Rumour would have it that we are expecting snow at the end of the week. Despite this mornings rather hard frost (minus 3) I seriously doubt it as there is so much warm air circulating. It was a lovely sunny day once more today though the temps remained in single figures. Quilting was fun once again and we ate ourselves senseless on the English Flapjacks I made (not to be confused with pancakes, these are oats, dried fruit and butter baked together (with whatever extra bits you want to add) and I have a pile of left-over turkey and corned beef sandwiches for dinner as Dianna overcatered once more. I sewed the same petal on seven times (unpicking it in between) because I was always distracted at the critical moment of placement. Still it is in the right place now and accompanied by its four companions and the trumpet is also tied down. Only the centre and the corolla and that will be one more daffodil (two more to go on this part of the quilt). The dog registration expired today so I had to make a quick dash over to Council Chambers to deal with that and save myself the extra 15 dollars they charge if you are overdue, and this year's tag is the same colour as his collar so will disappear from sight fairly rapidly. The fire is lit in anticipation of another chilly night tonight, and I plan a cup of tea before tucking into the remaining sandwiches.

Yet another lovely day, albeit somewhat cooler than yesterday. I set to work and made up some Boston Baked Beans using the beans I had soaked over night. This takes 8 hours to cook according to the recipe, but is usually done in about 6 hours in the slowcooker. Any longer it starts to clag up a big. So at present, it is sitting in the slow-cooker, having been turned off and is presently soaking up the last of the liquids. Tastes delicious (I added some frozen ham off-cuts so it has a nice smoky flavour this time). Also printed out volumes of emails to the letting agents, reviewed them in light of the Inventory they sent and have now sent a 'please explain' to them I am not happy my new tenants found a pile of garbage bags leaning against the front wall of the house or the washing machine still in situ when I paid sums of money to get them removed. Am initiating contact with the other agency tonight to see what they have to offer. Discovered two down sides to ebooks (apart from the obvious lack of a book). They run out of battery power too rapidly and they can not be read while the laptop is plugged into the printer in a cold room. Still, it is a good book and there are over 300 more of them to read yet (assuming they are all this good). I will be saving the best in a separate folder for future reference!

A few more comings and goings today (must be the good weather) with someone (finally) ringing to enquire about the dehydrator I have had advertised for several months now ... Price agreed she then came and had a look, indulged in some argy bargy and then gave me the price agreed... The locals love a bargain. Just got here when a nice man in smart clothes turned up to inspect the wiring. Had a bit of an internal fit, but turned out he was just checking the work done by the insurance - all good it seems. Despite the good weather, what with this and that, the only things that got done were a quick run into town to remove the ad, and to return the library books, some applique (which is driving me insane at present) and a bit of reading. My latest e-book is Island Under the Sea by Isabelle Allende, - great book!! Recommend it if you have not read it yet.

It was social activity central here today. First Eleanor to talk about the community garden, the brochure about polytunnels, the proposed fracking that is being rumoured about (community meeting 2 August if anyone wants to come along). Fracking is a gas extraction method that involves pumping some fairly nasty chemicals under pressure into shale layers which may or may not contain commercial quantities of gas. These layers (especially around here where we have sandstone sitting on basalt) are also our aquifers. The process, presumably will contaminate those aquifers with the result that anyone with a bore that supplies water to stock or farm will find they have a lot of dead stock if the flow is downstream from the fracking sites. Similarly, in NSW they have discovered that ... whoops! ... large holes have appeared in the middle of affected areas, rendering the area unsafe for any viable activity. Objection rights rest with the owner of the property where the fracking process is initiated. It remains unclear what the appeal/compensation rights of the affected landowner are (if they are not the owner that allowed it to happen in the first place). So I have a fair bit of reading to do before the meeting to ensure I can ask the appropriately pointy questions. I gather the company proposing the activity is a SA based company that has gained all manner of 'green' credentials (presumably for their shareholders to assure themselves they are investing ethically) by carrying out conservation works in SA. No track record in Tassie of course, but heck, what's that poky little island for if not exploitation? Once Eleanor left I was just pulling myself together to head into town and knock, knock it was Jean calling around with some excess onions (she had just bought a bagfull - so had I ...) which may yet get converted into something tasty - onion jam? French Onion soup? who knows. Then there was the Parattah Market which popped up unexpectedly (they having decided monthly was a bit too hard - like I told them - and so off to see that - five stalls does not a market make i have to say, and not a terribly warm and friendly buzz. Still, I bought two mini-pizzas for lunch and a nice big flannel night-shirt, five dollars each seemed a bargain to me...

I have to wonder if I am maybe getting old. I borrowed a modern romance from the library, but had to put it aside after about page 10 (and I only got that far in the hope the first had simply been a 'teaser' to invite the reader into the novel. But as far as I could see it was borderline hard core pornography. Since when does 'romance' require a detailed description of the body parts of the players (without clothes on)? THat, combined with the fact the male protagonist was the sort of arrogant prat who feels if a woman ignores him it is OK to be obnoxious, ... well let's say I will stick to something a little more subtle in future. Fortunately the next book I picked up was just that - Rainmaker is a lovely novella (and yes it does include a romance) about human courage and endurance set in the Dustbowl during the Depression - well worth reading. So now i have no books left and the library does not re-open till Monday and the Bellerive library is closed at 12:30 so I didn't get there either. I resorted to the e-books my friend Caroline gave me - and a trashy romance at that - this one with rather more humour and panache than the last. Apart from the battery going flat because i can't be bothered taking the cord in with me, e-reading does have its merits (hands-free for a start), and some de-merits (no room for the cat, dry eyes if you do it for too long). Today's training was an essential boost to my somewhat flagging interest in selling diet products with some great presenters who actually said something rather than being talking heads. A refreshing change. The dog is knackered from his day in day-care and the ute has a cracked windscreen courtesy of some gravel in Bridgewater. Irritating that - it is a linear fracture coming up from the driver's side bottom corner, in direct line to join the tiny star fracture that has been a feature of the windscreen for some time now. Sigh. I guess I will need to sort that before it falls out spontaneously.. Boiling some rice to go with the Madras curry I made yesterday (a bit bland/mild I have to say) and thinking Boston Baked Beans would be a nice next recipe to re-visit.

It may be just a few days past midwinter, but today was definitely spring-like. Rain overnight thwarted my plans to mow, but the sun was warm and shiney for much of this afternoon. Going down to 2 overnight, but not to worry as tomorrow is to be warm also. I made a madras Curry for dinner which is slowly simmering over the woodheater (yes, it is lit, but running on a very low fuel supply at present to cut the heat to a level that dries the room, but is not too hot). Discovered that the only leaves I had were curry and Bay, and since the recipe needed Lime leaves, had to scurry into town on the offchance (not a chance) that the Roxy had some in stock. Never mind, as Dianna had some carefully stashed, and so the curry has all the ingredients it is supposed to have, now. Made considerable progess applying leaves to the applique last night (one more leaf and a bud and stem and I have the background under control for applying the remaining daffodils. Surprised how rapidly it has progressed I have to say. I had expected it to be rather more arduous. Just finished reading a great book called Enchantment, which is an interpretation of the story of Sleeping Beauty and Baba Yaga (interesting juxtaposition there), which is really surprisingly good. Recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good fantasy read.

If tomorrow is as sunny as today was, I may even break out the lawnmower to wrestle things back under control before the spring flush. As it was, I simply got the chainsaw out to cut some more wood. The rest of the day has been spent cutting little pieces of paper, sticking them on little pieces of fabric and cutting them and then sticking them onto the larger piece of paper so they can be sewn this evening after I have my dinner. Smidgen is regretting his decision to stay in for food and not take his run when it was offered, but he seems to have become more resigned once the fire was lit. Despite a heavy frost this morning it was warmer overnight than the previous one - all terribly confusing really. I have a large lump of meat defrosting, but it is unidentified, so I will have to wait till it has thawed to find out what it is (and therefore how to cook it) so it will be pasta tonight.

After yesterday's late start, this morning was off and racing fairly early as I had a meeting in Oatlands at 9:30 that was going to require a little concentration. Since it was jolly cold last night (I expected deep frost this morning it was so cold, but no ...) it was a bit difficult emerging from under the doona, quilt, blanket and off the electric blanket but i managed it and the meeting (about the community garden) went well, and the Council chap thought the questions were worth asking. So now we have a meeting on Tuesday next week (in the afternoon) with the headmaster, the relevant teacher and various other bods to work through sundry points of interest. A good start. We also established, as I suspected, that Council does not have a Paypal account and that we will need our own bank account. That will need to be resolved once we work out which of the four quangos is actually taking the lead, who in the community is part of the Working Group and so forth. But there was at least general agreement that the Facebook page will not be launched until we have sorted out these little matters (a huge relief). Quilting involved unpicking 3/5 of the last daffodil and a leaf, re-orienting them on the base fabric and sewing them back on. It now looks like a daffodil which is a good thing. Of course rather more might have been achieved if we had not decided to take ourselves to the Stables for lunch (Dianna, who usually makes our sandwiches for us was out of town today and we felt too lazy to pack our own), so we had a nice hearty meal in front of a (much-needed) log fire before wending our way drunkenly (well, only one glass of red on my part) back to quilting. The Bargain Centre had a lovely new apricot flannel single bed sheet which came home with me to be the binding (and possibly the backing and wadding) for the baby quilt - an excellent find!! (It will also let me finish off the last baby quilt I made which failed as I realised that cotton binding was a bit harsh for wee baby's chinny chin chin.

After a lazy start to the day (is it really 8:20?!!) I had a bit of catching up to do. First on the agenda was checking the payment to Aurora went through (yes) and that I had sufficient groceries to survive the week. This latter involved getting some onions, and a bottle of my new favourite shower cleaner. I hate to turn this into an advertisement, but really this stuff is amazing. With a plastic moulded shower cubicle (rules: no harsh chemicals and scourers) and a septic tank, finding something to get the grime off has been an on-going problem Then along came Sparkle - an amazing product that you just spray on and leave, to be rinsed off at the next shower. And it works. Amazingly well!! Not sure if the major chains carry it, but IGA does, if you never want to have to scrub out the shower cubicle again. Back home to hone my resume (which Workskills are kindly planning to print out for me tomorrow) and the accompanying letter, to be sent around (again) to local governments in the hope of inspiring them to give me some work. Then a email to Ian to see if that grant program is likely to eventuate (but he is out of the office till 1 August). Watching the latest training video for the BOM quilt I am making, cutting up some carrots to go into last night's morroccan lamb casserole to have for dinner tonight, and changing the sheets/turning the mattress and that was it for the day. I really should have cut some wood, but I didn't... I expect I will pay the price tomorrow night. Tomorrow is a meeting re the garden project. I have prepared a (very) long list of questions that have not been addressed, and thought of few more which will need to be answered before their Open Day they propose (like, since the school owns the land, what arrangements are in place for removal of infrastructure if they think of a new use for it, how long is our permission to use it, is our permission formal or the result of a conversation?, who is responsible for insurance? Is there a target group/purpose for the garden (allotment, teaching tool, free veg scheme?) Who will be responsible for the shared spaces? who gets to decide the size and allocation of beds? Little things like that ... It may be a long meeting, but fortunately I have an excuse to get out early. My main role at the meeting is to obtain Council's views on a Facebook page and Paypal account for marketing the brochure we have developed. Another nice fuzzy community exercise doomed to failure if can not obtain some clarity. A Working Group seems a sensible idea, instead of people lacking a shared vision, off lobbying in various quarters. And a clear framework before people start talking generally about it being an established fact. I have to say I was rather disappointed when I went to the polytunnel training and discovered it was simply an expanse of weeds with buried concrete paths, odd concrete structures and tractor tyres (also on concrete) lurking in the undergrowth ...

Two whole inches out of that little lot!! What a welcome soaking that was - the ground just sucked it in - very little standing water to be seen except in the low boggy spots - amazing!! More wood was cut and is standing around getting dry, and yesterday's is burning merrily in the heater (smoke-free). Since it was still raining I did some applique work, but am not happy with the result so will be unpicking several petals and the trumpet and starting again. Sigh.

Finally we have had some rain - good rain, soaking rain and the tank is happily overflowing - more predicted for tomorrow so we will wait and see. Of course this has made woodcutting a challenge, though sufficient has been cut to get me through the night and into tomorrow - and the resulting soggy pile is making totem poles across the front of the heater as it dries out for use. The smaller pieces will go on the fire tonight once it is dark enough for the smoke not to show (lol). Progressed the baby quilt somewhat - all part of the learning process I know, but the blocks are now 6.5 inches square instead of their original 7.5 inches as it was necessary to square some off. I have cut some of the backing fabric to provide sashing to go between the blocks to make the central panel proportionally wide. Strips will go down each side also, which will render it fairly square, and the backing should still be sufficient (though may require a single strip of 4 inch blocks at one end to make it do the job - we will wait and see. Reading the last (first) in the trilogy I have been reading in reverse order and it is fittingly gripping. I have spent some time exchanging emails re the community garden in anticipation of establishing a meeting with someone from Council who will hopefully provide the key to selling online (i.e a paypal account). Fortunately she agrees with my concerns about the lack of direction being shown by the key proponents of the scheme. Now all I have to do is find things to wash to take advantage of water that will otherwise be running down the back yard.

Day in Longford today - the driver of the Community Bus is ... scary!! and so is her driving. But we arrived safely and were entertained by the hosts from the local Men's Shed who showed us their community garden which, in midwinter, is not terribly impressive i hvae to day. But then, they make up for this with their organisation (skills seriously lacking in this part of the world) and gave us a number of very helpful hints which I have no doubt will be ignored by the locals. Pity really as a community garden is a great idea but does require some organising - like liability insurance, lockable toolshed, adequate fencing, planning what goes where etc all of which are well beyond the capabilities of interests of the locals from what I gathered on our way back to town Still, the weather was nice and we stopped in Campbell Town for coffee at the Red Bridge Providore (which no longer stocks fresh veges) and went to the local antique shop where we admired sundry unaffordable objects. I bought a plastering float and a nice little jug from the $1.00 table, which was my lot for the day. The jug is not terribly exciting but the right shape for the jug collection I have accidentally started and which is displayed on the tops of the kitchen cupboards. Chilly tonight, and we actually had a bit of rain as well. So the fire is burning merrily and I am about to retreat to it once more.

Galeforce winds and the pretence of rain convinced me to light the fire this morning. Soon realised that was a bad idea so I let it go out and have only now re-lit it (and that more in anticipation of future cold than due to present conditions). The weather was not conducive to outdoor activities so I set to work making a baby quilt. The original idea was to be terribly lazy and make a four-patch, but since the preparatory stages of that are the same as those for a cotton-reel quilt, I ended up with that instead. The only problem is that out of the available fabric I achieved only 15 blocks (each 7 inches) which will make for a rather odd shaped quilt. So the next trick will be to hunt through the stash and find suitable fabrics to provide for a 7 inch border down each side (to result in a square quilt approx 3 feet to a side). Not big I realise, but hopefully adequate for a baby cot/car cot type of arrangement. All in pastel pink, yellow, blue and green - so it looks rather nice really. My stash does have those colours in it, albeit somewhat stronger, so I will see how we go - may have to wait for Judy's visit next week and hope she has something nice (unlikely). Apart from that, I completely failed to cook anything for dinner, so it looks like frozen tortellini and supermarket sauce for dinner. There was wood cut and rubbish taken to the tip and books collected from the library and now i get to sit back, read, eat tortellini and prepare for tomorrow's trip to Longford.

Today was intended to be frantically busy, but it turned out that my duties at the community centre were in fact limited to saying, yes that's nice, ten copies please, waiting for said copies and going home once more. Hardly worth the effort really when it could all have been done by email. So I got to spend an hour or so at home before heading down to the big smoke to get the dog's stitches out. Decided to make it an errand run so collected my latest lotto ticket, some groceries and fabric and such like and came home via the vet in plenty of time to get the ute unloaded before dark. It seems we had a few more dribbles of rain today - at least it seems to be filling the tank, albeit slowly. The dew line on the side of the tank is now about 3/4 of the way from the bottom. Eating the last of the oxtail stew for dinner tonight - will have to cook something else for tomorrow night ... Now I wonder what it will be?

The applique is going gangbusters since I worked out how to do it. While not much was done today (too much moving back and forth to the table for morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea etc), I have completed two flowers which is pleasing. The results are not to professional standards (the odd fuzzy corner, pointy curve etc) but the technique is getting easier as I go along, so by the time I am done I should have the hang of it.

The work has been greatly aided by the new supply of sewing cottons. I had thought I would simply use the charcoal thread, but once you have left the background fabric behind and are building up layers, you really do need to match your cotton fairly closely to the fabric to avoid the stitches showing up. The new tenants seem to be in nesting mode - apparently they are expecting their first in October so are buzzing around decorating and cleaning up the yard and emptying the shed of the rubbish in there, and generally done vast amounts of work that I would otherwise have to pay for - so I am feeling fairly charitable at present. Her father is a professional painter and is charge of the painting works, his uncle is a glazier so is sorting out the locks on the double-glazed windows and the one pain that gets humidity in it (and has ever since i owned the place). If they keep going at this rate, then come the time to sell, I may approach them privately and see if I can avoid agents fees... Tomorrow I am juggling dog vet visits with voluntary work collating the pamphlet for the polytunnel so we can take it to Longford with us on Saturday when we go up to visit their community garden and pick their brains. It will be a busy day, so no sewing is likely to happen Still I got some wood cut tonight which should see me through both days and will try to cut some more tomorrow morning before I set out as it seems it may rain on Friday (hah!).

I remembered last night that once upon a time i had bought a daylight bulb for the standard lamp, so some applique got done yesterday evening - all the leaves on the lower part of the design are now laid down and I have traced and cut out the petals for two daffodil flowers Whether they get sewn tonight or tomorrow remains to be seen. My friends arrived and we had a scrumptious lunch all courtesy of the Golden Tulip in Lindisfarne = cottage pie and an apple strudel for dessert, So dinner tonight will be rather a light meal I feel. Perhaps another slice of strudel - after all, fruit is good for you ... isn't it? The dishwasher is hard at work removing evidence of the feast and they are now hopefully home safe. Apart from a minor drama with the polytunnel notes all seems to be under control (that and I will only be briefly available on Thursday to help collate them as i have realised the dog's stitches have to come out that day, and he comes first (of course). Quilting tomorrow, when I will progress the applique further. I am pleased to say I have worked out a stitch that barely shows at all for sewing things down, so that is making progress rather more rapid now (less unpicking of unsatisfactory results). Once the daffodils are done, I will take a photo and show you the first part of the panel.

All that rain yesterday produced the grand total of 2.5 mm - perhaps today's effort will be more impressive - but I doubt it. I celebrated a clean house today by doing a wee bit of applique It started off with unpicking what I had already done (not satisfied with the stitching) and experimenting with Caroline's suggestion that a glue-stick might help to hold down the fabric onto the water-soluble base until I got the stitches in. Well, it may work for her, but not for me. Then I sat down and tried to work out what order I should be applying things in and discovered a stem which I had completely overlooked and which absolutely had to go on first (so its ends can be covered by subsequent pieces). Turns out it is a lot more complicated than simply sewing bits of fabric onto another bit of fabric. Still,it's all good and getting almost to the point where I had got to before I unpicked it. May have to wait for daylight to make further progress though as it is dark green fabric being sewn onto black, which is not ideal for us older folks. What else? Well the polytunnel notes are making progress - the desk-top publishing is being done in Word (after all that - I could have done that myself!!), but it is starting to look like a more professional document which is always nice. We will be PDFing it so that people can buy it through our Facebook page and we can email it to them once they have paid (Paypal I think would be best). The main obstacle to success is that i suspect I am rather more computer literate than most involved and things tend to get lost in translation as I am simply one arm of a vast network of people involved in the process. Sigh. Still, its all good and will work out in the long run. The new tenants are in and of course they want to paint some of the rooms - surprise. So I have asked the agent to ensure I get to approve the colours this time, to avoid further angst. If she doesn't then she gets the axe. I think I have been more than patient with them to date... Visitors tomorrow!! What fun!! Looking forward to seeing them too!

Todays rain has been wafting overhead for most of the day, occasionally deigning to sprinkle the odd drop down onto the ground, but you would have to stand out in it for an hour before you would qualify as wet. Finished off the housework this morning and spent the afternoon finalising the polytunnel notes, choosing images and scanning sketches for insertion - all emailed off now to the next person in the production line who has editing software. I will be meeting with her on Thursday to get it all finished and ready for printing so we can take some copies to Longford with us. We are also planning a facebook page for it so you have somewhere to go to buy the plans (all funds to the Community Garden).

The fog cleared around lunchtime today, to a nice sunny day. I spent much of the day typing as we are trying to pull together our brochure on how to build a wind-proof polytunnel in a form that suits Eleanor (folksy), me (blokey) and Barry (architectural) using language that expresses meaning to people (mainly middle-school educated) in a comprehensible manner. Barry's style is very academic I have to say, and he uses long sentences that involve complex ideas. So getting it into a form that will be useful to others took some time. The draft has now gone off to be checked for accuracy and completeness, along with thumbnals of the photos so that Barry can draw the necessary sketches which will, in turn be scanned by moi for insertion when it all goes to Corinna on Monday to be placed into some desk-top publishing software. I had to exert considerable influence to avoid inserting images in the text as that will make her job that much harder. With the thumbnails, we will only have to label the as image 1,2,3 etc, so she can lift them into the document where appropriate (and insert comments in the text so she knows where they go). So, that done, and firewood cut, and oxtail defrosted, I am now ready to cook dinner. Something I can not do as I have yet to re-stock on onions, so unless i have a can of onion soup in the cupboard I am stuffed and it will be eggs on toast instead.

It was a lovely sunny warm day today - so nice it inspired me to get stuck into the housework that has lain dormant for some time what with one thing and another. So I scraped the bathroom back to its 'new' appearance and did the same for the laundry, did loads of washing, did loads of dishwashing (even the animal bowls got a good scrubbing) and so am now exhausted and the house is festooned like a chinese laundry. Still, it smells nice and looks good and the other rooms will be dealt with progressively over the next few days if the mood continues. The polytunnel notes have been well received and the rest of the work is being done tomorrow. Meanwhile I will also have wood to cut. Spotted her next door over the road helping herself to cuttings in the neighbour's garden - while said neighbour was at work. And you wonder why I assume the worst of her behaviour in my absence... Glad to see that Blogspot has removed the obligatory title field - it was getting quite tiresome. A relatively mild night tonight - in the positive temperatures at least. So it will be nice to be able to get up to running water once more.

So finally the fund arrived in England - whoopee. The tenant seems to be another story - one which remains untold as the agent has not bothered to update me. Tomorrow night will be Friday night, so I will contact the other agent and see what they have to offer I think. Clearly they are twisting six ways to sideways to justify the proposed tenants getting in, but the records available to date suggest this is not a good idea... Today was pretty quiet around these parts - went into town to give a bunch of flowers to the bank teller who has been so helpful, did some shopping and then sloped back home to cut firewood. Technically it is not cold at present, but it certainly feels it. The polytunnnel notes are complete and would be going by email to Eleanor tonight except I turned my Windows Live Mail account to 'work offline' while using the computer without the internet, and now can not convince the darn thing to go back online. Will need to consult a computer guru or two to find out what the problem is and how to sort it out as the Windows online help page is useless - it does not even touch on the subject... So, one problem resolved, onwards and upwards I always say.

Quilting today!

... and I finished off my lesson in doing y-seams. Mind you, now I have to unpick it as one of the diamonds has the colours in the wrong place, rather spoiling the 'star' effect:

My learning from this lesson has been that if it is possible avoid doing y-seams, I should do so in future!! lol The next block is 'tumbling blocks' but seems more an exercise in cutting and accurate seaming (not a problem with the Bernina 430) as they have cheated in the way it is done (strip-piecing). It will be an interesting exercise nevertheless. My local bank is once again chasing their colleagues in international banking - but I have not yet had the courage to check if there is an email for me this time. Fingers crossed. Will see what happens and hope it is good. Mean time I can send some Sterling with Caroline when she leaves on friday. It was very icy this morning on the road, I fishtailed even taking extreme caution, coming out of the t-intersection at Oatlands, then weaved my way along the High Street till I hit a patch of sunlight - council really should gravel that intersection in weather like this. My assignement for tomorrow (after I phone my potential clients) will be to pull together the brochure for the polytunnel so we can sell some on our (now brought forward) trip to Longford to see their community garden.

The saga continues in England, but suffice to say all letting agents are incompetent and banks not far short of that. The tenants (due to move in Friday before last) are not yet through their employment check and the funds have once again disappeared into the ether ... Will find out what has happened to them once I get to Oatlands tomorrow, hopefully. Mean time I have asked the bank to have some pounds sterling on standby since if there is not sign of progress by Friday I will need to convert some more money to send with Caroline as she heads off to the deep north of England. I briefed her today at the Tuesday group (which I don't usually attend) which is why I was out of range for phoning banks and need to sort things out tomorrow (having put the wheels in motion today). I plan to have a nice cosy night in, with temps heading back down to minus four tonight (minus 5 last night). The frost has not thawed today (but the pipes were running at least) so it was kind of nippy out there while cutting the wood!!

A day of surprises

Was out playing with the dog this morning when the postie pulled up and left a large red plastic post pack on top of the letter box. The dog was saddened to learn this was (temporarily) more important than his game, but the package was wonderful!!! Inside were dozens of sewing threads, needles, an unpicker and other wonderful surprises for me. Thank you Christine!! The yellows, greens and tans have gone into the daffodil quilt stash and the rest has been carefully stored in a spare cake tin I had lurking in the house. So I spent a happy day playing with these marvels Mercerised cotton so perfect for my needs. And who knew sewing machine needles came in such variety - ball point, quilting and other exciting options I had no idea existed. So I may yet enrol in one of those on-line courses for doing your own quilting with the machine!! Very inspirational Then I went into town to make some calls for the business - two seem positive, though one i am unsure of. From there I wentto visit Caroline to gloat over my new possessions. She is deeply envious and wanted to know if she could have a friend like that too!! lol. The dog was pleased to find he had no more tablets to take, and the cat seems resigned to his tiny fish dinners for breakfast, so hopefully we will get to the end of his medication with no further obstacles. Shadow's ear is healing nicely - the stitches to come out in another 10 days or so it seems. Minus five tonight so the taps will be frozen once more - they were frozen this morning but only slightly so - I think running water through the pipes before bedtime helped - they had already started to freeze so the warm water at that point in the process seems to have eased the situation - I will try it again tonight. I will be getting in two days of quilting this week so am off to Caroline's once more tomorrow - yay!! Applique tomorrow, the BOM quilt on Wednesday.

and so it goes on

We had a bit of a freeze last night with all the pipes solid once again in the morning. So the day began rather late all in all, due to the delay in showering facilities. Still, once dressed I was into Oatlands for the monthly market and to discuss the brochure we are preparing about 'how to build your own wind-proof polytunnel'. The tricky bit was deciding the target audience - Eleanor was more worried about whether they had building skills or not - I was more worried about whether they had a domestic scale garden or a commercial scale garden (hence the size of the finished product). We agreed to assume some building skills (after all the only tricky bit is fitting the door and window) and a domestic garden (with instructions for making it bigger). So that is my task for tomorrow - to draft up a document for her input (and identify information gaps such as size of wire gauge, standard length of sleepers etc). After that it was home to wrestle tablet into Smidgen (now much easier with a tin of fish-flavoured cat food to disguise it), and to defrost some chicken pieces for dinner tonight (a variant on coq au vin that allows for the absence of onions and leeks in the pantry). At least there are plenty of root veges to pack it out with, and olives, and dried mushrooms - so it should end up tasting good. More minus degrees tonight it seems, but with a freshly made up bed and a long nightie I should be snug as a bug.

Frozen

A maximum temperature of 4.1 is never good news. It snowed on and off all day, but the preceding warmer days meant that no snow settled on the ground. More to come I presume with minus 2 overnight forecast. I lit the fire and stayed indoors for most of the day. Tried tracing the pattern onto the base fabric for the needleturn applique associated with the daffodil quilt. Was a little tricky as first I had the carbon paper around the wrong way, then I discovered I had the fabric around the wrong way, so ended up tracing it three times in all. Still it's done now and ready to start work (once there is sufficient light to see to sew dark fabric onto black fabric ...). Smidgen is not taking well to having to take tablets, but I have discovered a secret weapon in the cupboard (a can of wet cat food) and will resort to that as a disguise, since the pea and ham soup is apparently not up to his culinary standards. The digestive tea is just as tasty as the rest, and I have finally worked out why they were thrown out - they are past their use-by date (not that this effects their quality in the slightest - tea lasts for a long long time when stored properly. The digestive tea has peppermint, chamomile flowers, fennel and lemonbalm in it - yum! So I will merrily pursue my tastings further with the green tea next on the list.

fifth July 2013

Strange weather today. Rain to wake up to, sunshine, galeforce winds, then black clouds that seem to have produced about a mm of rain - mixed up with a flurry of snow. The Detox tea is nice, but leaves a bit of an aftertaste (due to the licorice in it I suspect) and is the colour of wee ... not terribly appetising to look at I have to say. Still, it tastes ok and will be good for those occasions when I need to sort out my system. A load of washing, more emails to uncooperative people... but at least I was saved a trip into Town. Aurora's online complaint form fails to recognise the text in the bit where you tell them what you are complaining about, so I was planning to go into town and mail my complaint to them. Luckily for them, they emailed back to advise they are investigating my complaint now ... Fingers crossed. Still, a nice quiet day - the animals remain subdued after their trip to the vet, so happy to spend the day in front of a fire (or in Shadow's case, lazing in the brief sunshine while I cut more firewood.

Thursday 4 July

There you go - already it is Independence Day. Hope the Americans out there are having fun. It is also raining (whoopee) and seems to have settled in to do it properly this time (though it has only been doing it for half an hour, so I may be speaking too soon). It is nice to hear the rain on the roof (rather than the ceiling) and the drips falling outside off the trees. I went to the bank today to see if I could sort out this mislaid money and I have to say a bit thumbs up to the staff at the Oatlands Commonwealth Bank as they tracked it down (it had been rejected as it did not match any accounts) and they have now instructed their colleagues to resend it to the proper number. I hope so at any rate, as said colleagues have not sent me the confirmation email I was promised. So if it is not here by bank-opening time tomorrow I guess I will have to go in again and set Kate onto them!! It has been very quiet around the house for the last two days as the dog and cat recover from their various traumas. And tablet=giving time is always fun don't you think!? I still have my fingers intact as so far I have managed to surprise Smidgen, but I suspect this advantage will have worn off by the time the 10 days are past ... The calming tea is delicious having some more as soon as I log off. No idea if it is working, but who cares, given the taste. Only three more flavours to work through before I commence the cycle once more.

Required field - apparently

It seems that Blogspot has once again fiddled with the system and I am now obliged to provide a title for each post - hence the heading. I will think of something more appropriate tomorrow. There was me thinking i had finally sorted out the situation in England when I discovered the bank has sent the funds to someone else's account (or so it seems). I will have to ring them tonight in the UK and find out if it is floating around in limbo, or if I will need to ask someone to give me back my money. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Anyway, today was quilting and to top it off nicely the fabric I ordered from the US a couple of months ago has finally arrived!! Yay. It is the last fabric I need to commence work on the daffodil quilt, but I have already encountered the difficulties associated with trying to trace onto black fabric - even with a light table it does not work. So I will rummage for the sewer's carbon paper I have somewhere and try tracing it on over the top instead. Bother. I did, however, pick up my new second hand Bernina 430 Aurora (don't mention that name around me) which is so superior to my current machine I have to wonder why I didn't buy it in the first place. All this trouble i have had making scant quarter inch seams is down to the tracking mechanism on the old model. So from now on I should be better equipped to make for a decent quilt - great news. The Byron Bay teas are lovely = so far I have tried the peppermint and the energy drink - -both taste fabulous. I will try a relaxing drink this evening and see if that works too!! Off back into town in an hour to phone the UK ...

A day in Hobart

What a long day!! Up at 6 to leave at 7:30 for various errands in town. First the dog and the cat were dropped off at the vet and then into Hobart to drop the ute off to be serviced. Smidgen had a recurrence of his bladder infection and Shadow had a suspicious lesion on his ear. Both now sorted, but the vet agrees the lesion was probably cancerous. Hopefully they have excised all that was needed, and Shadow now looks vaguely piratical with a triangle missing from his ear that is about 3 cm on each side. The piratical effect is further enhanced by the blood dripping slowly off the wound (despite stitches) which is an inevitable side effect of ear surgery on dogs who shake their heads... When we got home, however, we discovered a nice black gift bag hanging on the back door handle which turned out to be Shadow's prize-winning blanket (very handy as he is now dripping blood on that, rather than the oriental hall runner.) Since I was faced with several hours in town and didn't want to spend any money, I had worked out a regime that involved a trip to the newly re-opened Tasmanian Museum, and to the library. I also wanted to catch up with a colleague for morning tea. This worthy plan was thwarted almost immediately as I happened to wander past Spotlight and they had the perfect mustard tones for the daffodil quilt I plan to make, so I bought the necessary lengths of these and wandered off down Liverpool Street. Sadly this led me directly to the Needlewoman where the fabric is considerably more expensive. They had the perfect fabrics for the other bits of the quilt though, so I parted with a bit more money... By this time I felt it was appropriate to retire from the shops and so went to the smokers cave behind my former workplace to catch up with whoever happened to be there. There is a skip kept there and imagine my surprise when I looked into it and found a box of Byron Bay Tea Company teas. All with their lids opened, of course, but some almost full!! So six of those found their way into my spare shopping bag (the one I had taken to get library books) and came home with me. I have tins of 'energy' 'digestion', 'detox', 'organic sencha green tea', 'organic peppermint' and 'calming' tea. The peppermint is lovely - I am drinking it right now!! From there I went to morning tea and caught up with a colleague and chatted about the state of the nation for a bit and then on to the museum. They have just done a fairly spectacular refurbishment and opened up buildings closed to the public for many years. As part of this they revealed various archaeological features which have been displayed very tastefully. Unfortunately they did not consider it necessary to provide labels so the common mob know what they are looking at... Their worst error, to my mind, was the partial removal of the two layers of dirt flooring in the basement of the Bond Store. In itself understandable as it provides additional display space, but the remaining floor (about a centimeter higher than the tiled area) is left exposed and uninterpreted, with the occasional sign asking people not to stand on it. Judging by the wealth of footprints, the staff are not enforcing this terribly rigidly, with the result on of the earliest surviving floor surfaces in Australia will be destroyed in a year or so. Not terribly intelligent conservancy practice to my mind. A new hard disk to back up the laptop (I still haven't found the other one) was the end of the spending money, as I had no idea how much the animals would cost. Fortunately, both they and the car came in under budget! Then home. Knackered, with two animals both feeling a little the worse for wear. The fire is lit, the soup is about to go in the microwave, and I am off to bed early tonight I think.

Yay the water man was at home and understood my plight so dropped off a load this morning. He has gone upmarket and now all four of his 1000 litre bins is connected to the others with pipes, and he has a new diesel pump so no longer has to festoon the place with cords, wander off and come back each time a bin is empty to connect to the next one and all the other bother that was associated with his efforts in the past. Good thing too, as the promised showers still loom as a green shadow on the radar - conscientiously stopping before they reach the midlands highway and my place... So the mountain of dirty dishes has gone through the dishwasher and the second load of washing is now festooned around the loungeroom and things are CLEAN!! once more. Yay. Tomorrow I will get to have a proper shower as well - such luxury!! It is hard to imagine being without water for those of you on town supplies - apart from the odd interruption to service for a few hours while they do maintenance. But being on tanks sure does remind you how precious a commodity it really is. Into town tomorrow - ute to be serviced, cat and dog to the vet - it will be an expensive day... But a chance to go to the City library for a wider reading range, and the museum which has now re-opened following the refurbishments. So should be an interesting way to spend the day...