not just cake

but shortbread too.  And a nice cup of Wedgwood tea.

Thank you Mum and Bron.

Mother knows best

For a while the kitchen looked the Christmassyest part of the house.
I had intended to clean, polish and hang the star candleholders...
The beautiful cloth is an Elizabeth David inspired teatowel that came with my Folio Society Diary.  Beneath it lies the bread Steve made last night - a big treat when you're no-carbs.  I suggested to Steve that we have tomatoes on toast for lunch but we nobly decided to stick with the ham and turkey.

We've been doing a sort of gift-tease - opening a present every cuppla hours.  Imagine my delight when I discovered this Bayliss Muscat Gourmet Cake from Mum.  Mum has never really got the idea of a carb-free diet, thank goodness.  You wait till you see the treat I've promised myself for tomorrow.

The white lantern is the prototype for the hundreds I was going to make to festoon the tree outside our house for the street party last night...  You can also see I managed to crochet one more Christmas Tree.  When I saw the wool I thought it would make a delightful forest of trees in the colours of the Northern Lights.  I'm more of an ideas person.

My poorly straightened and cropped photo does not do justice to the calendar Tamasin made.  The photos are beautiful, capturing exquisite decorative and design details.  The text is a joy to read.

M E R R Y C H R I S T M A S

so far...

Steve is enjoying his ukelele and caramel wafer from Normanville.
Thank you for sending cards and presents.
Sorry I've been too slack this year to reciprocate.

A Childish Christmas in Wools

Thank you Georgia http://earthgypsies.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/oh-christmas-tree.html


Perfect, I thought, for using up all those bubbly corks that The Body Shop no longer recycles.
I had no green wool so decided on a blue fir.

Not quite as I had envisaged.  Like someone in an oversize beanie.
Maybe reverse the cork?

hmmm a baobaob

ok on an ordinary cork, of which I have 1.

Steve suggested making a red(ish) Father Christmas hat.
Then I made a slightly wider one for a bubbly cork.

Getting there.
But talking of spiffy hats, did you see these on the The Women's Room blog?

What a fabulous idea!
And a warning - this is the first Christmasy thing I've done.
Don't hold your breath for cards and presents.

should've included

people.

The spontaneous 'people shots' tend to get taken on my phone - and I forget.
Here's Steve on his birthday.

Here's Mum lunching in our Lady Bay unit.

The NZ sauvignon blanc fitted perfectly, CK. Had a lengthy siesta afterwards while Mum read her book and enjoyed the view.

And this truck I spotted on CK Beagle's street on my way home to Wentworth.
It has a seemingly unlikely 'Baby On Board' sign in the back window.

Lady Bay jaunt

Last week Mum and I spent a cuppla days at The Links Resort at Lady Bay.

The view from our room looking southish.  You can see part of the rather dry golf course, the spreading housing development, a vineyard and the beautiful hills that always remind Mum and me of Wales.

Straightahead view.

Northish view featuring the units the Gang of Four graced on their first Easter Trip.

Lady Bay proper with trademark Norfolk Pines.

Shearing shed en route to Second Valley.
The Leafy Sea Dragon is the icon for this area.

The Yule Log Willowa made and which we demolished on our lightning coffee-stop on the way home.

The Art of Being 65

 

seems mostly to involve Centrelink forms.

Two cities and Village People

I went to Melbourne a cuppla weeks ago for work.  I had some spare time and sat at South Bank in the sunshine.  And I remembered I have a very nice unit in Bellerive.  And Bellerive has a lovely marina.  Smaller yachts and buildings.  How lucky I am.

I also saw this restaurant decorated with bicycles... presumably you can hire them.  Bit hard to read in this photo but  the pink bikes have Venus on them and the orange ones, Mars.

Last weekend I went to Adelaide for Mum's birthday.

I love North Terrace - it is very civil and civic as envisioned by Colonel Light.
Mum and I met Helly, Tamasin and Willowa at the museum to see an art exhibition (there really is no escaping them).  David's work 'Flat-screen Icon' is a Finalist in the Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize 2013 and will be going to Canberra.  It is a very beautiful exhibition and included a fish sculpted out of salt taken from the Murray River.

Then we had a picnic at Mum's

 with soulful renditions of Village People songs including Go West.
A very happy birthday.

Meanwhile back in Wentworth

I've just updated Blogblodwyn.  You can see why I need respite...

Not only that, but they're noisy too:

On Friday they had beer as the Soup of the Day.

River Song

Just to explain my absence...  Too much has been happening at Wentworth-on Darling.
One weekend there was the Junction Rally.  We didn't visit the action but did enjoy the little steamships  tooting, yipping and bellowing along the river.
Then it was the annual Sweatbox and Agricultural Art Exhibition.
These hands are made from sweatboxes (like the boxes the lamp in the corner is standing on).  They are an amazing piece of work and you were allowed to play with them - pull them apart, let them go, tumultuous applause.

A cruder but endearing use of sweatboxes.

I voted this lamp as my favourite in The People's Choice.  When I first saw it, the bulb was invisible and the light source very intriguing.  While I gazed, mesmerised, the maker nipped up the shop and bought another globe because he thought it looked better.  I disagree.  I was tempted to buy the lamp and, if we really did own King Arthur's Coffee Table (reference to a comment on Steve's blog!), I would.

I came across this intriguing patch of grass the weekend of the Junction Rally.  I didn't capture it very well on my phone, but it looked to me like a boat had been resting there.  When I downloaded the photo, it reminded me of The Devil's Footprints at St Davids Cathedral.  Naturally, I am amused.

Here's something new at the Post Office.
Wednesday I went to a Writers Workshop.
Last night Steve and I took in a show at the Mildura Arts Centre - Happy As Larry.  Wonderful modern dance incorporating baskeball, roller blades, climbing up walls.  Could see Kit and Ella right there.

too damned quiet

I've had a complaint that my blog has gone too quiet.  Which is good.  It's nice to know you're listening.  I've also been thinking that life is a bit too comfy and quiet and, interestingly, Jane Brocket seems to have had similar thoughts recently.  For me these thoughts were brought on the weekend before last as I watched families picnic on the river bank and children from houseboats play wildly.  The above days from the early 80s came to mind...  It was a very Bellerive weekend.  John and Gaye, our former nextdoor neighhbours, called in to see us.  Talking with them made Bellerive seem so close.  It was a weekend for thinking of other times and places:  Tamasin's birthday, Bronny returning from overseas and visiting Corinne and Heather in Adelaide, Georgia and family in Vermont.
Last weekend I drove to Broken Hill to see Steve's newly opened exhibition Silver City Highway.  I started to feel ill about 30kms out of Broken Hill, which is why I look a bit glum in this photo.

And I've been off work yesterday and today.  It was worth the drive, though.  Lovely to see the work in a dedicated space.  The whole Regional Art Gallery was stunning.
ps further to the Order out of Chaos post below:  the other day as I drove past, people were bent over the pumpkins like a huge game of tunnel ball.