Wonderful Weekend

What a great weekend its been - a little short perhaps, but you get that .... I got distracted from doing much work on the knitted shawl Friday night as Pete suggested we head into town for a pizza and we sat out and a couple of drinks while we waited - a nice distraction to the ordinary ...... Saturday morning and we headed out with the boat (and Scruffy) ..... down to Lake Nillacootie which is between Benalla and the turn off to Mansfield. 
 We spent a few hours out on the water fishing and enjoying the time out! 

Naturally you need to see the fish I caught!

And yes, I did catch a fish - a bass which unfortunately was 2cm too short to be a keeper which saddened me a little ........  Scruffy seemed to enjoy himself, although he did spend quite a bit of time sleeping lol  It was just sooooo relaxing .  I won't bore you with a whole lot of photos from the day out ......

Pete sitting back while Scruffy and I were walking around the banks

Earlier in the week I did manage to finish crocheting that baby blanket I told you about last post.  It's a design I made up and will share here later in the year. I'm really happy with the design and although it took a few different goes before I found a binding I was happy with, I think it's come up well.

 This morning it was market day ...... this time the bus "Seriously Crazy" from Charters Towers was back again ...... I just couldn't resist ..........  I think these will end up making a nice table runner.  The Bee theme is based on what was my little sewing cabins name "The Beehive" which you might

remember (until it all had to be packed up ....... mostly into boxes now in Qld and a few remains kept out and moved back inside to one of the bedrooms.  I've always had a bit of a thing for bees, but not gotten into collections or bee keeping as such .........  I do enjoy watching various bits of nature, which is why I try to have lots of flowers and shrubbery together with watering "holes" to keep the good insects happy and have the little birds visiting.
Did I mention I finally found some material I was happy with to be the background for the signature hexie tablecloth??  Well I decided this fabric with little hexie shapes would work.  I've kind of attached the hexies to it ...... but I have a bit of quilting work to do on it ....... and might also add some other bits to it before it gets its binding
 

I managed to get some more walking and a bit of running done during the week with a walk in Yarrawonga finishing just in time to catch the Queens Baton coming through town on its way up to the Gold Coast for the Games later in the year!

 

I hope everyone has had a wonderful weekend and your week goes well.

Hugs, Sharm

 

On Lake Nillacootie in the back section

Getting into it .........

Now in the second month of the year I have this feeling of it flitting through my fingers if I'm not

mindful ........   OPAM  has opened once again. I think I first joined in on it back in 2010, with just a couple of breaks (where I no doubt missed the sign up, since I seem to miss things like that from time to time) - Mostly my finished items are knitted or crocheted with a few sewn items here and there - its not a competition as such, but more a gentle way of helping you to keep moving along on your projects, but not forgetting just how many you have managed to achieve.  Naturally some things are quick to finish like a mug rug - while others like my WIP "Down the rabbit hole quilt" are taking more than a year in the making!!! I have a page set aside just for my OPAM now, rather than using the sidebar which I used

to erase when the new one started! Both Kris and Peg look after OPAM and have it open for sign ups till the end of Feb!  I've finished off another little cotton crocheted bag - another new design as I wanted something light, small easy to pop across your body but big enough to hold my phone and a pair of glasses - since they seem to be my constant companion these days lol .....
 I'm  also working hard on getting a baby blanket crocheted up for a gift for one of the girls in my team who will be leaving in a few weeks time.  Hope to have it finished this week..........  The summer shawl has been set aside for me to work on this, but hoping to finish off the shawl sometime during the month.

Pete was away again this weekend - off fishing/ camping with blokes from the fishing club here at Bundalong.  He's been having a great time the past few months with so many times away camping and fishing (males only). He managed to catch another Cod this weekend that was a keeper, so the freezer has quite a stash of fish in it at present!  With Pete having had 3 or 4 weekends the last part of last year and 3 out of 6 weekends away so far this year ....... I'm struggling with some green eyes and a spirit that is dying to be able to head off somewhere ......... just wish I could actually plan something in advance, but alas with not knowing just when we will be making the big move, its hard to make plans!!

Every 2nd year I enjoy a particular book that I tend to like reading over the summer months for some strange reason ........ "A Town Like Alice" by Neville Shute.  It's quite an older book now, my copy is falling apart - and is currently packed in a box 2 states away lol .... the story is based on a little bit of reality that occurred during the war.  I finally decided I needed to borrow it from the library  and started reading it last night in bed -  its amazing how a good book can transport you into such a good state of mind and body isn't it.  Of course this book was also made into a movie - one of these days I should try and get hold of it on DVD so I can watch it again!   There never seems to be enough hours in the day for everything we need and would like to do is there? I've got quite a list of things that need doing - like using up the 20 litres of olive oil I have waiting to be made into soap.  Its really only good for making soap with and I know it wont be allowed on the truck when we move, so it needs to be transformed into something that can be used or easily transported!

Early morning around 6ish when I go out before work for a short walk/run

The 2 Bridges Walk

I really tried to do this post last week - unfortunately no matter what I tried the photos just would not

download to google or to the laptop and my ipad wouldn't allow me to write a new post ....... it seems to be happening a lot lately which is very frustrating!
  Anyhooooooo ...... last Saturday I decided I would finally head into Yarrawonga and walk the 2 bridges which go over the Murray River from Yarrawonga on the Victorian side (our closest local town 17kms from here) to Mulwala which is on the NSW side.  I thought perhaps you might like to join me as we leave the car in the shopping area and head down the road towards the caravan park

 ready for the 1st bridge which goes over the weir wall 

 I've often wanted to walk over these bridges, but just never gotten around to actually doing it. So here we are as we move onto the bridge and look down below .....

They let out a certain amount of water to head downstream to other towns depending on how much is in the weirs further upstream, or what flooding is going on ....

Here you can see the river behind me flowing downstream ......

 From here we head around the road and past the back and then the front of the RSL club 

which is just before we start over the old bridge ....  What a glorious start to the day it was looking out over the water. 

This old bridge is a real mixture as both states began building from there respective sides with designs of their own and didn't quite get the figures right ...... which meant the bridge has a bend in it where they had to make a curve to get them to meet......

I really wanted to do a 10km walk and apparently doing the 2 bridges is only around 3 ....... so you'll see we then walk along the foreshore ....... which changes from fun and games

 Funnily enough, this is where you actually find seagulls hanging around ....... yep, no salt water within a few hundred miles but they know where to find chips lol

  to a more natural space ........... and look what was hiding there ...... We get quite a lot of black swans around here as well as the pelicans and sea gulls and any number of other birds!

 Lets continue on up to the  very small yacht club where I caught a glimpse of one of the dragon boats heading out  .......... I missed getting a good photo of it, but this was docked up just beside them ...

 then up to Chinamans Island which is a very natural type habitat .

 

Unfortunately the other photo won't download ......... hmmmmm 

.......... finally tracing my steps back along the foreshore and through the main street with all the shops .... plus an extra block to finally make the 10kms I was hoping for.  I do hope you enjoyed the walk as much as I did.  Perhaps in the next couple of days my other photos from this weekend will have downloaded to allow me to post.

Jan Close- Feb Begins

The skies around here have been throwing out some magical colours with sunsets and sunrises - Pete

Sultana Grapes from our Vine.

took this one on his way to work the other day! (unfortunately, the photo just wont download - so maybe next time!).  January seems to have come and gone - its one of those months that begin with holiday and wind down mode, venturing into planning mode and it seems just as you feel ready to begin the New Year, its the last week of January ...... or the first week of February!  I'd meant to write a couple of posts by now, but time has a way of slipping through your fingers before you realise.  I've spent January working on a pattern for a cotton crocheted

market bag which I finished ....... and took to the farmers market last weekend to try it out.  I was really pleased with what I could fit into it (the slightly different shaped base), and the shoulder strap worked like a charm (no cutting into the shoulder with added weight in the bag).  I also like that its all one piece with just the one join which is crocheted anyhow giving extra strength to it.

  I prefer to work with cotton yarn during the height of summer as my fingers don't get sweaty like they do if I work with wool.  I decided to use some cotton I recently purchased and add some stash yarn to it to make one of Laura Aylors shawl patterns - mine will be a summer shawl (hopefully to use on a beach somewhere before too long!)  So this was what I worked on Friday night when I joined in with all the girls taking part in FNWF.  It's a free pattern called Touchstone and Laura now goes by Fogbound Knits if you are looking for her patterns.

 

I thought I'd finish here by showing this gum tree from our back yard (which I may have shown you

before)...... it's been slowly dying the past year although we made several attempts to save it - at one stage we thought we had as a branch of new growth came out looking healthy and strong, but then it started dying off as well.  Several breeds of birds still seem to be very fond of it, although they don't get to hide in the leaves quite like they used to be able to ........

Tomorrow is my Blog Anniversary - it will be 8 years since I started Country Fragrance ......