Townsville

It was pretty much a spur of the moment decision in some ways, although we'd been thinking about it for a couple of months - but we finally made it back up to Townsville to see our son Jaron, DIL Renee and Grandchildren - LJ, Jacey and Jaxson! 

We went down to Melbourne the day prior so we could also catch up with Stace & John briefly and Pete got to finally meet Benjamin Bunny and see how much Buttercup had grown.  

I couldn't resist putting this close up of Benjamin in here ......

And Carly made the effort to drop everything to have a chance to catch up with us as well and bring Abbie to see us!  Carly has been part of the family since she and Stace became best friends at 14 and she has granted Abbie to be our adopted granddaughter (which is even sweeter now that our eldest son has chosen to remove himself and Mila from us - I'm no longer choosing to apologise for his poor behaviour - enough said, but a shame Mila doesn't get to know us).  Abbie is such a sweetheart and will be 1 in May.

Finally on the plane - 3 hr flight.... and excited to be heading to Townsville .....

No in flight movies on this plane!  Thank goodness I had a book to keep me occupied ...... A Dilly Court ......

Jacey and Jaxson up early before we left

It was sooooo nice to see them again since we haven't seen Jaron since he made it to Melbourne in March 2023 when Pete was having his quadruple bypass and the others we haven't seen since we left Maryborough in October 2021 a week after Stacey and John got married!  Jaxson, now 14, in particular ha grown heaps!!!  

LJ with Pete and I - he was on night shifts the whole time we were there, but he still spent time to sit and chat with us before needing to sleep xo

We were only there for a few days but we had such a lovely time with them!  We flew out from Melbourne as it was a direct flight saving 5 hrs of sitting around another airport.      Much to Lucy's horror she was left with our friends up the road - We had just had Bella here for 5 days whilst they were in Brisbane so it worked out well .... for us .......  Deb sent me this via snap chat lol

Saturday morning Nay had to work, so Jacey and I went to visit the Arcane Bookshop ..... look how

clever the set up of it is!  I very nearly purchased a book, but instead got a bookmark that not only looks good ..... it actually has a lovely feel to it if you can imagine that!

So many cool and amazing ideas that give this shop character ..... check out this photo with the butterfly's coming out from the books ......

It made me think about my little reading corner with my rocking chair ........ there is or are a few seeds I can feel fluttering around looking for something to grab hold of and turn into an idea that can be used in my space ...... the painted wall definitely helps 

Little whimsicals  everywhere

Jaron and Pete picked us up and we went to the shopping centre where Renee was working to catch up with her for lunch and do a bit of browsing/shopping ...........  And Pete bought me this lovely heart shaped Ruby Ring for our 40th Anniversary!  We decided to make Townsville our Anniversary Trip!  Pete bought some much needed shorts and singlet tops we haven't been able to get locally and I ended up in QBD coming out with a book from there and another from Big W lol

The shopping Centre  is using the focus of Womens Week to promote women who work within the centre ...... Renee is manager of City Chic in the Stocklands Centre.  Jaron did his "adoration of wifey pose" lol   We showed her all our photos which she thought was pretty cute xo

Me with my daughter in law - poster size and real life hanging out in the kitchen the next day lol

The boys went fishing on Sunday and Pete came home with a new rod which then had to have a homemade cover/holder made to be able to come on the plane with us .....Lucky Jaron has a good shed and the two of them got to work sorting it out.  Even LJ managed to hang off sleeping and went on the fishing trip getting to spend a bit more time with Pop which was pretty special given he is 20 now!

I love this photos!

All too soon we had to say goodbye to Townsville ....... (I realised as Jaron dropped us off and drove away that I didn't get a photo with my son! He was having to fly out to Phillipines for work a few hours after we left)    

                          And then into Melbourne - although we had a brief touch of the wheels to the ground before they took off again doing a lap of Melbourne before coming into land .... properly this time ......I can tell you everyone in the plane was a little anxious!

And then our 31/2 hour drive back up to Corowa!  We left at 5.20 from Jarons place and got to Corowa at 3.30 pm! But at least we made it!!!

I'm missing them already!

February Round Up and Celebrational Milestones

 

I was on a bit of a "downer" at the beginning of February and have just realised I actually celebrated my Blogs 15th Anniversary on the 5th February!  For some unknown reason, I tend to remember in January and again at the end of Feb!  The other Milestone for February was Pete and I celebrated our 40th Wedding Anniversary on the 23rd.  With all the fires and floods that were on we didn't end up booking to go away anywhere - so instead we are heading to Townsville next week for a few days to catch up with our Son Jaron, DIL Renee and our 3 wonderful grandchildren up there!  I'm so excited to be going up to see them.

Meantime, Pete has finished the Carport off and moved all the trailers and boat around so that everything is now undercover with plenty of room and some wonderful shade during summer and cover from the frost during winter........

On the day of our Anniversary neither of us felt inclined to go out as the weather was not the greatest so Pete spent time sorting out the carport to make everything fit nicely (whilst I did the sweeping bit lol) ..... and then I spent the time sitting and stitching Tilley the Rabbit!  I fell in love with the Luna pattern when I saw Christine's Rosie Rabbit and when we stopped in the felt shop that day I made sure to get some supplies to make one.  She has yet to have her dress made - but here she is picking out which Tilda Fabric she prefers ......

As usual, when I want Buttons I check out my button tin first.  It began with my Grandmothers collection when she passed away and I've added to it over the years

 - any clothes destined for the bin always have their buttons and zippers removed before going out and then get used for various other items ect ....... but this time while I was looking I happened to come across this one that I'd forgotten was in the tin .....

We managed to get a lovely crop of Apples from our 2.5yr old tree - our first real crop (I think last year we got 1 apple) ....... So I  made Apple Pie and Apple and Walnut Turnover and then have some cooked up in the freezer with just another dozen or so to pick from the tree sometime this week

More progress was made on the knitted jacket which I was working on as part of the Scrub Stitchin Group Challenge for February.  It's a different construction than what I've ever done previously

More progress is being made on the decorative window covering in the sewing room ...... (block pattern is by Bautawitch)

And I decided to have a go at one of the patterns I purchased whilst in Melbourne in January and make some of these little cuties.....

And that pretty much rounds up February .......... 

Hugs Sharm

February - keeping the momentum going

 I joined in on Friday night with the girls from Friday Night with Friends hosted by Chez ..... 

I was wanting to keep working on the knitted jacket I'm making as I have a bit of a time line I'm trying to stick to ..... This project is my "Owl" in the Group over on Ravelry that I'm playing along with and so I need to get to the 50% mark by the end of February ...... its proven to take a bit more time than other knitted items I've made for a while and it has a tighter tension, so the fingers get a bit sore ......... so to break it up - I also did a bit of crochet adding more blocks to my window covering

I've been having to take on apprentice work to help Pete with the carport project ...... all was going
rather well  ........ its a little bigger than I'd expected but with the heat we get here this will make a huge difference ....

I've had to help with the measuring and then standing on one of the ladders holding one end of the beams while he gets the other side in and bolted down .......

One more beam to go .... of course it didn't fit like all the others - just needed a tiny bit cut off the end ......

And then before he got to cut it ..... the disk on the grinder broke - thankfully he has only used the

4inch grinder since the big accident with the 9inch one in Queensland ....... still ....... he managed to slice his wrist - the one that has a huge lump from the way a broken bone was set in another life time - we are used to it looking like a massive lump but it sure threw the hospital staff into a frenzy!

We headed to the hospital at 10.30 to just get a couple of stitches ....... they thought he might have chipped the bone so it was then a further wait for the xray person to arrive (after waiting 1.5hrs for the doctor to come!!!) and then photos and calls to the orthopaedic surgeon in case he had to go for a surgical washout (prevention for bone infection if he had chipped the bone - thankfully he didn't) but the ortho suggested a back slab be put on for a week to minimize movement ......

I had dropped Lucy to friends when I thought we might have to head to Wang and be gone for hours on end - so we called back in and had some recovery drinks and debrief lol

The Chookshed Challenge is Number 10 for February and I'm pretty lucky with my list since I've left it open to any project for both knitting and sewing - so I'll be working on Kore - my knitted jacket and the crochet window covering for the yarn work and for the sewing - I'm working on a few things which I'll show you next time.

Until then

Hugs Sharm

Heat Wave

 

We are in the midst of a heat wave here with daytime temps in the 40s celcius ..... the other day it got to 46 degrees!  We could sure use some rain which is crazy since the north of the country is in flood! Great sunrises, and its always nice to walk down to the river early in the morning and get home before the heat builds up.

Look closely and you can see the kangaroos having a feed

Here we are in Feb but first let me do a quick recap of my projects from January since I had a few finishes which is something to celebrate and I'll take all the positives I can this year!

Being part of a group on Ravelry which has various challenges during the month to gain "house points" has helped get a quite a few of these smaller projects done - especially the dishcloths - I never seem to have enough made on hand as I give them away as gifts and thankyous, ensure both ourselves and our daughter have sufficient on hand and now has a little shop that has asked for some.  The sewing room got a clean up 

Work has progressed on the crocheted squares to make the window covering for the sewing room

And I made more progress on the Scrub Stitchin project ...... and I did work out what to do with my Number Chookshed Challenge project but it is awaiting material to get it to the next stage so you will have to wait for photos of that one

My medal arrived showing the 1483.11kms I managed to walk during 2024.  I'm hoping to improve on this for '25.  Note that this is not daily steps but dedicated logged walks!  Lucy should have one as well lol

So that's a wrap for January ........ And now its February ...... Today being Dads birthday which has been a little sad but also happy since he really had not wanted to be celebrating another birthday - instead he celebrates in Heaven .

Today was Apron making ........  My own pattern that I have used for years ..... The newspaper pattern I cut out is yellow with age and this is the 3rd one I think I had to renew .... the date on the newspaper is from 2012 lol

Until next time, Hugs and Prayers to you all my friends - May Gods Blessings be upon you.

Hugs Sharm

A Mid- Week Treat

 

The Tram Cafe

Finally, after all the dramas of the past few months I managed to book a train ticket and headed down to Melbourne for a couple of days with my sewing retreat buddy, Christine (MacDonalds Patch Blog)! We’ve been talking about doing this since we went on our road trip last April to Scrub Stitchin up at Baradine……. And we plan to do it again so part of the “reason” for the this trip was to sit together and work out out road map and over night stays…… which was fun and motels are now booked ready! 

Years ago we used to live in the area around here so it was fun to enjoy doing some walks …… we even had a nice stop over at the Tram Cafe they now have in Diamond Creek and enjoyed a hot chocolate 

A stop at the opp shops where I picked up this cute little tin ……. And I also found some lovely writing pads at the “cheap” shop for my snail mails.  I still have a just a couple of friends whom we share snail mails with and it’s always sooo much fun to see one arrive in the mail box. I wait to make a cuppa and sit down in a nice quiet spot so I can read and enjoy all there news.  Letter writing is something I started with my Grandmother when she used to write letters to me as a young girl, and then when I was a young mum living in Melbourne and she was living in Brisbane we would write letters to each other all the time - even though we also had a phone chat once a week or once every couple of weeks.  At one stage I had a whole group of ladies writing and we even had lots of circle letters (robins) going back and forth …..unfortunately with social media began taking over for many of them as well as other changes …….thankfully I have 2 ladies in Australia who write now and then and another in USA. Those letters take around a month to get from me to her and vice versa (snail mail indeed lol) .  I’m hoping to find another couple of ladies interested in this old art of letter writing to bring back some of the slow paced enjoyments - let me know if this interest you.

The Mad Hatters Tea Party 

Back to my mid week treat …….. I’ve had lots of fun talking sewing and projects with Christine.  We took a day trip - first stopping at a Felt shop which had some amazing items like the Tea Pot above .... and I may have purchased some felt to make a Lupin Rabbit lol ...... next a quick stop in at Spotlight for a bit of lace and then on to Gail B …… I've never been there and WOW ..... What a sight to behold as you walk in .....

And it just keeps on going .........

Of course I came out with some goodies ................. So I have lots to keep me occupied - and then some lol

Of course no outing is complete without coffee and cake .... or in this case scones ...... which was had at a lovely nursery in Warrandyte

Such a pretty place with a little bridge to walk over the duck pond up to the cafe sitting on the hill overlooking all the ducks and the pond

We had the best time!

Molly

 And finally I got to meet Rex and Molly who I'd heard so much

 about - they were so friendly and
excited to have me staying over for a couple of nights.

Rex

Rex decided this was a great way of letting me know he was up for a treat lol

I've also decided that being in an outer Melbourne suburb has just as many native animals and birds around as we do here in the country!  In fact, I'm almost wondering if they have more lol ..... here is a group (mob) of kangaroos enjoying breakfast whilst people were walking and cycling by on the walking path not far from where they were!

Thanks Noel and Christine for having me come to stay!  I had a ball!

And when I arrived home Pete had organised the delivery of stuff to make a carport for our cars to keep them a bit cooler during these 40+ C degree days and also during the winter months to keep the frost off!   

After spending the morning helping me with the cleaning and washing, Lucy felt it was time to go out and supervise with Pete lol  Meantime I'm off to go play with some sewing ..... or crochet .....