BEAUTY AT IT'S BEST

Went outside this morning to have our breakfast and we were greeted with these beautiful roses and Easter Plant in full bloom.  During the night we had 6mm of rain and this only added to the beauty of the plants.  Obviously with some Photoshop have managed to zoom in really close to the second rose picture. Hope everyone has a good day.

ANCIENT WRITINGS ????

As you can see from the photo this is a very weird thing.  We had cut a tree down in October last year and turned the stumps into a bird platform.  Over the months we have noticed that as the bark falls off we are left with all these funny squiggles.  We think it might be some kind of beetle that was in the tree.  The ants have also found this stump to have things into eat or nest and there is a trail of them climbing up on the left hand side of the photo.

On my health side things are not so good, so am seeing a Phyio guy today who comes to our health centre, so that is great not too far to drive.  I will have to let Brian drive me as the increase in the medication is making me quite dizzy. The weather can't make up its mind today, first it was sunny, then we had a few speckles of rain, then the sun came out and not it is very dark.  Obviously I am interested in the weather today as I have my washing on the line which by the looks of things had better come inside.

We went up to see Beverly and Sarah and Sarah's toe is really look good, so hopefully it wont regrow.

I also ended up this morning taking a picture of our front door, my friend in South Africa has just bought a unit and apparently the door looks the worse for wear.  As it is an 8 panel door Brian suggested some like ours so I will attach a photo

TRANQUILITY

This particular picture is on my computer as Wallpaper.  It was taken of the Tweed River in New South Wales while we were on holiday.  I have a passion for trees and could just

see the beauty in the tree and the river combined. I also love photos that do not have an ending, I love photos such as rivers going off somewhere, steps leading to something and so on.

Am off to the Doctor this morning to see what is what with my back which is still giving me problems. Oh me Oh my !!!!  Never mind will overcome this hurdle like so many that I have had with regards to my back.

It is a beautiful day in Brisbane today with bright blew skies, a cool breeze and sunshine, what more could anyone in life want. Oh yes I forgot  !! a good back.

A GREY OLD DAY

Well here we are Sunday 23rd May, the morning started out with lots of sunshine, so quickly did a load of washing and got it on the line.  The sun didn't last long so once again we have damp washing hanging around the house,  grrrrrr !!.

We went to the Working with Wood Show yesterday, and there were some lovely things to buy but all at a cost.  It is becomming so expensive to go to these shows because although we had free tickets to get in due to us helping our club, the parking alone was a total rip off at $10.00, we did however manage to get under cover parking so that was a plus. I managed to buy some nice wood for my Pyrography which included Queensland Maple,  and we helped out at the Ipswich Wood Crafts Stall for a few hours.  The Brookfield show was last weekend and we had a good day with Brian as you know winning a first for his bird of prey and Sarah achieved a 1st and a 2nd for her Pyrography with a total of $30 for her and $50 for Brian.

Some photos from the Brookfield show with some of the work on display for sale as well, including the three carvers with Lyn who is the Chief Steward.  One of our members with his beautiful 13 month old puppy, he breeds these dogs and this one in particular was so friendly, but oh so big.  !!

Did a lovely Roast Lamb for lunch today with vegies, potatoes and mint sauce, Oh so yummy, opened a red and a white bottle of wine and used the good glasses and our two wine coolers, with our beautiful African table cloth, I always feel the right glasses and the right table cloth adds to the ambieance of the meal.

Amazing Achievements

Today was a very special day.  Every year there is a wonderful Country show on for 3 days called the Brookfield Show.  It was at this show last year that I won a first for my Pyrography of a Kookaburra.  This year I managed to persuade Brian to enter one of his carvings in for judging and also young Sarah (12) entered two of her Pyrography that she had done, one being a beautiful angel for her mommy.  When we arrived at the show today, we discoverd that Brian had won a first for his Bird of Prey and there was a $50 winning prize as well as ribbons and certificates.  Sarah went one better and she received a first for her Angel and a second for one of the computer characters she did for Matthew's birthday, both in Pyrography.  She received ribbons, certificates and $20 for first prize and $10 for second prize.  I am so proud of both of them.  Keep up the good work and have another go next year. Sarah's photo of the Angel was a bit difficult to photograph as it was in a glass case, but this gives you an idea of how well she has done.

A PROUD GRANNY

I was a very proud Granny today when the photo of Beverly and I that was taken by Sarah was printed in the local QT Times.  Sarah did a fantastic job and there was very little that needed doing to the photo to make it into a stunner, such as a border. Well done Sarah, Granny is very proud of you as is Mom and Dad and your Uncle Ian and family in South Africa. Keep up the good work with the creative side of your life.

MOTHER'S DAY

Yesterday was Mother's Day and both Beverly and I are lucky to be Mother's together. Beverly invited us up for a yummy roast beef with vegetables and was much appreciated. It is funny though that unless you as a Mother go out to eat we end up spending the time doing the same thing we do most days. Just as well we are good at it. !!!! In the afternoon Ian came through on Skype and everyone was singing "Happy Mother's Day" to me.  We also wished Wendy a happy day and she said that the children had made her some beautiful gifts, there is nothing more special than a home made gift especially when they are so young, well done girls.    Beverly had given me some new Creative Memories papers and stickers so I was in my element, we were both saying that it is lovely to give something like CM than flowers that don't last.  I hope everyone enjoyed their day

POSSUM'S

Although this post is a bit out of date, it is important that I post these photos of the Possum that visits our garden on a nightly basis.  Ivan and Bevelry have discovered that a Mommy and baby and a Daddy are living in the palm trees next to their pool.

We regularly feed the possums with a smorgasboard of fruit containing, bananas, grapes, apples, paw paw.  They just love it.  The long black tail in the middle of Mommy's tummy is actually the tail of the new baby.  Quite fascinating.

Bevelry and Ivan discovered that the Mother possum had a baby in her pouch and I was able to photograph them the other night.  My grandchildren in South Africa want to see these photos hence the post that is a bit out of date.  Their Daddy will show them the photos on my blog especially as the blog is available to them at home after school hours.

Enjoy the photso Michelle and Laura Ashley

Love Granny

LABOUR DAY LONG WEEKEND !!

Well labour was the operative word this long weekend.  We decided that as we had been given a lovely 3m x 3m double door shed from our neighbour about a year ago, it was now time to try and make some place available to erect it.

It will be great to have it up as we then can store the ride on mower, the chipper, the wheelbarrow, the hand lawn mower, the garden tools etc etc.  This will mean we don't have to keep moving cars etc to get this or that out.   The decision was made to put it at the bottom of the garden.  What a good idea !!!. Well yes, but first we have to move tons of compost which was in the way.  The compost that we started 5 years ago is fantastic with amazing plant matter that has rotted down so and which is so good for all the plants.  After we moved the compost then we had to start to lay a base for the shed to stand on, this took forever and stone is so heavy to move. Anyway over the past few days we have achieved all of this and now we have to get up enough energy to actually put up the shed.  We need to go and buy a few corners and bolts etc but it is not everyday that you are given a shed this big, I would say probably about $2000.00 so not to be sneezed at.

During the moving of all the compost we had the usual visitors to the compost heap as we were all working and turning over all the mulch.  The butcher bird was continually in our way as every spade we dug up he decided that there was a meal for him.

Then along came our resident Eastern Water Dragon. (Brian's best friend).  Brian usually talks to him and says "Hello Mate" and the stupid thing turns his head. He is not scared of us at all.  Between Ivan and Brian they were finding all these huge juicy Witchett Grubs, and were throwing it to him.  I hope you enjoy the attached photo of one in his mouth. They do not have teeth and have to open there mouth very wide and swallow it whole. The inside of his mouth is a bright orange.

The Aboriginal people have found the Witchett Grubs to be a delicacy for them and very high in protein, and is a stable meal for a lot of Aboriginal's in the outback.  Needless to say after 5 or 6 of these grubs he scrambled away, totally full !!.

Yesterday as I was getting dressed I noticed through the windows a lot of amazing spider webs that had attached themselves to both the water tank and the trees.  I have enclosed a photo of these as well.  The whole web seemed to be host to at least 6 or 8 Orb spiders and in one case they have made little pouches for all the new babies to hatch in. 

We are truly blessed with wild life in this garden in Karalee, and none of us take them for granted.  We nurture them, feed them with natual products and as a result we are awarded with a splended aray of insects, birds etc.  At last the day has ended but a big thank you to everyone who worked so hard, there were lots of laughter especially when Brian was trying to show Matthew how to tip the stone from the barrow correctly.  He lifted the barrow up and said "now Matthew this is how it is done"  The next thing there were skrieks of laughter from everyone as the barrow went one way and fortunatley Brian managed to stop himself flying over the top of the barrow.  What a laugh, of course the camera was not present at that precise moment.  A very tiring but rewarding weekend and am sure there will lots of moans and groans as everyone tries to get up in the morning. Am sure the general thought will be "Thank goodness I have work today (Ivan), Thank goodness there is school today (Matthew and Sarah).  Thank goodness there is Uni today (Beverly and Elizabeth) Thank goodness I can get on with the woodwork (Brian) and me well back to the usual grind of cleaning, mopping the very very dirty floors, ironing and washing and cooking for us all tomorrow night.

50 Years of Memories

It is 50 years today that Brian and I had our first date at the Saturday Easter Regatta Yacht Race dinner at the Point Yacht Club in Durban South Africa.  The only reason we are so sure of the date is that Brian's mother obvioulsy was a keen "scrapbooker" as we found a newspaper cutting of Brian and his father racing the Graduate yacht that they built.  After the race Brian and I went to the dinner and the rest is history.  The photo shows various yachts racing and Brian and his Dad are on the right hand side of the photo with the number G40 on the sail. They finished second which as a good result.

It is also going to be 47 years on Tuesday 20th April 2010 that we will have been married so this is a special time in our lives. Enjoy the two photos.

THE PUBLISHED PHOTOGRAPHER

Oh I am ever so proud of myself, my picture of the Galah (post 29th March) was published in today's QT Times.  This makes number 5 if I am correct.  Oh dear I am going to get ragged at the wood club again tomorrow.  Tough luck, if they can't be bothered to get out there in the beautiful world and caputre something nice with their cameras, then they must get on with it and sulk.  Hee Hee

A good result

Well after a very hectic Thursday when I had to have a Nuclear Cardio Perfusion done at the x-ray department which took about 4 hours, mainly most of it sitting around waiting for this and that. Yesterday afternoon I went to pick up my results as I am seeing the Doctor on Monday, and opened them up to discover (in my own medical way) that the final result of all these tests over the past 7 months have still found nothing wrong with my heart.  I obviously am delighted but in a way knew they would not find anything.

It was an interesting procedure to have radio active dye put into the blood stream so that these amazing machines could monitor the dye both at resting heart beat and at stress heart beat.  The dye would give the Doctor an indication if there was any kind of blockage that could have been attritubted to that nasty episode in October. I am not fit at the best of times but was sure pressed to do more than I had ever done on a tread mill.  This leads me to believe that I must get on with the big task now of trying to do more exercise.

This morning have been busy cleaning the big lounge window and now we can actually see out into the garden.

Life is good

LIFE IS SO SHORT

Life is so short so we should make sure that every waking day of our lives we live it to the full, we tell the people whom we love that we do love them, embrace each and every day. A terrible tradegy took place a few days ago not far from where we live.  A young couple who had been married about 18 months had built a lovely house and they both worked so hard in the garden.  Apparently she was a nurse at the Mater Children's Hospital and did a lot of good work with children.  I think her husband was in IT.

Anyway she obviously had been out in the Ute and bought some hay and was off loading it when the Ute rolled down and crushed her against the retaining wall. Unfortunately with the properties being quite large, no one heard or saw anything and it was not until her poor husband arrived home from work at 6.30 that she was discovered. Unfortunately she was already dead.  Life sure is cruel sometimes.

So however is reading this, live life to the full, tell those that you know and care about that you love them, never go to bed without saying goodnight to your husband even if you are having an argument with him, one never knows what tomorrow will bring.

So on that sad note, this is just to say "I love you"

EASTER SUNDAY

A very happy Easter to everyone who reads my blog.  Brian and I went with Beverly and family to our Anglican Church this morning for an Easter Sunday service.  The Ministser by the name of Father Matthew gives the most interesting sermons and conducts the whole service in such a wonderful manner it makes one feel so good. The morning was fairly long as a beautiful little girl was being Baptised.  It so lovely to see her in the traditional long gown and Father Matthew involved all the young children in the congreation to be part of the service.  What was especially beautiful was that he had the little brother of the baby help him put the holy water onto her little head. He also then had the candle lit and asked her brother to hold it for him.  What a wonderful person to be able to hold everyone in this large Cathedral in the palm of his hand. He truly is a Man of God.

Managed to do 14 pages of scrapbooking yesterday and today we received lovely Easter eggs (not good for the waist line), we are also going up to Bevelry and Ivan later today to have a lovely Turkey dinner.  Matthew absolutely loves the stuffing that Ivan makes for the turkey so we know for sure we will all have a lovely time.

Ian and Wendy are away on a holiday in the beautiful mountains of the Drakensburg and we will keep him and his family in our prayers today for their safe return in a weeks time.

CREATIVE MEMORIES BOOKCASES

I now have two new bookcases, one being especially for the CM Albums.  Brian has made this one deep enough to take the albums without them hanging over the edges. I am very thrilled with them.  Beverly came down to say Hi, so she was able to take these two lovely photos of me showing off my husband's handwork.  We are so lucky that he does such beautiful woodwork.  He has started on Beverly's this morning so it won't be long before she can show off as well.

Good Friday

Well here we are again, "Good Friday"  I have to say that I really miss the wonderful church service at St. John's Anglican Church in Diamond Creek, it was always such a beautiful service and then everyone walked down to the Oval with one of our senior members carrying the cross, to join in with the other churches. Many cars passed us by with many people giving us a hoot on their horns.  After a general service with all the other demoniations then everyone joined in for Hot Cross Buns and a cup of tea or coffee.  Both Brian and I have not found a church we feel comfortable with but maybe we are reminded today that we need to make more of an effort on our own part.

Spent the morning helping Brian to sort out his carving woods and also managed to dump quite a bit of wood that is of no use.  We then had beautiful fresh salmon done on the BBQ with some salad.  Had decided to make an effort today to do some scrapbooking to keep up with the challenge that Michelle Eades set us, but have not suceeded today. Oh well that is life.

Will give Brian a hand tomorrow to put together Beverly's bookcases which will take all her beautiful CM albums that she has created over the years.  I know I am enjoying the bigger bookcases for my own albums.  With her doing digital she will have more space than she ever dreamed of.

QT Times

I was very thrilled this morning when we arrived at woodwork and one of our ladies Pam brought me yesterday's QT Times.  Once again the paper had published my photo of the Passionfruit Flower that I took a few days ago.  I must be doing something right !! or perhaps it is just a case of no one else sending photos in and they are desperate.  Never mind I was still thrilled. Neither Brian nor I had a very productive day at the club today. Brian was helping a new young man start carving a Goose and I was struggling with something I was trying to do with the pyrography, only to find that the actual picture I copied it from was totally out of perspective. The picture was taken from a professional book, but obviously not that professional otherwise it would not have been so wrong. Grrrr.   Maddening that's for sure

Silly Mr. Galah

A real dull old day today, nothing moving, and no sun at the moment.  We have just been up to wish Matthew a very happy 16th Birthday today.  He is so tall he towers over Brian and I.  Where have the years gone.

While we were sitting having breakfast outside this morning I noticed a Galah sitting in the tree.  He didn't appear to be a very happy bird, they usually are so alert, however he was just sitting with his head in his wings.  Initially I thought he was asleep so went inside to fetch the Camera.  I managed to get very close to him and he just occassionally lifted his head.  We are hoping that he is not sick so will watch him carefully, in case the other birds attack him.   I did manage to get a photo of him, and hopefully Ian this is in focus a bit better.  Thank you for your comments on the other one, yes it is a mammoth task to get the focus right, especially when I am still using Auto !!!.  Naughty Mom, you are saying.

A PASSIONATE TIME

We have an enormous Wild Passionfruit vine at the bottom of our garden.  The birds are having a wonderful time both in breaking up the flowers and then biting off the ripe fruit.  I took a walk down to the bottom of the garden to see what was what and thought that the flower of the vine is so beautiful.  Just as I was taking the photo a beautiful dragon fly landed near me. As Ian knows these are so difficult to photograph as they are very quick and flighty. Anyway for what it is worth here are the two photos.

SOAR LIKE AN EAGLE

Beverly and I were standing in the garden on Thursday when she spotted a Wedge Tailed Eagle flying overhead, with 2 or 3 Plovers dive bombing him.  As is usually the case the camera was inside the camera bag which was inside a cupboard so by the time I had run in and fetched the camera, he was way up in the sky.  I have managed to get a tiny photo of him and with the aid of Photoshop cropped it till at least you can see the bird.  He circled overhead for at least 10 minutes catching the thermals, however all the time being bombarded by lots of birds.

QT TIMES PUBLICATION

It was with great excitement and pride that I discoved on Wednesday, that the photo I took of the strange fungi in my flower pot had been published in our local papers.  The QT Times newspaper is distributed all over the Ipswich area and it is actually the biggest of the Ipswich local papers, it is also sold for $1.00 in most newsagencies with the main Queensland paper "The Courier Mail"

I had submitted the photo shortly after taking it, and on Wednesday at carving, one of the ladies had made the effort to cut it out of the paper and bring it in for all to see. My word did I have a bit of a swollen head.  I have had quite a few of my photos published, one being the caravan in the mist, the other of the Tawny Frog Mouth and now this one. I will have to keep up the good work.

LAZY DAY

Well today I decided to have a lazy day.  Was up and about quite early and did the bare basic chores, then settled down to catch up on some "Taped" Programmes.  Watched an Episode of "Survivors"  then watched last night's "Australia So you think you can dance", really good series this year.  Cleaned up the two new bookcases after Brian had been  sanding them down, so they are now ready for varnishing, then had lunch and watched "Dr Phil".  Now it is almost time for "Judge Judy", so yes I have been a total "Couch Potato".  Hmmm what a pleasure.  Most unusual for me to just do nothing. Now off to make a nice cup of tea. Hope your day was as lazy as mine.

MEN AT WORK

Oh dear me !!!!,  Unfortunately Beverly & Ivan's pool has a leak in one of the pipes. The pool man managed to identify where the leak was but it is buried way down in the ground. Ivan and Brian and Matthew got stuck in to see if they can find it themselves but up to now some 6 hours later, still no luck, there are lots of trees in the pool area and therefore hundreds of roots running all through the place making it so difficult to dig. They are also scared to use the pick as it might puncture a pipe then they are in real trouble. Hopefully by the next blog they will have been able to find it. The pool man will come back on Monday and fix it.  

Brian's Carvings

Well here is another go at posting some photos Ian took of Brian's carvings.

MOSES

Oops, have no idea how the picture of Moses that Brian cared, has arrived in such a big format underneath my beautiful flower, I had wanted it to go into "Daily Photo" Oh well there it is, for all to see, now need to call on the help line (Beverly & Ian) to remove the darn thing, I suppose I will get the hang of this stupid thing sooner or later.

BOOKCASES IN THE MAKING

From the humble beginnings of long pieces of board, they end up being transformed into beautiful bookcases made by our resident cabinet maker.

Brian is busy making me two more bookcases and Beverly will have three, these have been specially designed to take our Creative Memories competed Albums. The standard book case that one can buy (and they are never as nice anyway) are too short to take the albums with the result the albums hang over the edges.

He has made all the mouldings himself and these two that are being worked on are for my computer/spare room. Once these are finished he has three to make for Bevelry to go into her study for her Albums as well. I think in total between us and Beverly and family, these, once finished will be number 15. No the wonder if anyone asks him would he like to make one for them, they get a resounding NO.

Beverly and I had a lovely breakfast at the Coffee Club this morning as a treat for her for their 21st wedding anniversary. Unfortunately Matthew is still quite sick so she is having to take him back to the Doctor today, what's new !!, wedding anniversary or not, hubby at work, washing still needs doing, and now sick kids. She says she is having take away tonight, that's for sure.

Well almost 2 full days of sun. Everyone charging around with their lawn mowers, washing hanging on all the lines and in general a good feeling around. They are still expecting a bit more rain but hopefully by Monday it will have cleared up.

We went to the movies today to see "The Blind Side" for which Sandra Bullock won the Oscar, it was a true story and very well acted indeed.

A quick pop into our local watering hole and we had a lovely Roast Pork, potatoes and about 5 different vegetables, a beer and a glass of wine went down very well indeed. Yippee, I don't have to cook tonight.

Well here we are the 9th March. It is now day 12 that we have had some rain, mist and in general darn miserable weather. It looks like it might clear up by Sunday. Dams are so nice and full so that is good and it was pleasing to hear our Premier say that everyone has got so used to only using 200litres person over the past year or two and in fact most people were using less that she is not going to lift the restrictions. It is a good thing in a way, most people waste water, such as washing drives down instead of just sweeping them.

Both grandchildren are sick this morning so I am taking them to the Dr while Beverly and Elizabeth go off to Uni. Nothing too serious but probably needs some medication.

Visitors in the night

Overnight there sure was magic happening in our garden. I have quite a few pots on my patio and we discovered these amazing yellow fungi growing among the geraniums.

Well today is our grandaughter Sarah's 12th birthday. Happy birthday sweetheart. Dear oh dear me where has these past 12 years gone? answer: "Ever so quickly"

Well once again we woke to pouring rain, it just does not seem to stop. I was up at 6.30am and emptied another 9 mm out of the rain gauge. With 45 minutes the gauge had another 10mm in it, fortunately no driving rain or wind but this constant downpour.

We are fortunate though compared to people in Charleville and Roma in central Queensland and now the deluge is on its way downstream to a town called St. George. They are expecting their river to rise to 14.5 metres, it is far to difficult to comprehend that. Apparently the last record of 14 metres was in 1890. Cattle are drowning,, fences completely washed away, very sad. We are hoping to take a trip to our two big dams tomorrow to see if we can get some photos as 3 of the 4 dams are overflowing which is wonderful news

Sweat Blood and Tears

Poor Beverly trying so hard to sort out this blog for me. No photoshop work done on this photo, we were using this photo as a test.

Well done Beverly, you had me on the right track and I appreciate your help in doing this. You like me didn't realise I was not typing in the "compose" section, but with Ian sending me through the e-mails, he picked up what I was doing wrong.

I have decided to post your photo so everyone can see how you were working away at my machine instead of on your Uni work.

SECOND PHOTO TODAY

Ian wanted the photo a bit bigger of the bar so am having another go at this now.

Posting Photos

A photo Ian took of Elizabeth and I at Mt Tambourine on the Skywalk

Hi everyone, second post for today, main reason is that Ian has kindly sent me two
e-mails to help me get the photo where it should go, so am going to work through it and see if I have any luck. Thanks Ian

Ok here goes, someone come back and let me know what you see !!!!

Daily Photos

Over the next few weeks, I am going to try and put some photos on the Daily Photo section. This allows me to give you all something new to look at each day.

The one posted today is when Ian was here on holiday in November, Beverly took this lovely photo of us all sitting at the new bar that Brian had made for Ivan. It has a variety of different woods in it, including Spotted Gum and Huon Pine, the Huon Pine is very rare these days as it is protected.

About 13 years ago Brian and Ivan managed to secure some old floor boards which looked like the pits,they kept telling us that it was Huon Pine, which of course we just laughed at, but once sanded down it was absolutely beautiful.

Well another day almost gone, where does time go to. I took both children to school this morning, only to find five minutes later a very distressed Sarah on the mobile as she had left her sports bag at home, so off I charged and managed to get it back to her in time. She was very grateful and I got lots of hugs from her. Beverly said she was a bit upset this morning before leaving for school as she has PE today as well as a Piano lesson and unfortunately the lesson is in the middle of the PE which makes it very difficult for her, however Beverly tells me she is so proud of Sarah as she went to her Piano Teacher and asked him could he try and re-schedule her lesson, which he kindly has done. She is growing up so quickly and taking command of things that she feels are not quite right. WELL DONE SARAH . !! We have had rain on and off all day with patches of sun and then more black clouds. We have had another 10mm since 7.00am this morning and although that doesn't sound a lot, it is if you add to the past 2 days. Many towns have been cut off and in one town they had to evacuate all the hospital patients and fly them down to Brisbane as there was no power or equipment. The headlines in the newspaper this morning were that it is going to add millions of dollars to the economy with the farmers grinning from ear to ear.

Blog problems

Hi everyone, I have removed all the photos that were posted before. Beverly is helping me to try and sort it all out as they should have been done differently, so please be patient with me. Thanks a lot

Ok, Ok, enough rain please, everything is absolutely soaking with roads flooded, towns cut off, dams overflowing. Since Monday morning to this morning we had 109 mm of rain, since 6.30am to 2.00pm today we have had another 23 and it is still raining. The humidity is very high and everything you touch is so damp. Washing hanging all over the place, so now enough. STOP.

Brian and I did volunteer work today at the Ipswich Hospice Book Store. I did threaten Brian with his life if he bought any books, and guess what !!. I ended up buying two. We mainly were there for about 5 hours and helped sort, tidy, price all the books, there are hundreds. Craft books, knitting books, nature books, travel books, poetry, crime stories etc etc and so on. A book lover's paradise. Although the weather was pretty grim there were quite a few people who felt the need for a book. After leaving there we stopped off for lunch which was a lovely Roast Pork and potatoes and vegetables and also apple slice and custard and plum pudding, which I had. the total cost for the 2 courses was $6.95, can't complain about that, it also means I don't have to cook tonight. Yippee.

Morning everyone. Well after a very restless night with the rain arriving with a bang and then dissapearing again just as quickly, it was a case of up and down checking windows. I woke up quite early and as I was making tea I could hear the family dog "Abby" crying at the front door. I assumed that she wanted to come in as all the grass was wet, however decided to leave her a bit longer. After a short while I decided that there was something wrong so opened the door and she just flew straight into the house. I then realised what the problem was, a hot air balloon was landing in the fields behind our property. She is totally terrified poor little thing, so we comforted her and she lay down in our dining room. Every time these balloons come down they make quite a lot of noise as the slow themselves down to land safely by blowing the gas and it does make a noise. Poor little thing.

We woke to the news that there has been a tragic 8.8 earthquake in Chile, and that a Tsunami warning has been posted all along our coast line. Such a tradegy in Chile, am sure there will be many many deaths recorded. Fortunately Ivan was not on one of his many trips to Chile as he goes there quite regularly. He is away at the moment but in the USA. While watching the news it was incredible to see that people were taking no notice of getting out of the water. The lifesavers even had their safe flags up, who would be so stupid to go into the water. In the past 15 minutes though the lifesaves have closed the beaches and asking people to leave the beach. At this stage the authorities have no idea to the size of the waves. We have heard from our friends in NZ and from what they can gather they have had a rise in the sea level of 50cm. Hopefully there will be no major damage on Norfolk or Lord Howe Island.

Welcome to my New Blog

After many years of using old typewriters, electric typewriters, I was persuaded to get a computer. I was very reluctant as I had been typing on ordinary typewriters since I was 12. However I was soon hooked on the computer. Whilst in South Africa, I was not connected to the Web but used the computer most days to write "snail" mail. After immigrating to Australia and with help from both my daughter and my son I am now taking the first big step to have a "Blog" I love to read family and friend's Blogs as it keeps me up to date with what is happening in their lives.
Beverly has kindly helped me to get up and running with this one and as you can see I have called it DinoDot. For those that don't know why I would call the blog by this name, it is because over a period of 15 years, Brian and I have made thousands of Wooden Dinosaurs, the money from the sale of these lovely toys have made it possible for Brian and I travel around the world both to the USA and back to South Africa, with both our children providing air tickets for us for which we are eternally grateful.

We no longer sell the dinosaurs at markets as with age and arthritis catching up with us it was becomming a bit of a burden. Brian has been able to devote more time to his wonderful carvings and I have taken up Pyrography. We are members of the Ipswich Woodcrafters Club and have a great social day out and the more experienced members help us with our hobbies. With Beverly having been a Creative Memories consultant since 2000, I have become an avid scrapbooker. I have always loved photography since a young child as my father used to do all his own printing and developing and I have very fond memories of being the the dark room while the magical pictures came to life. Now I have been given a beautiful Cannon Camera by Ian and I still have lots to learn about this new camera but it certainly takes fantastic photos. To say that the whole family are big photographers is told by the fact that with Ian visiting Australia for one week only we managed to take between the 3 of us 1105 photos. We have a beautiful 2 bedroom home built for us by Beverly and Ivan on their property and it is so lovely to be close to our family here in Australia to see the grandchildren achieve their goals. Unfortunately we are not able to be with Ian and Wendy and their two girls but with the modern technology these days we are able to keep in touch via Skype.

I am sure I am going to be able to post photos and write up my blog most days, so this is certainly going to be fun.