home, so we drove him there Tuesday. Drove up the driveway and he piled out and up the stairs, he seemed to be smiling and much happier to be home.

Who would have thought dogs get home sick for their own people.

Fur baby sitting.

 We had Esme here for a few days while our son and family went up the coast. Esme hadn't been here before and hadn't met Lucy before. Esme is a French bulldog and has some allergies. They brought all her food so that wasn't a drama. We were told that she didn't need to be walked but left her harness and lead if we wanted to take her. We took the two dogs together with Lucy way out in front of the end of her lead and Esme with a shorter lead walking right alongside of our left leg. I think that is the accepted spot for dogs when they go to obedience training. 

Lucy was too old for obedience training when we got her and if we are both there, she will go from side to side depending on what and where she wants to smell. They did walk together far better than I expected.

Esme making herself comfortable in our room while I was cleaning it, she seems to like being around a person. She's a snorer, Jason told me that when she was a puppy, they often had to turn up the TV so they could hear it over her.

Cats and kittens

 The weather is getting warmer, too warm to have blankets drapped over my lap so I have gone on to croching toys for the charity.

I found the free pattern on the net, same pattern but different hook sizes from 3.5 to 5mm changes the size. 

An easy pattern, just a head, two ears, body and a tail. A pipe cleaner goes in to the tail so that it can be bent. I bought the safety ears and noses, the first one on the left is sewn but the others have proper noses. Each one took about a day/night of TV watching.

50th birthday bash.

 Can't believe that it will be our elder son's 50th birthday in a few days. We have been invited to dinner tomorrow night. We haven't done gifts in the family, except kids for a long time but couldn't let this one go by without something.

He is by his own admission a chocoholic so this is what Imade for him.

I particularly like the line "getting olderisnt something to joke about, your bones will crunch, your mind will play Trix and you will be popping pills like tictacs"

I saw it on face book and adapted it and couldn't resist adding the quickees at the bottom.

Temperate blanket

 This intrigued me and I had seen a few of them but I didn't really like what I saw so I created my own.

Basically a temperate blanket is crocheting one row each day of the year to correspond with that days temp. Therefore it would be 365 rows with many different shades.

Too hard basket for me so I choose six colours and did a granny square for each day.

Blue 15 to 19, green 20 to 24, yellow 25 to 29 and red for 30 plus. A final row of grey around each one. 

I set it out like a calendar with Monday being the first day, if Wednesday was the first day of the month, then it was a solid grey and maroon was a filler at the end of the month.

It was to be Jan and Feb with Mar and Apr under it, then I realised how big it would end up. Warren has six months and I will have the second six months on a smaller scale.

Blankets

 While on holidays, I completed four crochet blankets, had some stitching to do once we got home as it's far easier to stitch them together on a large table.

As we don't drive as far as we used to in a day and we stop often, Warren likes to drive and pretty much does it all so I crochet while he drives. There is a fourth one, all in blue that I started on the second last day and finished at the weekend, I didn't take a photo of that one before I packed it up with the others for delivery.