What a great surprise.

G'day.I must start this blog by saying a huge "Thank you" to a very talented lady called Amanda from, kraftypanda.blogspot.com.au
  I was the very lucky winner of her give away recently and my fabulous package arrived in the mail yesterday. Aren't I the lucky one? The gorgeous set of owl pins are just divine as is the button brooch and the lovely earrings. They all came in the very useful little bag. I wore the earrings and brooch when I went out for lunch today with a girlfriend and she was very impressed to say the least.The fabric will be put to good use and the little pink notepad is now in my handbag.  Thank you once again Amanda.


I have been having computer problems once again over the last few days. Some time ago I installed Google Chrome on the computer, but never used it, just kept with the original Google homepage. On Friday of last week, hubby bless his heart, hit the Google Chrome button and when asked did he want it as his homepage, he clicked "yes please". Well,just that simple click created all sorts of problems? My email went west, my favourites that I had stored up over some time, were nowhere to be found, my photo access button, just disappeared and now the computer turns itself off whenever it jolly well feels like it. I have the email back now after much hair pulling, not to mention cussing and cursing, the camera disk had to be reloaded to be able to put photos on the hard drive , the favourites I discovered again by mistake, thank goodness. The sudden turn off is yet to be resolved. This is the third time I have tried to finish this blog. I am at my wits end. Hubby will never touch another thing on this piece of modern technology that I have in front of me. It and hubby should consider themselves both lucky that I haven't booted both of them to kingdom come. Even when I press the preview button to look over this blog, the writing doesn't seem as it should be. I do hope you can read it ok !! I had better finish now as I just know that it is getting ready to be nasty again and close itself down. Take care. Liz...

Happy Mothers Day

G'day. It's a wet and cold Mothers Day here in my lovely corner of Australia.But, I have not been deterred and have been busy. Many years ago my gorgeous son gave me this lovely old cupboard.He was at an auction and saw this beauty and thought that I would like it.

It has always lived in my sewing room, but due to wanting a bit more space in said room and a desire to have another cupboard in the laundry so that I can store my towels etc, as the linen cupboard here is rather small, I hit upon the idea of changing a few things around, which if anyone remembers my last blog, I was sitting in the middle of a huge mess because of all the sewing paraphernalia that I had crammed in this old girl and of course all of that had to find somewhere to go.

I never had a desire to paint this piece of furniture, as I liked the natural look of the wood, but, in saying that, with a move to the laundry, the idea of whitewashing it sprang into my mind and that's exactly what I have been doing today. But as usual, it is never just as easy as that. First I had to sand back some bits of varnish that some other owner had put on it and there were some really rough bits that needed attention and all of this was yesterdays job and believe me what a job it turned out to be. It took hours and after depleting most of hubby's sandpaper and not to mention a sore arm, I had the first stage completed.

So today it was on with the whitewash. Not a hard job by any means, despite what the guy at the hardware store told me when I bought the tin yesterday. It is now all finished and in it's place. I am rather pleased with my effort.It has made a huge difference to the old girl. Hubby of course doesn't like the dolls on top of it, but that is where they have always lived and that is where they will remain. As I pointed out to my dearest, he very rarely ventures into the laundry at the best of times, but I did say to him that he is more than welcome to get better aquainted with what happens in there if he has a desire to and then I will reconsider the placement of the dollies.Needless to say, he just gave me "that look" and walked off.!!!

Happy Mothers day. Take care. Liz...

Sitting in the middle of a mess

G'day. It's my day off work and yet I have created so much work here for myself today that I know I would have been better off if I was at my paid employment. I got the brainwave !!! to do something about my sewing room. Actually this enlightening moment hit me a week or so ago, but I pretended not to notice it, but as some things do, it kept niggling at me.

I really had no intention of following through on this brainwave, but for some strange reason I found myself in the sewing room standing there like an idiot and thought "Right, lets get started" before I could stop myself. I was given a large old meat safe some years ago as a present and it has housed a lot of my sewing stuff, but I have now moved it (all by myself I might add) into the laundry where it will store my towels, this will free up my smallish linen cupboard. So, everything that was in the meat safe and believe me, you can cram a lot into a large space, is now sitting on the floor at my feet. In need of a distraction I decided to  write this blog. The photos shown have nothing to do with the mess I have created, but I thought this was as good a time as any to show them. The first one is what we see when sitting in our dining room. This is another area I dug out some time ago and it is now looking lovely.

One of my favourite bushes is this Salvia Hot Lips with it's bi colour red and white flowers. It look fabulous when in flower.

Another firm favourite are the Gaura bushes like this one. I have three of them in this area and they never fail to delight. This lot is called Perky Pink. When the wind blows and ruffles them, they look like lovely pink butterflies moving in the breeze on their long stalks. Just gorgeous.

Oh well, I can't put it off any longer, the mess will not just magically sort itself out and I had better get back to it. Take care. Liz...

The rock gardens continue.

G'day. Well, I am on a roll. After yesterdays effort and finishing one rock garden, I decided today was as good a day as any to do another one.Thanks to everyone who commented on my previous rock garden post.

Thankfully this one was much smaller, but still required effort. If you look on the right hand corner, you will see that I have also started another, but have run out of rock. This one will have to wait for another time.In the one completed, I have two beautiful roses called Mothers Love. These were given to me by my two beautiful children on the occasion of my 60th birthday back in March. They are a little hard to see in the photo, but they are there, as well as a couple of small dahlia plants. Around the outside of this are Diosma bushes. These bushes were originally planted some time ago and are taking their own sweet time in growing. The large pot will have a rose put in it at some stage, to match the one opposit that is out of the picture. Slowly our garden is coming together.

My other exciting news is that I am going to Paris again. The date set is January next year.  My son and I have been talking about going back. We were there in June/ July 2010 and just loved it. So instead of talking about going, we decided to do something about it and have now booked and paid for our plane tickets. We are both brave (or silly) souls, so we thought we would try their winter. I have spoken to various friends / workmates who have been at that time of year and some have said we are mad, others have been a bit more lighthearted and have advised us to pack very warmly and have parted with comments like, it's bitterly cold, but beautiful. I take heart from the last one. This time, I won't have the double chin that you can see in the photo. It is now, if not quite gone, remarkably smaller, as am I. Son and I are very excited. Hubby will be having some "man" time on his own, though he does have our little dog to keep him company. I couldn't talk him into going. All he says is, been there, done that !!! All I have to do now is save, save, save. Take care. Liz...

Another garden bed.

G'day. I dug this garden bed out some time ago now and a few days after doing it, we had the mother of all storms and it all washed away. I was not impressed.

This bed was all my own doing and the digging was hard work, not to mention that it took a few hours of solid toil.

But, not to be outdone, I dug it all out again. The black stuff you can see is weed mat. Then I decided that sugar cane mulch on top of that would look good, so we bought many bags of it. Trouble was that those blasted blackbirds that we have here(I call them wrecker birds) kept

digging and scratching the mulch up and it ended up everywhere and I was forever raking it back onto the bed.

I decided to have a talk to the gardener at work and she advised me to get rid of the mulch and lay rock down, which is exactly what I have done. I told hubby of my plan and that we would need to get a truck load of rocks in, but bless his heart, he told me that he can get as much rock as I wanted for free, providing that he load it all himself. Now, poor hubby takes the trailer and loads all the rock on with a shovel or for the bigger pieces, just his bare hands. This is seriously hard yakka. So far there have been about four trailer loads and the job is still not over. This garden bed was finished after this photo was taken, but, there are other garden beds that now need the rock treatment, much to hubby's dismay.  To be fair, I should tell you that when the full trailer load is home, I, my dear readers, do my bit of hard yakka also and barrow the rock to it's designated area and unload it myself. Sometimes if hubby is home, he will fill the barrow and wheel it to me for me to disperse of it's contents. Slowly we are getting the garden beds done. I was not sure how all the rock gardens would look, but must say that I am really pleased now and even hubby commented today on how good it looks.

This bed has Native Iris, which has purple and white flowers.Buddleja (butterfly bush) this has beautiful purple flowers that hang in clusters.Salvia "Hot Lips",this glorious bush is one of my favourites, it's flowers are two toned, red and white, plus there are a few other little bushes. When they all grow, it should look very nice and will really brighten up this area. To try to green the lawn up and cover the bare patches, I have thrown copious amounts of grass seed around and I have learned that it pays not to throw it willy nilly, as it gets into areas where I don't want it and I now have lovely little green grass shoots popping up in other nearby garden areas. A lesson was learned there. Take care. Liz...

Isn't she lovely ?

G'day. Over Easter while hubby and I were in South Australia at a car club get together, we had the chance to visit a farmers market that was being held in a nearby town to where we were staying and in the local hall there was a "display" from a nearby wildlife centre. This beautiful kangaroo was part of their menagerie that they had bought with them. I don't think that I asked the name of this lovely lass, which was very remiss of me.

They had been looking after this animal for quite some time and I was told that she will never be released back into the wild as she wouldn't be able to fend for herself now. She has been hand reared from when she was a young joey. Her mother had been killed after being hit by a car and luckily for this little one, she had been found in her mothers pouch. She is what is known as a Red Kangaroo, despite her being gray in color. Female Red's are typically a grey/blue color and can weigh anywhere up to 40kg when full grown.

Many years ago I had some friends that had saved a young Kangaroo after it's mothers had died and that one was a Eastern Grey and he was a big boy. He would balance himself on his massive tail and his height was impressive. Hubby was away working at the time and I was invited to their home for tea one night and the kangaroo was allowed the run of the house and the land they were on, needless to say I was madly in love with him as he was very tame and well mannered, but I was also aware that he was a massive animal and those claws are very sharp and that huge tail can give a mighty thump to you when he was just hopping around. Sadly, after having him for a lot of years, they had to give him to a wildlife park because of a forced house move and they wouldn't have the land he needed to wander around on. I know it broke their hearts to part with him. They are an amazing and beautiful animal. Take care. Liz...

I'm sure there is a spot in the garden for him!!

G'day. We passed this statue of a giant Koala on our recent travels to South Australia over the Easter break.

 Silly me can't remember the name of the town where he lives, but he is a beauty. What a shame he wouldn't fit in the car and I guess his owners may have objected as well. I took this shot as we were zooming past at high speed and it didn't turn out too bad.

This is the beautiful old car we took with us. It's a 1954 MK1 Zephyr convertible. Hubby of course is being mischievous as I took this picture and was sticking his tongue out. I told him the wind will change and he will stay like that, but it didn't faze him. We had a great time on our short but exciting holiday. I was good and didn't eat too many Easter eggs, but an all you can eat breakfast one morning at a local hotel didn't do me any favours. Of course, no one twisted my arm and made me eat, but the smell of freshly cooked bacon was just too much to ignore. In saying that my weight loss is still going well and I firmly believe that you have to enjoy yourself every now and then and believe me, that's just what I did. Take care. Liz...