Banana Benders Hotel

 I had an apt up the coast last week and we decided to leave earlier and have lunch at this pub. It is nearly four years since our last visit.

It used to be an Ettamogga pub with an old jalopy on the roof, when it changed hands, the new owners couldnt get the license for Ettamogga so they had to change the look of it.

They went for an Aussie beach theme with kangaroos and koalas and surf boards.

Koalas and kangaroos

Huge light fittings made from different beer bottles. 

Flags dolphins and surf boards, there were a set of four above our heads, swinging as a fan.

Lunch out is good but I need to study the menu more, Warren ordered the seniors fish and chips, I choose an entree of chicken kebabs with a peanut sauce.

Warrens meal arrived with a small pavola, all part of the seniors apparently, he did offer me some but I declined.

Christmas stockings

 

These are the stockibgs I made for Uniforms for kids charity. I was given the red and green fabric plus sone fabric with the decorations. I drew out a pattern, doubled the fabric and then drew around it straight on to the material. The white ones with ginger bread men on was a table cloth that I bought cheaply at a bargain store. 

Made 28 stockings and 14 drawstring book bags. This week, I bought home some dark polo shirt fabric, probably make shorts out of those.

Book Bags

 This fortnight for uniforms for kids I am making Christmas stockings and book bags. I was given some red and green fabric and Christmas themed fabric.

They also gave me some scrap material. 

There was some talk about needing book bags with handles and drawstrings.

These are what I have made, great looking fabrics. The longest is making the handles.

So much thread of my floor, time to vaccumn again tomorrow, I only use the stick not the head to suck up thread and sometimes cut offs of fabric

Uniforms for kids

 Bit of a strange name but it is a charity that I have become involved in. I went alobg to a meeting/gathering and the founder happened to be there that day.

She is a retired police officer and she was cutting up her uniforms after retirement when she had a lightbulb moment. The fabric could be used to make kids clothes. Uniforms esp of police officers need to disposed of properly to avoid being used improperly.

Badges and insigina must be removed but the materials can be used. I came home with two police shirts to use for clothing, supposed to be 50% but a frill, pockets etc is acceptable.

A largèr sized dress using the button up plackard, saved me doing buttons and pockets.

Pillow case dresses with added frills

Shorts with pockets

Also made draw string bags. These will be used either as laundry bags or filked with goodies for disadvantaged kids.

The clothes are sizes 2 to ten.

The group mets every second week for a couple of hours, I have been to two get togethers now and each time I have helped stuff toys. One member takes the T-shirt fabric and makes soft toys. First lot were small bears with Hug me written them. This weeks were white snowmen with embrodered faces.

I came home with red and green fabric with a request for Christmas stockings

Lillys in the garden

 Our lillies are flowering everywhere it seems. We only gave three flower beds and there are lillues flowering in each of them.

This bed is actually Lucy's bed and Sherrols. We put it in years ago, bought thd bricks and good soil, it was going to be our vegie patch. We didnt think about the size of the bricks so it is smaller than we wanted. 

We planted out and waited for vegetables to grow. Great healthy looking tomatoes, then they died. Our neighbour over the back at the time, told us that there had been a large tree in what became our yard. Contractors took it out and then poisoned the ground before they built our house. 

We didnt use it for any other vegetables. Lucy likes to lay in there when its hit and she sometimes digs a little to get to the colder earth.

Warren had taken out a tree in the foreground and he put the tyre there to protect the hole that it left.

Plants seem to be growing okay in there now but still dont want to use it for vege.

Almost voting time

 Early voting opened on Monday fod ths state election which is being held in two weeks. We decided to go and vote today.

We are just inside an elective which runs further north so we had to vote as "an absentee voter" luckily though tgey gad all the paperwork for our area. I always take the how to vote papers off all of the members. Today tgey had a bin to collect them after, I hope that they reused them but probably not.

A very quick park, collect our voting papers, mark the boxes, post into our correct box and off we went again.

Warren had told ms that there was a sheltered cafe there, selling coffees. Not sure if it was for disadvantaged of unemployed people, we bought two coffees, it was take away only so we decided to sit in the nearest park and enjoy the weather.

I had never seen half grown 

Goslings before.

We waljed around the park after and at one point we stopped and leant on the railings, the ducks thinking we had something for them made a beeline for us. Turtles are on a rock out in the middle of the water

A window of shorts

 My latest sewing contribution.

Shorts dont hang as well as dresses. Think there were nine pairs of shorts, another three pillowcase dresses, these are so easy to make.

I have joined a charity for sewing, meet once a fortnight so I am committed to making things for them. More on that later.

Boxes in the park

 These seem to have appeared in the last few days. They are quite high, by mg reckoning about 12 to 18 feet above ground.

I stood on the path taking photos and without leaving the path, I could count twelve of these boxes.

It is planned to take out some trees because a larger water/sewerage pipe needed to be laid. We can only assume that the boxes for nesting birds are to make up for sone trees coming down.

These are the bare spots of where trees gave been removed. Lucy and I counted 23 trees gone from here. I counted, then did it again for Lucy, coming up with the same number.

Welcome to the world of diabeties

 Which I dont know too much about yet but learning. Last year my doctors sent me for a blood glusoce test which involed three lots of blood taken an hour apart.

My blood sugar levels didnt go back to normal as quickly as they should have, it would be monitored. I know that thirst is a symptom and about six weeks ago, I did start to experience sudden thirst so organised a blood test. The levels were higher than last year which offically made me a diabetic.

Dr gave me a script for one daily tablet a weekly injection, I also needed to have an eye test, another blood test and a wee test to check my kidneys and a further apt with her in two days, that was today.

I went to two chemists who both told me that the injection is unavailable and has been for some time. Saw a care plan nurse today then the dr again who just needed to sign off of nurses suggestions. Dr also suggested a chemist who may gave the injection, they did so I was able to get it and give myself the first dose.

So care plan is, two visits to exercise guy and a diabeties person in two weeks a follow up with dr in a month.

Basically stay away from sugar, chocolates, etc and high fat foods.

My blood sugar level was 6.4 today when I saw the nurse which I thought was pretty good.

This week I have seen Dr, eye dr, had blood test, had a hearing test, seen the care nurses, (they did suggest a dentist visit until I said I had false teeth) back to dr and tomorrow I am having a mammogram, not connected.

Cub club

 We own and travel in a Cub camper trailer and a couple of years ago Warren joined a group on facebook of Cub camper owners.

Its mainly for people to ask fir help or suggestions to fix or make things better when setting up or whatever.

A few months ago the organisor of the club advised of a get together not that far from us.

We said we would go and booked in tk the caravan park for two nights.

There was a plan for the weekend. We got there at lunch time and early birds had gone to visit a neighbouring town and cheese factory. After setting we decided to drive there as well but factory closed at three so we missed out there and did some other things so not a wasted trip.

Happy hour was at five and we met the other group members about 20 or 22.

Saturday morning was a viewing of each others Cub, they are all so different, some were very new and a bit bells and whistles.

Trivia in the afternoon followed by bare foot bowls then dinner at the club house. Two guys from Cub and they put up the money for every ones dinner, very nice and unexpected. 

A row of camp trailer, twelve in all.

A bowling green just behind  our camper.

Taking Lucy for a walk last night, saw a Jacaranda tree out in flower.

Crochet bag

 My third project finished but with some changes. I was going to make a hexagon bag which needed 13 squares. 

I had ordered some cotton yarn from Hobbi based in Denmark. I bought a pack of ten balks in shades from white to a dark teal.

Working it up, I figured that I wouldnt use the small hexabag very much so I would need more to make a square bag. Nine by nine for front and back and then three for each side, 13 jumped to 24. Putting it together, I had done 25, hum, do I make another one and make another chook? I used a bigger hook so the fill could have come out. Made two more squares for the base, I wasnt goung to worry about a base as it is lined with fabric, 27 squares made altogether.

I made straps from the same fabric that is the lining.

I expected it to have more of a definate shape and its bigger than I was thinking. I dont think it would hold lots of groceries, weight wise not size but very suitable to transport my projects to class.

Angels

 Another of my holiday projects finished. I had done the crocething part last week but had not put them together.

Today I got out the glue gun and twenty minutes was all it took to tranform circular pieces into angels.

All eight laid out and only one burn.

I put the glue on the first puece and smoothed it over with my knuckle. It does say hot glue and it was and now I have a blister on a finger. Lesson learnt, I didnt do that again.

 O

Here is a close up.

I think I am going to do a long chain and thread it through the wings so that they can be strung on a Christmas tree.

No thought of what I was going to do with them, I just saw a picture on line and wondered if I could make some.

Bush Turkey

 We went to North Lakes for lunch last week, they had an enclosed area as well as an open deck. The open deck looks out onto the lake.

We shared a plate of calamari salad and coffee.

We strolled around the lake after, thankfully the rain had stopped.

Warren saw the mound first and pointed it out to me.

It was almost a metre high and about four or five metres around.

This was the bird, still working on adding to the nest, he/she was very busy scratching leaf litter towards it to add to it.

Lots of chooks.

 I have been beavering away at my self imposed challenges.

Finished the chooks.

Any colors but I like the main colour to be either black, brown or white like real chooks.

I planned to make seven as I had one set of eyes and then I bought a pack of six sets of eyes. Found another set of eyes so made eight altogether. The one in the front in green and another green one at the back are cotton the rest are wool.

Warren thinks they should be the same on each side, but that would be boring.

They are made with two granny squares sewn together on three sides, stuffed then the fourth side stitched a different way. The comb, beak and tail are the hardest part as they are crocheted after it has been stuffed.

Footy finals fever.

 My team, Collingwood, won the Grand Final last year beating our local team Brisbane Lions, did not make the finals this year finishing in ninth place.

As Brisbane is local, we see their games more on TV and I know most of the players. They were lucky enough to make the finals finishing I think sixth. 

Last week I watched half of Brisbanes game and they were 44 points behind when I went to bed. I wasnt expecting them to win at the start but I do get quite a lot of crocheting done. Warren woke me on Sunday morning with the news that Brisbane had won. What the ?

Even though we knew they won, over lunch we watched the last half of the game. It was nail biting and I was glad that I knew the result.

Tonight they were up against Geelong, the only Victorian team left in the c.omp abd the match was in Melbourne. Foitball started in Victoria and they deem it as their game and therefore only Victorian teams should take out tge big prize.

The scores were pretty even then in the second quarter, Geelong took off and were 25 points in front at half time. Brisbane came out and seem to play a different style of game. Even lising their ruckman didnt deter them and they run out winners by a few points. So it will be Sydney Swans verse Brisbane Lions next week. Brisbane had not beaten Geelong in Melbourne for twenty years.

In a country comp, one team was in front by two points, siren sounded as the ball was marked. The rest of the team ran onto the ground thinking they had won. The umpire blew the whistle to take his kick and awarded a 50 m penalty for extra players on the groubd which in turn moved the marker of the ball into the square and then he kicked a goal. So the team who thought they had won, in actual fact lost the game in their excitement. Would not have liked to be in their shoes.

Holiday projects

 Usually I have crochet blankets on the go but I am between blankets at the moment and its school holiday time so no crochet classes for two weeks.

I have decided to do some little things before going back to class. Its common to have a show and tell the first week back.

I mentioned at class a picture of a chicken abd asked if anyone had seen it. Robyn, the tutor sent me a link and I made one, then I bought a pack of eyes.

I had a set of eyes, so I am aiming to use up the eyes which will mean making seven in total.

Also making some angels from the white circular piece, I needed wooden beads to use as faces, a pack of eight will result in eight angels I hope.

Then the square, I didnt like the colours of the vag that I bought and made on the cruise so making another from the shades of green and white. I would need 13 but on further thoughts, a square bag would be more practical so 24.

Then there is the poppies, making a few for a friend in between projects.

I also want to sit down and concentrate making a pineapple blanket. I have started it, its 9 pineapples across and 11 high, done up to row seven and seem to have too many stitches. I want to make a small piece as a table runner of three pineapples, I should be able to get the pattern down pat.

I am chopping and changing between the four so that I dont get bored. Today I made one chicken and stitched and stuffed another, did three poppies and two squares.

Tomorrow is Thursday which gives me two weeks to complete my projects.

Tree lopping

 Today as we left home, we were stopped by road works, as we got closer, we could see that they werent actually working on the roads but lopping trees on the side of ths road.

I was glad not to be driving as there were some heavy looking branches coming down. It took two stops before we could continue, each stop about three minutes.

Some serious machinery being used.

The lilac is starting to flower along the path that Lucy and I use to return home after our walks. Smells delightful too.

Was the day for road works as a trip that should have taken 45 minutes ended up an hour and ten.

99 cents day

 I did my usual shopping last thursday and when I got there it was 99 cent day.

Several items were priced at, you guessed it, 99 cents.

Corn rice cakes were 99 cents, packets of sausages and 90 second rice, tins of baked beans and spagetti, a few other things that I dont buy.

Sausages are nit commin in our household any more but at 99 cents I made an exception, only four in a pack but enough for a meal.

Last night I made a curry, again not common here.

I boiled the sausages which takes out any excess fat, about a cup and a half of frozen vege a third jar of curry that was loitering in the pantry, I had bought it on a whim a couple of weeks ago. 90 sec rice which I was only going to use half but the curry sauce was a bit hot so added it all. Sliced the snags and threw it all together, and there it was a curry for a small amount of mibey thanks to the 99 cent day. There is enough left for lunch for tomorrow.

Not a meal for every week but good for a change, now I need to work out what to do with the rest of the curry sauce.

Shorts

 I didnt think that I had made very many shorts but ciunting them on thd window there is actually nine pairs.

Two pieces of fabric were thicker and I thought that they were more suited to jumpers.

I do have some pale blue in a lighter weight which would be good for shorts so will be continuing to make shorts. I will be putting some pockets on the outside, one because I like pockets and two just to make them different from each other.

I have another jumper in the striped fabric that half finished, hope to get it completed tomorrow.

Finishing WIPs

 When we came back from the cruise, I set myself the task of finishing projects.

Discussing with members of crochet group, I discovered that I am not the only one who is planning the next project before the currant one is finished. I have been known to start said new project and leaving one uncompleted. Hence my new challenge.

I took a new project on the cruise, a handbag compkete with all cotton yarn and handles. I made all thirteen squares with a couple of days to go. With the left overs six different colours and the main colour had two balls, I started a baby blanket. It got put on the back burner. Yay, got the baby blanket finished earlier this week. I had to add other colours from my stash. 

This was the photo when I was working on the squares on the boat.

Squares had to be crochetted together, no instructions on that but luckily a friend at crochet showed me how to place them. I lined it and then tonight I attached the handles.

I dont like the colours that much, I will make another but a little bigger with brighter colours. 

Must have been on a roll tonight as I also finished a crochetted dress. I saw a pucturs on face book, someone was asking how big for a two year old and added a photo of a dress that they wanted to make. 

I took note of chest measurement for a 2/3 year old and made my own. Had to sew in some ends.

This is my version. Next time I would make the skirt, a little less full.

Pjs or unisex track suits

 I had some lepard print stretch fabric picked up in an op shop. There was quite a bit of it.

This is what I did with it. I used some contrast fabric to make them different. The green was a bit boring so it has a stripe down each sleeve, just stitched on top.

Yay, two pieces out of my stash.

I did have to go and buy cottons and elastic, havent bought either in years. I have been emptying cotton reels like they are going out of fashion, probably two or three in a weeks.

My floor is the tidiest it has been in weeks but my tub with scraps is getting bigger, will have to do a couple of quilts soon to knock it down. I also have a tub of wool plus the red bag is wool.

Shorts with pockets will be the go this week, have already made a Halloween pair. Fabric is black with orange pumpkins and ghosts on it.

Eight for the week

 

Two dresses are from the same fabric. I added some constrast strips to a couple of them. I love the fabruc with the kiwi fruit but my favourite is the blue on ths right. Its hard to see in the photo but its stripes of light blue going into darker blue.

Next lot if fabric is stretch so I will be making unisex pjs.

My weeks sewing

 I was getting bored with making scrappy quilts but still have lots of fabric.

I bought a dress pattern for 50cents in an op shop for a little girls dress, 1 to 2 years. I trusted that it was all there.

The two on the left are the pattern and I have another half done.

The rest are the pillow slip dresses, two pink ones are for an older child.

The two dresses and half finished one plus the two top right and two vaby tops from last week I have made from one double doona cover that I picked up in an op shop for $4. 

I will see how many I can make this week.

Projects on the cruise

 I couldnt take the blanket that I was working on so I took a couple of smaller things to do. A friend from crochet class is working on poppies for ANZAC Day, she is hoping to make 1000 and gave those who wanted, the pattern. I bought a ball of red cotton and one ball of wool, although techinally its yarn if it is not 100% wool. 

I had some bits and bobs of black so I was set. I did use all the red that I took, naking fourteen poppies in all.

I have already passed those on to her but the above are some I have made since. An easy pattern which I timed yesterday, one poppy took one quarter of football and the break so provably about 40 minutes.

The second project which I finished on the last day of the cruise was a handbag in patchwork crochet.

Six different colours, each round a different colour. There were four variates of them as well. So that I didnt get mixed up, I lined the colours up on my bedside cupboard and worked that way until I had completed that colourway then changed them according to the pattern. I needed help on how to put it together, the instructions didnt go that far, luckily two from crochet had already made this pattern and were able to help. I have lined it but still need the finishing touches. I dont like the colour so it will be used as a donation filled with toiletries to go to a shelter. November is Share the Dignity month. Last year I did five bags, it will not go to waste.

Hanging on the lampshade is my pass that we need to wear at all times.

VANUATU

 Our last port of call before home. We have been there before, had done the glass bottom boat trip twice, this time we ooted for A taste of Vanuatu, thinking they would druve us around to see differeht places on the island.

Not so, jyst meant that we didnt really study the burg in great depth, is at all.

Our taste tour was just that. After a drive through town and then countryside, past a nice looking golf course which had holes on each side of the road, we turned into a plantation. It was a coffee place.

Waiting for the bus, it was raining, we were able to get seats under cover.

A tour of the coffee being prepared. Beans are grown on ths island, before covid, they used to be fliwn to Melbourne to be roasted, now they do them here in what used to be a church. Three difference types, roasted to different degrees for different times. We were invited to smell each one and it was possible to detect changes between them.

Coffee shop was next door and we could chose what type of coffee we wanted to taste. I didnt buy any but will see if I can buy it here.

Suitably topped up with caffine, it was back on the bus for another twenty minute drive to a chocolate factory.

Coco beans. Four islands grow the beans for the chocolate. We were gicen a taste of each one then we moved onto the flavoured ones. Coffee, ginger, coconut and sea salt. The plain chocolate was nothing but the beans and sugar. My favourits was the sea salt one. We did buy some bars from there.

Rum tasting, all six types! This place was just up the road.

Barrels of rum.

The factory, all gleaming copper tubes

We sat in the small bars and sux glasses were set up  in front of us and iced water, I assume tk drink between each taste. They were proper rum glasses and filked about half, no one but me tried the first one on our table. I took a tiny sip, oh my it was strong. Warren had a sip of mine. We both like rum but I coukdnt have drunk any more, it was really strong. A full glass of coke would have been good to mix with it.

Several on our tour bought bottles, dont know the price but assume it was cheaper than at home. Tour was for three hours, 8.45am start back by 12. It was closer to two by the time we got back on board.  Nice trip. Didnt realise that they had such industries on the island.