A little bit of this (fawn)…and a little bit of that (brown)
A little time with a thinking cap on
And this is what I finished this week.
Two little brown dogs looking for a new home 😊
(Another for the charity box)
Well, I never knew that….
#Wordless Wednesday – occurs all over the internet each Wednesday
When bloggers let photos speak for themselves.
See what others have to say ‘Wordlessly’ (or almost)
Wordless Wednesday hub
Giving the girls a go….
Each January for the past few years (just for the fun of it) I’ve been giving myself little reading challenges. Not an original idea I know but things like A to Z of author’s surnames or A to Z of book titles (sometimes known as the Alphabet Soup Challenge)  Among other things,  last year was about trying to finish more books from series I’d begun…..finally getting to the last of the Ann Cleeves Shetland series was one.  If you’d like to see what I’ve read over the past few years I’ve gathered all the previous ‘books read pages’ together and placed them in a seperate page which you can find up there under the header picture.
And this is last years in a different format – https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2019
This year I’ve decided it’s all about the titles!
Trying to find books with one word titles corresponding to letters of the alphabet is going to be fun – following on and extending that theme I thought The *plus* titles would also be fun.  Just by luck I found two in the ship’s library that fit the bill – Devotion (Louisa Young) and The Disappeared (M.R. Hall) both quick reads which meant that where ‘that’ challenge is concerned I’m off and running at a good rate of knots 😊
But what I’m really excited about is Giving the Girls a Go!
Reading books with a description of a female status in the title! Â There seem to be more and more of them in the library catalogue so I’m aiming for one a month…12 in all.
I read The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter ( Hazel Gaynor) last week so that’s January taken care of 😊
A tale of two women and their involvement with lighthouses about a century apart. Â Two stories with lots of twists and turns linking each to the other. Â Lots of social statements on female roles and current (at the relevant time) attitudes to ‘the way things were’ Â Good read!
The Clockmaker’s Daughter (Kate Morton) has been sitting on a shelf here at home for a few months now. It’s another of the Historical Fiction genre I enjoy, I’ve set it aside for February and as it’s a fairly thick book it might take me most of the month to finish.l
I know there are lots of books about Mothers, Sisters, Nieces, Wives and Widows out there  so there’s  bound to be one for each month of the year!
Do you plan your reading or do you just go with the ‘pick a book any book’ method?
This week….
Has been a funny old week
Hot – Cool…….Wet – Dry.
Windy with firebans….Stormy with hailstones as big as golf balls
There was time spent in garage trying to take an inventory  trying to sort out the mountain of knitting wool I have in boxes out there. 
I’m torn between using all the odd half balls to make something striped or use them as a second colour along side some full balls. Â Trouble is you have to almost look at the whole lot at the same time – have the ‘stuff’ in front of you so the ideas can form.
So, indoors It all came …..where I was more comfortable…..and I actually came up with something.  I’ll show you when it’s finished  😊
Then of course having signed up at the gym 
I needed to work out the best time to go and an action plan of what to do when I was there. Â I teamed up again with a lovely trainer (Shona) who’ll be a great help where the back is concerned. Â But then there’s all this extra weight to be considered – losing that will be a step in the right direction.
Walking is gentle exercise they say – do it on the treadmill as a warm up…..trouble is it’s when I’m walking that my ‘disability’ makes itself known so it’s the bike….trouble is my spine feels compressed perched on a seat like that…. so it’s on to that lovely invention The Recumbent Bicycle.  Exercising in a relaxed seated position felt quite strange to begin with but alls good now 😎
More time spent looking for dead people ancestors
brought more discoveries. Â My father’s paternal line arrived in Ireland in the 1700s as Palatine migrants seeking a ‘more peaceful life’. Â Then over the years so many of those settlers moved on, escaping the hardships of life in their adopted country , to other newer countries who were also opening their doors to people seeking a better life.
I had a little chuckle when a ‘cousin’ sent me the cat cartoon.  I spent one afternoon clearing out a lot of pedigrees….not human pedigrees…but ones from my kitten breeding days.  I decided it was time to clear out all the related paperwork I used to supply to new owners because if I go before The Golfer neither he nor the children will want that extra burden, so it was ‘walk down memory lane’ and then toss into the recycling bin.  May have to start on all the cat/kitten photos some time 😊
That’s a little look at the fun times I had this week.
How was yours? Â Did you have fun too?
Friends……Don’t ya love ’em!
#Wordless Wednesday – occurs all over the internet each Wednesday
When bloggers let photos speak for themselves.
See what others have to say ‘Wordlessly’ (or almost)
Wordless Wednesday hub
A bold statement….
A bold statement in plain and simple colours
Last year I went with a group to visit the Islamic Museum of Australia  in Thornbury, Melbourne.  While there were loads of interesting things to see inside what did catch my eye even before we walked through the door was this mural on the wall near the entrance.
Painted for the opening in 2014, we visited in 2019 and considering the number of people who would’ve walked past, possibly running their fingers over the brush strokes, there was still a fresh clean newly painted look to it. Looking back down the slope the black grey yellow and white colourings look different, softer, not so definined.  Possibly something to do with the way the light fell on the wall 
 
https://www.janetradyfineart.com/artist/Sabah_Arbilli/biography/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Museum_of_Australia
Linking to Monday Murals – hosted by Sami at Colouful World
Sometimes I wonder…
Sometimes I wonder if I don’t quite fit into the demographics of certain establishments – am I too fussy/critical – or is my looking to try something/somewhere new not the way for me to go.
The decision had been made – It was time to return to the gym – But which gym?
A few kms from home we have a great health and fitness facility. Â It has a well ‘stocked’ gymnasium, basketball/ netball courts, various swimming pools plus a warm water pool plus other designated ‘rooms’ (group fitness, yoga, pilates, spin). Along with another similar facility and a couple of local golf courses is managed by the local council. Â I’ve been a member there on and off for quite a few years now.
Because it offers so much it has become very busy – the car park has been extended more times than I can remember- and classes have to be booked rather than the old way of just turning up and claiming your spot. Â And even though it has what I want there are times when I get fed up with being a ‘number’
So I thought I’d check out two other nearby ‘places’ Â to see what they offered.
I’d looked at their websites (well established businesses) so had a rough idea……classes, gym, membership options/fees (no pool) Â but wanted to get the feel of them before deciding.
After trying to park in the last vacant spot in a very tiny car park  I discovered no one at the desk in the first one…then a young lad wandered by…..”sorry, the person you need to speak to isn’t here.  She’ll be back tomorrow….no I don’t do membership!”  With that he wandered off again leaving me standing there……looking at some posters of some young,  very nice looking, well toned and well muscled people and wondering ( well you don’t need to know what I was wondering 😊)
OK, I’ll just drive down the road a bit to the second one.
My god what’s that noise – i thought I was going to be deafened when I opened the door.
I had a little chat with a very young girl – well she chatted to me….not answering any of my questions, just telling me what she wanted me to hear.  “I’ll print off our classes for you- we have a special program and classes for oldies like you.  Sorry you can’t look round the premises unless you are a member- no I can’t take you round- I’lll sign you up for a week’s free trial then someone will show you round.  Then you can join.  Here’s the forms, take them home and come back when you’ve decided”  With that she went off to make some special high protein drink for some young thing in the attached ‘kitchen’ (not café) we don’t serve food!”
OK, I said to myself (again) I’ll just go back down the road to my tried and true centre, where I know what’s what, how things work and where there’s a whole range of clients/users…….including oldies like me 😊
Guess what – as I stood at the reception desk waiting to be served one of the staff walked by “Hello Cathy. Â Lovely to see you – are you signing up again?”
No need to tell you what I did, is there?
If it wasn’t so awful….
I’m back from my sea view break but just to say Hello and Happy New Year.
A couple of pictures capturing our only ‘contact’ with these horrendous Victorian fires
If it wasn’t so awful I’d label them
‘Smoke gets in your eyes’ and ‘Red sky in the morning’
Limited visibility on the beach at sleepy Cowes on Philip Island last Friday – somewhere out there is a cruise ship at anchor.
Our view of the ‘fire in the sky’ as we sailed past the Bairnsdale area on Sunday……………just a couple of days ago
Bye ’til next week
Still Waters 