Month: April 2013

Whilst I’m away
Here’s a few of my favourite kind of funnies!

Q: What colour is a happy cat?
A: Purrrple.

Q: How is cat food sold?
A: So much purr can.

Q: What is a cat’s favourite dessert?
A: Mice pudding.

Q: Why did the silly boy try to feed pennies to the cat?
A: Because his mother told him to put money in the kitty.

Q: What kind of work does a weak cat do?
A: Light mouse work.

Q: Why did the Mama cat put stamps on her kittens?
A: She wanted to mail a litter.

Q: What kind of baths do cats like best?
A: Milk baths.

Q: Which game did the cat want to play with the mouse?
A: Catch.

Q: How do you mail a cat?
A: Use fur-class mail.

Q: When does the weather go splash! splash! meow! woof?
A: When it’s raining cats and dogs.

Q: Why did the cat like to go bowling?
A: He was an alley cat.

Q: What do English cats drink in the afternoon?
A: Kit-tea.

Q: Why did everyone like Tom Cat?
A: He was very purrsonable.

Q: How do you call a barber cat?
A: Yell…”Hair Kitty?”

Now don’t forget to be nice to each other
and I’ll come and visit you when I get home next week
Bye for now
Cathy

Looks like summer is well and truly over
Those Lazy Hazy Days have been and gone
Autumn is here
We are still having sunny days
but it was down to 3c – 37f last night 😦

Thinking it’s time to book our cabin in Bowen
where once again
I can walk Queen’s Beach
on those Warm Winter’s Days

Collecting
Sea Glass, Sand Dollars and tiny fragments of washed up Coral

The Golfer arrived home on Monday of last week from a jaunt to Perth W.A. for a volunteer commitment – so he took me out to lunch on Tuesday.  ‘A Secret Rendezvous’ he said – just get in the car and enjoy the ride.  We ended up at the Toolangi Pub (Tavern) about an hour away.  Great lunch in nice comfortable country settings which I’ll write about another day.  I wandered out to the back deck to enjoy the view of the nearby hills and saw it on the horizon.
All photos will enlarge with a click

 

The next day Wednesday, I nipped down the road to Boronia, a suburb about 10 minutes from home – stood and admired the view of the Dandenongs from one of the car parks and saw another one. 

This is what it looked like as I drove home

 Sunday began as a bright sunny day so we went for a drive – yes, a couple of old codgers making our way down the highway enjoying ourselves in our own way.  I wanted to go to the coast but somehow the car travelled east and we ended up at Warragul – don’t ask!!  – so to overcome my annoyance (read silent rage) I snapped away at anything and everything out of the mucky windscreen.  Nice old fashioned farm windmill brings up water from a lower level – oh look what’s that on the horizon?

What makes you think the DSE is taking advantage of the much cooler weather and is burning off in a lot of the nearby state forests??  These days they tend to call them controlled or planned burns – a quite laughable term when some of our major bushfires have been the result of ‘controlled burns’ on days that just were not suitable.

How are things ‘controlled’ where you live?

My donations to KOGO for this Autumn are nearly ready to go – just need to find a box and they will be on their way.

This has been an ongoing Summer project – after the little ones (baby sizes) were finished I started on some larger sizes – Big Ted was a fun one to knit closely followed by Cream and Brown – then I needed to do some girly ones.  These are just a couple of the cardigans plus some more suitable for outdoors – this isn’t everything thats going in the box – the table would be full if showed them all lol

So now I’m off to the supermarket and see if they have any whole boxes – they tend to get flattened and tossed into the recycle skip soon as the shelves are filled.  Wish me luck!

And what would that be I hear you say!
Hold on I’ll tell you in a minute 🙂

 Something I’ve learn’t about travelling is that even with the best weather forecast in the world you never quite know if it will turn out the predicted way.
My Dad used to think that way as well
So there was one thing that always accompanied him on his travels
and that was his Pac a Mac 

Once he retired, nothing – especially a little drop of rain – was going to stop him being out and about enjoying himself (cringworthy at times Mum would say lol) He favoured the long raincoat style, it keeps me bum warm he’d laugh!

 

Anyway he taught me well – the first thing I hunt out when we are gathering things together is my Red Jacket.  The best bargain I ever got – $5 in a sale many years ago.  Windproof and showerproof, Light (weighs less than 200gms) and Loose (so I can layer beneath it) and packs up flat into that little bag. So much easier than the swish red Rainbird Stowaway one I have thats lurking in a cupboard somewhere – yes, I’ll agree it (R/bird) is more tailored and has a wicking lining but try as I might there was no way I could fit the whole coat into the pocket (as was suggested when I first got it years ago) and on the very rare time I ever managed to do just that all I ended up with was a lumpy roll lol  Now they come with an extra bag but you still end up with a bulky roll thats hard to pack!

Anyway it (my Red Jacket) has  been here, there and everywhere with me, fits nicely into my carry on bag when o/seas or comes along in the car for travel in Australia. Not always needed but reassuring to know its there.   A brollie comes too and they are great but can be lethal in the wind 😦

Heres a few of the places I’ve found it
Cruising along in the rain on its first trip to Alaska in 2006, where it visited the Mendenhall Glacier.  (Notice the layered clothing lol)  The Golfer came along as well. He had his own special jacket with him

Then it was spied in Newfoundland in 2010, firstly at the film set of Random Passage (tv series adapted from a book of the same name).  Another day it was seen walking along the boardwalk of The Tablelands in the Gros Morne National Park, later with its hood covering another warm fluffy hat it braved the cold on Western Brook Pond.   It found its way to Quidi Vidi Battery – an historic place near to St John’s – then on to contemplate the hard life of the early settlers near the cold Atlantic Ocean.  Thankfully as the wind dropped for a little while it found time for a laugh and smile with a blue jacketed friend

It’ll be tagging along with us when we’re up north in Queensland this coming Winter.  Hopefully it won’t put in an appearance then 🙂

To see the photos full size click on the first photo of each gallery,
it will open to a slide show, scroll down to ‘view full size’

I love to see all the crafty things for sale at markets especially when the market is in another country.  During our trip to New Zealand the other year we spent a day in Dunedin – a lovely old town on the South Island. 

Wandering round the market there and not really paying much attention I saw this metal cake stand and then wondered why on earth anyone would be selling cakes out in the open on such a warm day.

What I actually had spied was a stall selling soaps – not your normal run of the mill flat bars of soap but delicious looking ‘cakes’ of soap.  Beautifully presented and very enticing – more cakes of soap than I’ve ever seen before.

Not only were there ‘cup cakes’ of soap but also very large ‘slices’ of cakes – each complete with their own box so they could be carried home without breaking.  Even tho they weren’t really fragile unfortunately all of them were just a bit too bulky and heavy to take home.   

It reminded me of a Queensland blogger I’d lost touch with – Granny had a blog where she as well as her family and garden she would talk about her little cottage industry making soaps and things for the local market close to where she lived.  I’ve just recently found her new blog – called what else but grannyscottage🙂  Pop in and see what she’s been up to now, as she says she’s found her ‘Soapy Groove’ again. 

If you are interested the Dunedin company has a web site
http://www.skinindulgence.co.nz/
It’s a delicious looking site – things there almost good enough to eat!

I have never found commercial brands of soap that look anything like these
A bit like decorative candles, I’d be sad to see them disappearing
Do you buy homemade soaps at all or prefer commercial brands

Well I did think about going shopping
No not for a Jeep 
But I went for a walk instead lol

Hot hot days – Dr’s orders to rest and avoid dusty places – meant I didn’t stray far from the house for much of the summer months
But with the glorious autumnal weather we are having at the moment there has been no excuse for not getting out and enjoying it.
So, I had a little wander up the road to see how our local park had coped with those long dry hot summer days. 

 The small sporadic showers of rain we did have recently had turned some of the grass a rich green colour

Easter holidays means time off from school and kinder so there were lots of youngsters enjoying the park the way it was intended.  
There were Little Boys tearing aound on bikes!And what looked like a Little Sister trying so very hard to keep up 
but the path was uphill and her little legs plus the trainer wheels wouldn’t let her.There were several families at the playground

And it looked like the dogs were having a day out as well as well!

I’m not a fan of Big Dogs even on leads so turned around and walked over to the bridge that spans some of the ‘wetlands’
(actually built as storm/drainage protection scheme)
but functions very well as a home for wetland birds 

 And then made my way back up the hill to a favourite spot

I like to sit here and look out over the ‘wetlands’ and enjoy the ‘view’
although on this day apart from the families near the community house there wasn’t much going on at all

There ‘was’ something white thrashing about down below on the opposite bank

Look what I found when I finally made my way down
What I think is a White Heron had made its way into the water
and was just standing there 

 I purposely didn’t get too close to the children or their families
If you want a clearer view all the photos will enlarge with a click

Well things certainly are changing whether we want them to or not!

My ops are over and done with – as I mentioned a few weeks ago the first one was a breeze.  Not so lucky with the second one.  Its been very uncomfortable, painful and inflammed, when I mentioned the blurred sight the surgeon mentioned it seemed this one needed more time to heal, and suggested relaxation was the best thing as well as limiting concentration, which meant only a little reading along with no computer time – so that has been the order of the day. 

Comparing the two experiences with a friend I said it was like when our second child was born – our first born was a really quiet babe who just slept and ate and then we were hit with this noisy baby who never seemed to sleep. Well I began to think if it had been the other way round I may have been reluctant to have another child – so it was with the ‘eye experience’  Would I have gone ahead if I’d had all these difficulties with the first one?  I’ll never know.  Thankfully it is improving as the days go by.  

Its that time of the year when the clocks change and for a short time confusion reigns if you are trying to contact family and friends around the world lol  This coming Sunday the hands on our clocks here in Victoria will be moved back which means Daylight Saving Time/ Summer Time will end and we will be back to Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours in front of Greenwich Mean Time or as I discovered Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) which is also known as Zulu Time.  Now when I when I watch Jag I’ll have an idea of what they are on about when it pops up on the screen 🙂  
Other Australian states do/don’t use Daylight saving so sometimes it’s a challenge for me to remember what the time is elsewhere in Australia never mind anywhere else in the world! – have a look here for an explanation

Only problem with this change is that about the same time the UK and other northern hemisphere countries are changing their clocks to Daylight Saving Time/Summer Time which means (if you haven’t noted it from years past) we (as in me) have to recalculate the time difference so there will be no waking others up for a chat at odd (inconvenient) hours of the night – not a good thing to do 😦

After a rather disastrous season here in Aus cricket is over for the year – the professional players are all heading overseas – looking very enthusiastic but I’m sure with the team (and management) we have at the moment they are going to get slaughtered again.  So that means Footy (Aussie Rules) is back!  Lots of healthy muscular young men chasing a oval shaped leather ball up and down the pitch trying to kick it through the goal posts (of which there are four) at each end of said pitch.  Get it through the middle two and the team scores 6 points for the goal – through the outer two and its 1 point for a behind. 

If you are really interested you could look at this link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_rules_football

Thanks for all the comments on the last post – the weather is much better now.  It did go rather cool (cold even lol) and now is what I class as pleasant.  This week we have sunny days with highs in the 20s Celcius that is – about 70s F.  Nights are drawing in tho’ 🙂