As it goes ….. A long overdue catch up

 Life always seems to be busy, more so since our move to the new house where we are working to get things sorted here. (and still maintaining while waiting for Corowa to sell which hopefully happens with Spring now here) …… we’ve had quite a bit of rain since moving in - especially in the first few weeks and the backyard was holding lots of mud due to several factors including part of a pool being left in the ground. I'm popping in some progress shots - how it was when we arrived and originally just wanted to extend the concrete to go out to the shed area but in doing so discovered why the grass wasn't growing well in a spot that looked like an outline of a pool ........ turns out it was .....

 You can see the concrete outer line of it here after we ended up with all the rain …. and mud ...

It would have been major work to remove it so we had to get creative ….

We now have miniature fruit trees in the centre section which will help with any uptake of extra water sitting in the ground …..Cherry, Apricot, Peach,  Plum, Pink Lady Apple and a Granny Smith Apple so we now have a lovely miniature orchard surrounded by a concrete track for the granddaughter to ride around on her little bike and we have a low maintenance back yard with plenty of area for BBQs and use of the Fire pit .   This is it now ........

The inside is gradually taking shape as well with 90% unpacked but about 25% of stuff still waiting to find a “home” .  I’ve run out of puff so it’s going to be a while longer before it’s all sorted.

I did get a couple of stitcheries made which will go in the kitchen ….eventually

Currently working on a pair of socks with a chart which I'm struggling with but I have managed to finish some self patterned socks (love it when the yarn makes the pattern for you) - the pinkish pair are for the daughters birthday which was the other day.

I'm going to get this posted now just because its taken so long to get anything up and photos are being difficult again!

And THIS is Why ............

 Why what you might ask?   ok, so let me just say I did this draft back in June and had meant to add

some photos ...... before I could things just got busier and more exhausting ........ apologies....... and I'l get another update done very soon I promise!

 Why has there not been a blog post in the past couple of months?  Much has happened ...........  Not long after my last blog post - Pete and I had been discussing our up coming trip around Australia - much of the north of the country was in severe flood together with a few other things going on,  so we decided to postpone our big trip for perhaps the following year ..... This got us onto the discussions  we had planned to pursue during our trip away...................... 1. I was keen to look at different work availability and 2. Were we going to remain in Corowa or continue looking (as we had been doing sporadically doing the past 2 years without success) trying to find a suitable house in Wangaratta.  Previously (over the past 2 years) nothing suitable has been available and so we made the decision that we would begin the search and if and when found would then put the Corowa house on the market.  It would seem the timing was perfect as that week something came up but they were awaiting paperwork from the council and titles office and we were advised it could be 3 months before it came through (they hoped).  So we were busy sorting out legal documentation and such over the next month allowing us to get our deposit back should it all fall through..............

 meantime Christine and I went on our Scrub Stitchin retreat and had a fabulous time.  Anyone on Facebook no doubt saw the photos .............. and then we got notice that Settlement would be going through on the 15th May - we had 2 wks to begin packing lol  The weekend before we were to move our son Jaron (from Townsville) got to make a quick  overnight visit on his way through to Perth for work.

It was a special treat to have both our sons and our little granddaughter with us for Mothers Day 

We got a removalist in for the main furniture items and have been doing several trips with cars, ute and trailer over the past month.  Just a few of the larger heavier shed items left to come over and the house in Corowa has just been able to go on

the market today!!  Hooray!!!  We discovered that NSW selling is very different to Vic or Qld - in NSW you have to get a solicitor to draw up the contract together with getting all the council paperwork BEFORE the real estate agent can list it!!!  Let me just say that NSW certainly likes alot of unnecessary extra paperwork and added costs.  Still its all about ticking those boxes!!  Prayers for a quick sale as Bridging Finance will be costing us $$.  (still unsold as yet)

Boxes are being unpacked in the new house in Wangaratta and its a lovely house to be in which ticks all our boxes - especially being close to a large hospital, in the same town as our doctors, Petes specialist, dentist ect ect; plenty of shopping and services ; close to the train which will get me to Melbourne in just over 2 hrs, and in the same town as our son PJ and his little daughter Mila who has been loving being so close to visit Poppie and Grandma.

Lucy is missing her doggy friends from Corowa on her morning walks, but is already making a

couple of new friends here in Wangaratta where we are lucky enough to be close to some really lovely walking tracks.  Some go along the three mile creek which runs along the back of the block just behind us (the one that had been part of our place originally before they divided the block making the subdivision)..... we are on the roadside section.

It was exciting getting to put in our new mail box (a necessity since the old one was removed when they were doing the subdividing of the big block to a smaller one)

Things are still rather busy with a few more trips yet to collect the remainder of stuff - together with the sorting out this end .................. AND I have been successful in getting a new job which I'll be starting in July - in the hospital and only 2 days a week - perfect❤️   These are some of the mango slabs brought down from Qld and oh boy were they big and were they heavy!! The trailer was full when we finished and we were had it both having sore backs and hips and taking nearly 4 days before we could face unloading them at the new place and going back for yet more stuff!!!

February Crafting around the Cottage

 

Happy Valentines Day! Can you believe its mid February - a sure sign now that if you blink for too long this year is going to be over!  Each year seems to go by so much quicker than it ever used to - but then I also wonder if it just seems that way because we are all so busy with endless emails, social media, mobile phones with instant messages and all the endless IT stuff we are now linked to!  I'm sure things moved slower when the bills arrived in the mailbox and you had to wait till you were heading into town to go to the various places to pay them.  Phone calls were on the land line so you didn't have to constantly have incoming calls and messages whilst out doing things ....... anyhow - I digress and I'm very thankful that I still have a couple of snail mail friends ....... oh how I enjoy it when they arrive in the mailbox! But apart from writing some letters, I have also been busy in the craftroom ......

Let's begin with the Chookshed Challenge - with Deana picking out Number 8 this month.  For me

that is  socks/ shawl or a hand embroidery item to work on.  I decided to pull out an old WIP shawl - started back in April 2024 and thrown into the corner when I realised there were several charts I would have to work from.  Charts back then were quite a frightening prospect, but since having to work from charts for the colourwork gnomes, I feel like I'm ready to give it another go.  When I picked it up I had done to the dark brown and white band.  I've had to frog back to there after doing 12 rows and finding my pattern was completely out (got the front and back rows mixed up and the results were not so pretty) So after frogging I've made a bit of progress.

We've had our little granddaughter (Miss M) out visiting the past few weeks - she just turned 2 at the start of February and is very much "Daddy's Girl".  I pulled out the Scotty Dog pattern I had bought last year and made it up for her - she seemed to like it when I gave it to her today which was good.

And after discovering a little moth like creature had eaten holes through some of my yarn I've had to
throw out about 10 balls!  I haven't had a chance to check the rest - in fact I started to knit up a poncho ready for Autumn weather for Miss M and after a few rows found the yarn had been chewed into some smaller sections .......... so that got ripped out and thrown out once I realised how bad it was.   I've started for the 3rd time and so far this yarn seems to be ok !  This time in a purple colour.   I'm a little concerned how much damage there might be - even though I have sprayed in there at various times!  I was browsing some patterns yesterday morning and came across this poncho and kept going back to it - I really love it's simplicity and practicality.

The temperature tree cross stitch is slowly making progress.  I find I need my stronger glasses to work on it and can only manage about 7 leaves at a time when the lighter colours are being used.  We had a 10 degree drop in temperature earlier this week so my tree is going to be showing a variety of colours.

Early morning walks have been quite nice with the cooler temps and dawn just breaking - 

The other morning we even had a hot air balloon going over the houses here and down to the river before heading back to whereever it had come from.  Whilst they are more common around other areas, we don't usually see them here, so it was quite a nice surprise to the morning walk.

I've finished knitting another Gnome - this time Professor Fungi and I love how the tweed yarn has worked so well with him.  So that makes 2 Gnomes so far this year - I have plans for at least 1 more which I hope to have completed by the end of March.  I'll likely give them a rest for a while then I think as I have larger projects planned for the cooler weather.

And with so many young kookaburras around it wasn't long before we had to pull out another one from the pool.  This young one was only released a week ago from a wildlife rescuer just close to us and it seemed very thin so we contacted her and it turned out it was the same one - so he has gone back there to be fed up and given another trial release in a week or two.  

I'm off to sort out the roast for dinner and get things sorted ready for work tomorrow.  I hope you all have a fabulous week.  Hugs,

                                                   Sharm 

January Round Up

 It's the very last day of January - thankfully with a cooler change - we are down to just 30 C today (86f) which is such a relief after the week of high temps ranging from the mid 40s to 48 c 2 days ago (118.4f ) - its been a burning heat.  

Dog walks have been very early and you could see the colour in the Sun as it rose that it was going to be a scorcher ..... and a very pink sun when we had some of the smoke from the fires blown in which made it very eery.   

The council kept the sport field watered and it has been a lovely green reprieve for the doggos in the morning with the rest of the park area brown!

The animals and birds have been struggling ...... we had a young kookaburra dive too deep into our
pool and got stuck - luckily I happened to see the ripples in the pool as it struggled and I was able to scoop it out - it was totally drenched and obviously very tired from thrashing around in the pool.  Pete was able to lift the scoop up to the roof of the shed so it could dry off - meantime, its mates were flying over to keep a check and sat up in the gum tree waiting for it to dry out and join them - which it did eventually!  Poor Guy ...... we have a few bird baths and dishes of water in both the front and back yard that most of the other birds visit.

Soooooo - Finished projects for January - the 2 cushion pad covers for Miss Lucy; the bag for the boat safety equip for the van ...... and Gnombelberry (still need to get his backpack completed).

WIPs which were started in January include a sock with self patterning yarn,

 the Temperature Tree Cross Stitch (first week completed) and the branch for January

And I've started the 2nd Gnome for this year ....... Gnock from the pattern Someone to write Gnome about - which works well with my love of snail mail (although that has certainly dwindled over the past 10 years) ........ It's a very long hat!

And on other January news ......... my Run Down Under medal arrived showing my annual amount of kms I walked (and recorded) - I no longer am able to run - I need to pick up the pace if I'm to ever make it around Australia lol

And we had an overnight visit from Stace and John (and bunnies and birdies) - it was lovely to have them come and spend some time up here with us.

It's hard to believe that January has come to an end already and tomorrow we head into February - a short month - no doubt it will be over before we can blink - until then, Hugs Sharm xo

January FNSI and crafting update

Gnandad completed in the last days of December

For FNSI  with Wendy  I began with setting up and starting work on the temperature Tree crossstitch that quite a few undertook last year.  It was March/April when I decided I'd like to do it and unfortunately the BOM doesn't keep daily records for Corowa and with all I had on last year, I decided it could wait till 2026 ........ My last cross stitch was back in the late 90s and it was about 2inch square and the only cross stitch I've ever done ...... so this should be quite the "adventure" lol.

Today I also had to sew up a bag to hold the boat safety equipment which will travel in the van and need to be pulled out when we stop and want to use the boat.  I decided it would be much easier to have it all together in a large bag rather than having to look in several cupboards or various places for all the bits needed ........ I used some plastic backed curtaining material I had here left over from curtains made for the house in Maryborough and fashioned it into a bag - then decided to add a plastic pocket to the front so I could make a list of what was in the bag (handy for when things need to go back)

Then  yesterday I changed over to working on the current gnome ……working on his hat.

And managed to make up some more of the muscle relief balm which has a mix of various essential oils and works to relief pain due to inflammation like you get with arthritis and those pesky sore knees and backs - 

Gnombelberry is finished apart from his backpack which I have yet to knit ....... I have the feeling it is going to be a very fiddly process and not one for these extra hot days we are having at present!  My little family of Gnomes is growing ...... the one right up top of the post was completed in the last couple of days of December ..... Gnandad - 3 are planned for the first part of this year and then I'll see what my thoughts are about future members...

 Number 3 is the current project for Chookshed Challenge .......... it seems my Number 3 project is working on a knitted Gnome (check ✅) and making a new cover for each of Lucy's cushion pads which I actually accomplished last weekend so that's a double check  ✅✅ You can see how worn and grotty looking the old covers were - I found some thicker cotton fabric in my stash and she seems quite content with the new ones.  She prefers to lay on these when Pete and I are sitting outside on chairs

I have the need for another couple of quilts for various beds so I've yet to work out just what they might be ...... or when that might be ........ but maybe one of them will link in with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and use up lots of old stash I want gone ....... so stay tuned

Until next time

Hugs

Sharm