Gone, but not forgotten

Today is ANZAC Day in Australia.

A time to remember those who fought for our freedom, who made the ultimate sacrifice and who served and are still living with the consequences of their service. The medals in the image are my grandfather’s, from WWI, the ‘Great War’ that was supposed to end all wars. He won the Military Cross on the left for conspicuous gallantry, rescuing an injured fellow soldier under fire, was injured himself and spent the rest of the war as a PoW.

I am grateful, and I do not forget.

“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.”

From The Fallen by Laurence Binyon

Henna Hands

It’s a lot of fun.

My local library held an introductory 1 hour mehndi (henna-based skin decorating) session. Our tutor, the lovely Prachi, handed out pictures of simple examples we could copy, or more complex examples we could aspire to!

We started with a practice session on paper, which was just as well, as using the henna cones was harder than it looked. Henna starts as a powder, and is mixed with oil (mainly clove and eucalyptus) to form a paste which is squeezed out of the small opening in the end of a sealed paper cone. There’s definitely a skill to ensuring the paste comes out smoothly to form clean designs. I tried a number of different shapes, patterns and borders, remembering all the examples of beautiful Indian wedding mehndi designs I’d ever seen. Yes, it takes a lot of skill and even more practice… You allow the paste to dry for a minimum of 10 minutes, and then rinse it off, at which point the stain is fixed on the skin until it wears off.

And then we were encouraged to try it out on/for ourselves. Some of us were a bit more confident than others. For those who didn’t want to end up with wobbly, blobby designs which would last up to a couple of weeks, Prachi drew the designs for them. Others of us were happy to take the plunge! I was probably over-ambitious… But I wanted to give it a real go, so I went for it.

In this photo, the top two are designs executed by Prachi. The bottom one is my chubby paw, with my own work. Another time, I’ll work a design out on paper, and then try to copy it. It seems I can buy the ready-mixed cones at my local Indian grocer. I might wait for this one to fade before I try another one…

And another time, I might do the design on the palm of my hand, so my mistakes aren’t so obvious!

Sunshine is delicious

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. John Ruskin

Ruskin had no idea.

Once again, we are staring down the throat of another cyclone. Tropical Cyclone Kirrily is raging to and fro out there in the Coral Sea, seeking whom she may devour refusing to commit to a final destination. ‘Anywhere between Cooktown and Mackay’ is 1,100km or 13.5 hours by road. That’s a lot of potential places for her to land. So like good little tropics-dwellers, we get out the disaster kit, fill the vehicles, test the generator, get cash out of the bank in case of power outage, line up potable water storage, and wait. And wait. And probably pray a bit that this will be someone else’s catastrophe, selfish as that sounds.

The Bureau of Meteorology is hedging all its pronouncements, because, let’s face it, even they cannot accurately predict large-scale and disastrous natural phenomena. But there are plenty of estimates, projections, animations and data charts to keep us all entertained while we, you guessed it… w  a  i  t.

I think I’ll go and do some more sewing, while I wait for the forecast to update. And as for sunshine being delicious, 32°C /90°F in the shade and 80% humidity is far from it.

Roll on Wednesday, and landfall.

Season’s Greetings

Storm season is here

We’re currently on cyclone watch.

Tropical Cyclone Jasper is shaping up to be a doozy, brewing out there in the Coral Sea. It’s currently at Cat. 3, forecast to strengthen to Cat. 4 as it approaches the coast. On the current tracking map, it’s looking like it’ll make landfall north of Mackay and south of Townsville, but as we have seen many, many times before, so much can change – and in a very short timespan – before that happens. It could weaken. It could strengthen even more. It could turn north, or south, or even turn around and head back out to sea. With impeccable timing, our local Bureau of Meteorology radar is offline while it’s being rebuilt, newer, better and swankier, but currently, more useless. So we’re gleaning information from all over, my personal favourite being Windy.tv. We still have access to the BoM Cyclone Tracking Map, so that’s something…

We’re currently debating our preparation level, since we’ll see nothing much until mid-next week. The Husband is going to go out to the shed and fettle the generator and make sure we have a couple of day’s worth of fuel for it. We’ll fill both the cars, bring in the outdoor furniture if it looks like a heavy blow, and leave the chickens extra days-worth of water and grain if we have to bail. They will be sheltered in their chook house from the onshore wind, and we’ll prop the door open so they can go out and get air and somewhere to scratch if they feel like it. We have two-ways, and a battery radio, the generator, and half a tank of rainwater (non-potable, but OK for other use after boiling).

I’ll lay in supplies in two tiers: if we stay, or if we pack the caravan and head for the hills. I’ll be filling some water jerry cans too. It’s unlikely we’ll lose water here on the hill, but you never know… Power outage is much more likely if high winds are flinging branches about. I have a pantry full of emergency food, but need to make sure we can also feed doggo correctly, so I’m stocking up on canned dog food, although I have about 15kg of kibble if it comes down to the wire.

This house is sturdy by comparison with many in Queensland. It’s brick and tile, not wood and tin, and it sits on a concrete slab at the top of a hill, with its feet out of potential floodwater. We were mindful when we bought it. I do wish I had storm shutters, but in a pinch, we can screw particle board over the two windows facing trouble.

And that’s about it. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before. I’ve sat through many cyclone watches now, and I don’t get stressed any more until it’s here. What will be, will be. When it has hit us, we’ve cleaned up, learned lessons and moved on. It’s the price we pay for living in this beautiful state, in this beautiful country.

I’ll keep y’all posted.

A moment’s silence

Sorry people,

I haven’t been reading, writing or responding to anything the last couple of days.

We said goodbye to our darling Mouse greyhound yesterday after a few months of failing strength and joie de vivre, and then a short, sharp, terrifying decline. I need some time before I can get excited again about fabric, or food, or chickens, or any of the other small delights I usually write about. We are only now realising how huge is the hole he’s left behind. Please understand I’ll be silent for a little bit longer, but I will be back soon.

There will be a new sleek, black, speedy companion, quite soon; fate had someone in mind who needs a retirement home soon and we need somewhere to put all that love, but we’re giving ourselves a couple of weeks to get over the past few days of sadness, terror and loss.

Mouse, 19 July 1016 – 30 October 2023.

Racing name Limit Man, out of Molly Molloy by Magic Sprite
whelped in Horsham, raced in Geelong, Bendigo and Townsville.

I wonder if the Pearly Gates  have a greyhound-sized dog door… I don’t think I want to go anywhere that doesn’t have space for this gentle and loving soul.

 

In grateful memory

Last week I had to say goodbye.

My brother-in-law, who had been becoming increasingly unwell over the past year, was admitted to Intensive Care on Wednesday. I spoke to him on the phone the following day… for the last time. He died a week after going into hospital.

This is why I have been absent from the blogging world for some days. There were things to be said, and done, and arranged. Comfort and support to be offered. He had been a presence in my life since I was a small girl. I come from a transgenerational family; I’m sixth of seven children, my mother was old enough to be be grandmother, my eldest sister to be my mother. He was married to one of my older sisters, and I was a small child when she first brought him home. They emigrated to Australia in the 1970s.  30 years later, I followed them. Better late than never… I lived with them in Melbourne for 6 weeks when I first arrived, while my house was being renovated. We moved together to the same small mountain-top town in NSW and I saw them often. Then I got married and moved to north Queensland, 1400km away.

We talked often on the phone. I’d see them once a year or so when we made the long trek south to visit them and friends I’d left behind. Ten years passed, and I, and they, got older. Health deteriorated, strength waned, and they decided to move closer to both their sons. They chose Goulburn for friends who lived there, the excellence of the facilities, the ease of travel for the sons, and a smaller and more convenient house. They made the move, settled in. Then this.

I am reminded of my brother-in-law every day. He made me my beautiful American oak cupboard, where all my fabric is stored. It is known in this house as the Cupboard of All Colours and is a thing of solid, lasting grace. He was a skilled cabinet-maker, and once I told him what I wanted and drew it for him, he executed the design perfectly, adding details like the adjustable cedar shelving and the ability to take it apart for transportation. I have the design and his notes in a plastic sleeve taped to the inside, and it carries his brass maker’s mark. I will keep it forever. He left this and many other wonderful pieces as his enduring legacy, and the world is a duller, greyer place without him.

Vale, Willem. Sleep quietly.

10 is a magic number

Seriously, guys.

I can’t quite believe it… I got a notification yesterday. Who knew I’d find stuff to burble about for ten whole years, and there’d still be people putting up with following me?

Anyway, I just want to say thank you, to all the followers old and new, the likers, inspirers and commenters. It has been tremendous fun, continues to be fun, and will hopefully be fun for a long time to come. Let’s continue to share news, opinions, outrage, inspiration, resources and ideas. I thank you all for your generosity and kindness over the past 10 years.

I took a look back over my stats. In order of following, the top three who joined at the start, back in 2013, and are still with me now:

The Belmont Rooster

The Snail of Happiness

Tialys

You guys rock. Thank you.

Getting to grips with granny

Granny squares, that is.

Look, I don’t crochet. I know how to hold a hook and can form a chain and do a very simple back and forth, but nothing more interesting than that. And then last Friday I was faffing about in a dollar store while a friend was trying to buy ribbon, and I spotted a wild rainbow-dyed yarn, and bought a couple of balls of it, not really knowing why. Weellll, they were only $3.50 each, so not a big loss if I ended up donating them.

OK, then what? The other day, my hands were very stiff. I had to come off my pain medication for 2 days, waiting for a second round of medical tests, and everything was very stiff and sore. I thought maybe a spot of gentle hook action might free things up a bit. It did.

I’d never made a granny square and had no idea where to start. YouTube to the rescue, but videos that purported to be for total beginners were a lot too fast and seemed to miss chunks of rather important info. Eventually I worked out what I was doing – or not doing – wrong. By the end of day 1, I had an 8 inch square.

Colourful, but not terribly technical.

Two days later, that same piece is now 50 inches square, and I went back today and bought a couple more balls of the wild colour and one of black to be a border once it reaches small lap rug size. It’s not beautiful work, but it’s presentable, and although I know there’s a couple of mistakes in there, they don’t stick out too much.

It has been easy and entertaining, and took care of the hand stiffness, but unless I find myself addicted to the process by the end of it, I probably won’t be pursuing more advanced crochet as yet another hobby to eat up my time.

Still, it was good to prove to myself that I could do the hooky thing if I wanted to…

Signal fade…

Yes, I know.

There’s been a whole lot of nothing from this blog for an unreasonable length of time.

Because reasons.

I find as I get older (holy cow, when did 62 happen?) that my bandwidth narrows. Things that used to glide paste without a ripple affect me more. I have health Stuff going on. I have a lot more pain that I used to. I can’t stay on top of things as well as I used to. My memory’s getting fairly motheaten. I just can’t juggle so well any more. A week of things in the diary every day is slightly terrifying. Sadly, it’s this blog that seems to fall by the wayside when I find myself struggling a bit for time or energy. Sorry about that, peeps…

I will be making an effort going forward to be a bit more consistent. I have a pile of sewing projects that have been waiting for me to get back from our recent trip. I have actually completed unpacking the caravan and washing and drying the 5 loads of laundry. There’s still a substantial To Do list of domestic chores, none of which is blog-worthy. I have to paint the bathroom walls (fascinating, right?). Life goes on going on. I just need to find a way to make it blogworthy!

And now, enough of the justifications and procrastinations! We’re off to share coffee and peanut butter cookies with the Husband’s family this morning, and after that, I’ll be diving in.

Watch this space for creative output, coming soon.