Making Rattatoui

Never sure if I have the spelling correct, this is the start of my version, I forgot to take an after photo. We have lots of zuccini at the moment and egg plant and red peppers are cheap, along with tomatoes and onions and garlic, so all into a pan with olive oil and parsley and stewed for about half an hour or so. I then freeze it as it makes such a yummy addition to winter casseroles. I will make another lot tomorrow and possibly more as the week goes on. I just need to get more oil and containers which I forgot to get this morning while I was shopping. I suppose you could call it a vegetable stew. I am making some small concertina books at the moment, fun to do but a bit time consuming. Off to paint some more paper.

Walking yesterday and today

We walked around by Kent Reserve yesterday,(the first two photos, I love the Bluff when she is reflected in the water like this) it was early and it was very hot by the time we got back to the car with the sun reflected off the sea. John had an eye appointment so it was a bit like a route march but this morning we were also early, but the cool change had come in and it was very pleasant, again early as this time he had a fasting blood test. I got my shoes wet as it seemed easier to walk across here where the Hindmarsh River had broken its banks, a bit of a surprise at this time of the year but the tides have been high and a lot of sand has been moved around. We had a more leisurely but much longer walk this morning which was nice, mail and papers to get and home before 10 am It is lovely to be cool, after yesterday and it is going to heat up again in the next few days. So a lot of watering to do while we can and things in the house to tidy, washing to do, but its a bit of a sleepy feeling day after all that heat!

My week in stitch

Now what did I do? Monday we did housework and seemed to as usual go around in circles. Tuesday i went up to Noarlunga and went to spotlight and bought threads and the shoe shed and bought some new shoes. I think they will be ok, flat leather with a zip at the front and holes in the leather. I will get dirty feet from the holes and they are navy which means they will look huge on my big feet! Wednesday I started making a few more spirit dolls to try and sell at the Easter Market we go to. Thursday Millie came for the day and we played tea parties with the bears and I made her a doll, as well as making play dough. Friday we went to lunch in Victor at friends to see the end of stage 4 of the Tour Down Under cycle race, the race itself was fine and as in all races over in a flash, but they had a community event for cyclists, over 9000 of them, who clogged the roads, the streets, detours etc etc, going in and home was a nightmare.I think it brings a lot of money into the town, even if they only buy a drink each, but for those driving on the roads it is terrifying. Saturday we finally had a lovely walk on the cliff tops and down to the beach near Petrels Cove, cool and breezy. Sunday was warming u and we went in for the Australia Day celebrations, then came home and worked around the house. It is warming up, at least 4 over 40 degree days forcast for Adelaide this week, and John has gone fishing and the wind has got up, so I hope everything will be ok here. I am the only one home today. Already there is a fire several k's away. I dont like these summers, and yet last night I was cold in bed, and no air conditioner on, we had a lovely cool night, now its not so lovely.

Australia Day

A warm and lovely morning. We were up early to go into Victor Harbor to attend the Australia Day Celebrations. I forgot my camera! so these are from Johns smart phone. We have a wonderful town band and we have a very talented new young drummer, I was told he was about eleven, he had a wonderful time and was very good. too many people to get the whole band in the photo, its amazing how just as you get a decent photo set up some one walks in front. Our band is used at a lot of local functions. The other photo is of the local Australia Day recipients, a very nice young man who volunteers and mentors a lot, we should have more like him, named Mat Morley who was the young citizen and an ex High school principal and volunteer extrodinaire, who was the Citizen of the Year Peter Francis, with our local State MP Michael Pengilly, our Mayor, Graham Philp and our local Federal MP Jamie Briggs. Nine new citizens were sworn in and a good crowd of people. It did get rather hot but they managed to finish the whole thing in an hour. we were going to walk but had got a bit hot and bothered and felt we wwere a bit dressed up so came home to a cool, for the moment house, it is warming up again this week. Tonight I will bake a small lamb roast as it is traditional to have lamb on Australia Day, not a bbq lunch for us as we will take things a bit quietly today. John was an Australia Day award winner a few years ago so we make a point of always attending.

Still having picasa/blogger problems

I have no idea if these photos have come up correctly. I have tried various ways of editing in other areas but end up with the unedited ones being all I can upload. I do hope they fix this problem soon. Every time blogger upgrades it makes a mess of it for some users.I like it simple, I dont want all these other bits and pieces, perhaps we should have 'old bloggers' who know how their system worked and new, young bloggers who seem to want different stuff. I am seriously thinking of moving my blog if they dont fix things soon. Unfortunately I am ranting to other bloggers and not the powers who fix these things!!! I havent managed to get onto my computer for a day or so as on Thursday I baby sat Millie all day, early morning to latish evening. We had a lovely but very tiring day. the first photo is of her making things with play dough (which I had to make!) then a doll she insisted I make out of some of the sticks from the ice creams we ate. Had to have legs that moved, so a lot of making holes and making a wire that would go through, etc etc, then glueing the head (already made) on and hair and finally a very simple dress. I thought she was quite cute. Yesterday was rather chaotic and I do have some photos but couldnt load them, it was Victor Harbors turn for the Tour Down Under stage 4 finish. It was also the day that about 9,000 amateur bike riders converged as well, and we were invited to lunch and watch the finish of the Tour, to be in by 12.30, took us what is normally 10 mins to get in to over half an hour, riders all over the road into the town and then detours etc and traffic at a standstill. When we finally got there it was such fun, but a long and tiring day for some one who had had a knee problem and very little sleep through the night. This morning we had a long and slow walk along the cliffs, just one small photo of what it was like, a bit cool and windy but finally after no walk all week a good one. Thank you to all those who have contacted me with names and addresses for both the Rak and the give away, I am still working on what I will send but never fear they will eventually get to you. I just need a couple of clear days which I hope will be next week but it looks as if the heat is going to arrive again, we hope things down here will not be as hot as Adelaide but sometimes it is worse! So lots of watering being done today so the garden wont suffer too much.

My 8 year blog anniversary

Hard to believe that I started this blog on the 21st January 2006.I nearly forgot but something reminded me to have a look. Wow 8 years ago, I was much younger and fitter then! Here is my Max, I had Jake when I started and now I have my lovely Max. I wouldnt be without a dog and so far my rescue ones have been very good and lived a long and happy life with me. I have done a lot over those 8 years, I dont think I have got much better at my sketching or my other art or textile endevours but I have had fun. I Only have one person signed up for my Rak (random act of kindness) on a post I put up a few days ago, any more takers as an anniversary give away? Something small and the first 5 to comment will get something. Please join in.

My week in stitch

A very hot week, not a lot got done as we were cowering under the air conditioner and watching for fires. I tried out a new thing, covering string with fabric, the garden wilted, a very bad fire day with a lot of lightning strikes and fires started. Finally a cool change and we walked and I collected the odd shell. Max and I walked, we had branches off large trees and all the sprinklers were on. A bit of a scrappy week, I felt tired all the time and now it is cooler, I think I almost feel even tireder. I may have to enlarge this as I cant get down a lot of the things I want to put on it, but then frustration with google isnt easy to embroider. I am now getting a different error message when I try to load from picasa, they fixed one, now I have another, so annoying.

Still problems loading photos

this of our Section B stallion and a couple of his mares. Not as I would have liked it as I am still having problems loading from picasa into my blog, so I am having to do it through my pictures and this is not edited as it is so long since I did anything like that this way. I do hope it gets sorted out soon. today it has been very cool and mild, lovely weather to be outside except that the flies are absolutely appalling, I walked Max around the ponies this morning and came back absolutely covered in the wretched things. I have been playing at printing with my Gelli plate today and making faces from polymer clay, a few things on the move, I have been home alone as John has gone fishing, he tells me they didnt catch anything, they went down the Coorong as it was too windy in the Gulf, I was looking forward to fish! dont forget my play it forward RAK on my last post, I would hate to think no one was interested. Oscar is carrying on at me and as there will be no fish to feed him I had better find him something else.

Random acts of kindness (rak)

We have at last come to the end of our very lobng very hot weather, towards the end of 5 days I wasnt sure if I was going to manage it. Jo Murray has put up on her blog that she was going to do this and I was one of the first to reply. Here is how it works, the first 5 people to comment on this post will at some time through the year receive some small art work, fabric or paint, from me and to do this I will need your snail mail address. What you then do is Pay it Forward and in turn agree to do the same for another 5 people. It cant be too hard to get 5 people who are happy to receive something unexpected through the year and then repay it to another 5 people. So lets play. I am once again having problems loading photos to my blog. I didnt do a huge amount through these days of over 40 degree C heat, but I did have a play with a few things I dont normally do and this tiny weaving, not very well done, was one of them. I havent done a lot of weaving and I didnt finish this off at all well, I made a small frame from a coat hanger, perhaps a larger frame would help any way this was my small weaving of layers, I thought layers of soil or some such, any way it kept me under the aircon for a few hours. I would get up early and do what work had to be done around the house and then shut up all the unnecesary bits of the house and try to cool down. After thunderstorms last night it cooled and now all I want to do is sleep. There were bad fires all around the State and in Victoria but luckily we seemed to have missed out, lots of houses burnt and some will burn for weeks, mostly here set by lightening strikes. The garden has suffered badly, and with the windstorm that arrived with the change there are trees and branches down. I really dont like our summers.

Last weeks stitching

 Monday night a BBQ for 14, not all the family but all I could fit in, I hadnt realised how tiring I find doing things like this now, thank goodness for some help from a granddaughter and my daughter in law.
Tuesday a doctors visit and I am on new medication, has nasty side affects so I hope I am not one to get them. John had a spot off his back.
The house is  full of family and the dog, I dont have dogs inside normally so there has been a huge stand off between him and the cat, who mostly walked around twice his size. I am not used to tall teen agers either, my house with two in it seems large, with an extra 4 bodies it was cramped..
Wednesday hair cuts in Adelaide, an up and back trip.
Thursday the Melbourne family left for home, I washed.
Friday we walked it was hot but I came home and did some ironing, actually I ironed for most of the week.
Saturday was another walk and a visit to the big Rotary art Show in town, lovely paintings but nothing for me.
The weather is heating up.
Sunday we had a show about 1 1/2 hours away we took 7 ponies and in 2 rings came home with 10 champions and 4 supremes, well done girls. I left early as I felt very tired and the car broke down!! I managed with the help of the automobile assoc to get home and it is now in being fixed, I hope,
I decided to go blue for the first week of summer and a bit beyond.
We are expecting over 40 deg C all week, it maybe a bit cooler down here, but not much. At least last night was coolish but it has heated up fast this morning. I do not like the heat.
After all the trouble with posting from picasa to blogger at least that is now fixed, or I think it is, so thank goodness for that.

sample book

 Hooray!! With any luck I am back using picasa to load my photos to my blog.
So far so good.
Double click this collage to increase the picture size.
a few months ago Noela Mills of Wabisabiart blog posted about a class she had tought using all those fabric samples and creating a book. I loved one of them using a piece of driftwood and beads to hold it all together, so after months of collecting and stitching here is my book. I think the base is old linen teatowels, and on I stitched and placed a heap of things.
The cover was a piece I made in Dorothy Caldwells class a couple of years ago, there are bits of various classes I have taken with Dale Rolleson, a beetle made in Mary Hepmanspergers class and some sitched stuff just because.
I am so pleased with the result so thank you Noela for such a wonderful idea.
Terribly hot here nearly 40 C and this is the first day of our 5 day heatwave, I think 43 is about 109 F unbelievable. I just hope for no fires and that the power doesnt go off.

See if this works

I think, hope, that by going from a different picture site this may come up. This is the week before this one in stitch, walks, New Years eve, parties, family from Melbourne, so long ago I have forgotten. Any way in case it doesnt publish properly I am making this post brief. I still cant post photos from picasa which is my favorite way to post them. It is taking a while for google to fix it.

Trouble in blogland

At this stage I am unable to load any photos into my blog. Frustration is setting in. It is also getting hotter so one tends to go to ground rather. Family have left to return to Melbourne and I have washed and washed. I will go back to trying to work out what has gone wrong, could be a long business.

Around the garden

I am having trouble finding a time to write my blog, family now in residence, large teenagers! The slow internet and the fact that so far we havent had much of a warm summer, a lot of rain, so much I think we may have to hack our way out of the garden!. Its blowing a gale today and cool and it is all a bit unlike summer, although having said that we are told we had the hottest year on record last year, well it wasnt down here, and we had our above average for rain, so I am not sure how they calculate that, I think it depends on where you live.
Making money for some one I feel on all this climate change stuff, off course the climate is changing but you have to look at at least 100 years of data which they dont, we are an official rainfall station and we have over 100 years of rainfall data, and yes there are trends, both up and down, all I can say is, we have hot years, and we have cool years here, we have plenty of rain and we have droughts, it all goes in cycles and no year is the same as the last.
So in my little corner of the world that is what we base our findings on. Sometimes I think farmers know more than any scientist.
As you can see my garden is lush this year and we have plenty of rain so far to keep it so.
Think we might have a scorcher of a February and March though!
Off to wash more dishes and do more clothes washing. I am not used to a full house any more.

Photos to go with post on 1st Jan 2014

The second day of 2014

Oh dear, I may not have published yesterdays blog and I forgot until I had this one up.So my sequence will be out.
It is school holidays and we are a summer tourist town, so the internet is very very slow and makes us all impatient, I left it yesterday and John turned off the computer before I got back to ti..
I did my daily dairy cover yesterday, amongst all the other things.
Here is my 2013 diary, stuffed full of cuttings and added pages on the left. On the right is the same diary, all new and pristine looking. I used up some rather soft Indian fabric a friend brught back a few years ago and found one of my finished but nothing more done to it little stitcheries which now adorns the front cover, quite appropriate I thought as it had a lot of sari fabric in it.
I am not sure how well it will wear but that is all the fun of using a daily diary, as opposed to an art one.
It rained most of the night and is quite cool, still dripping on and off, all the rain water tanks are full which is good as the family arrives tomorrow from Melbourne. I have spent the mnorning making beds and tidying up.
All yesterdays washing is still on the line, very wet.
This afternoon I will make the last boiled fruit cake as that families present from us.
Then I need to relax, no I dont, everything that got thrown into my work room that doesnt have a bed in it needs to be tidied so I can get at stuff while they are here. I love having them but as I seem to have moved through the spare bedrooms with stuff, it does make it difficult at times.
No painting.
I do hope your year is going well.

The start of 2014

 this morning John and I went for a walk along our favorite cliff walk. Being holidays there are far more people around than we normally would see.
It was also quite warm and muggy and we have had some rain, but it is not exactly cool
Last night we had friends in and as I wasnt sure if we would be inside or out I was ready for either, this is the dining room table taken this morning with a lovely bright new sarong from Thai land on it. I like it and it will stay for a while.
We did eat outside, and I didnt take a photo! It was one of those magic evenings, and only got a bit cool around midnight.
Every one brought a course to eat but as hostess I had the main course, I had decided that after all the house cleaning I had done that something relatively simple, and as it was so warm cold chicken, ham, an impossible smoked salmon pie and a green salad, a potato salad and a watermelon salad was all that was needed. Its amazing how little was left.
dessert was a wonderful pavlova  so we ate and drank for most of the night, almost saw the New Year in, but those travelling through the town left early to beat the rush.
A wonderful night and tonight it is a few left overs for dinner.
I havent done much as everything was sorted and although the washing isnt dry, I really dont mind.
My friend P did a sterling job, cleaning silver, washing the odd window and having an adventure with a cactus, which meant pulling a lot of minute thorns out, doing the dishes etc, while John sorted out the outside.
It was a lot of work, but worth doing.
I hope 2014 is a good year, I dont make resolutions but 2013 was not a year I want to remember fondly, except for a couple of things.
Now for the Melbourne family to arrive in the next day or so, I only have to make beds, I have most of the rest of it under control...I think!
Happy New Year to all my blog readerss.