The Samhain Report

Plenty been goin' on in the last couple of days.

Cleaned out the old car and prepared to take it to the dealership. Here's hubby extracting the battery which conveniently up and died just in time. Thanks, battery.

We tried out the new car's dining capabilities with some Macca's drivethru:

Had lunch at a cafe next to a chinese restaurant where I took this:

Saw a really cute little cottage for sale in the area we want. Gorgeous place, but alas just too small for us with all our sporting goods, not to mention all that yarn.

Then this morning we took a drive out to Terrigal, north of Sydney on the coast nearish Newcastle, where I took these:

As is our usual habit, hubby went fishing

while I sat knitting on the beach .

It's that same scarf again that I've been knitting for a while now. The one that started as a dusting mitt and just kept growing. But now it's changed colour as well. I'm kind of inspired by this scarf though:

It's the one I was wearing today and just something I picked up at some chain store somewhere or other. But i really like the colours - they remind me of Monet's garden - and the stitch. I think it's a set of three cables...can anyone correct me on that one?

Anyway, here's the first picture of me ever to appear on CravE, sporting said scarf. Prepare yourself for disappointment. Especially since I am wearing what wasn't in the laundry basket - please forgive.

Typical really

We picked up the brand new camper/car/spaceship on Thursday night and we've been getting all excited about camping out this weekend. We don't have a mattress fitted out for the back yet so we were going to be sleeping in the tent. So it was kinda typical when we woke up to rain.

So instead we are going to spend the day measuring the back of the car and getting a camping mattress the right size, and we're going to see a house that's been on the market for a while. It's really cute - an old fashioned little cottage. It might be too small though. But it's in the area we liked originally, near the bush.

Tomorrow we'll probably do a day trip out to Myall Lakes, which was going to be tonight's camping destination.

An ode to a car

It's getting to that time of year again (Southern Hemisphere Halloween is a week away) to say goodbye to the old and make way for the new. And, very appropriately, this week I have to say goodbye to my beloved little red car.

This car has seen me through thick and thin. It spent years getting me to and from the snowfields every weekend when I lived in Canberra. It managed the long trips between Canberra and Queensland. It suffered with my demon driving for 6 and a half years (brakes? what are they?) - it sports an appropriate sticker on the windshield to attest to this fact:

But now, as it hits 19 years of age, I have had to face that its time is finally coming to an end. Time for it to make way for the big and shiny replacement we bought yesterday! We have been hunting for a van for some time. We wanted something we could sleep in the back of on a mattress, and throw the mountain bikes and a pile of camping gear in with us for trips away. In the end, we saw this:

A KIA Carnival (and hubby, beaming proudly!). We had not previously considered a people mover. Partly because most of them are pretty daggy and yet pricey as well - way too much for people like us who don't want to spend bucketloads on all the comfort stuff a lot of these vehicles come with - but also because most models have the back filled up with seating that you can't remove and we really wanted that big empty space to do our own thing camping-wise. This one however has a very low price tag (we talked the salesman into a HUGE bargain for last year's model) and actually worked out to be lower than the price of the cheapest van we were looking at, but has a lot of great mod cons as well. Here is the back, with one set of back seats removed - the other set can also be completely removed (and note that when folded the seats turn into little tray tables - hehe).

So our friends can expect us to start hassling them to go on camping trips with us soon - hehehe. And for anyone who's worried we'll be a little chilly camping in it in the winter that's coming upon us, do not fear - the floor is heated!!!

A bit more autumn

Hubby and I drove out to Mt Tomah Botanic Gardens for lunch yesterday, at the foot of the Blue Mountains, where I took these shots. The mountains are starting to get pretty cold this time of year so we had to rug up. I loved it - the air is so crisp and clear. It makes all the food taste better.

Here's the Wollemi Pine again. It was heartening to see that it looks a lot healthier in its native cold climate. It was also nice to see this garden, unlike the city garden who had a sign referring to the plant being inbred, had a sign marking it as an inspiration of perseverence and hardiness.

It looked even better in amongst the vegetation. This is how it would normally grow - nestled amongst thick bush hidden away in a cool moist gully. Everywhere you see them they are heavily guarded with barbed wire and fencing. They were selling some of the pines at the gardens shop for $60 - I guess they have problems with people trying to sneak into the gardens and pull one out of the ground for free.

Roll up, roll up...

It's the Sydney Royal Easter Show!

Roll up and see these amazing feats of knitting...death defying lace that your eyes will hardly believe!

I didn't put anything in the show myself, but you can see the work of Meg in the bottom left hand corner there. You can see a more revealing photo of it here. We were shocked that the judges didn't award her a prize or even a commendation. She was robbed I tells ya! On further inspection we decided that the main prizes went to items that included more than one lace stitch in the pattern and that also had very accurate blocking of edges. So now we know what will be required of us next year (yes I am hoping to enter something next year- I'd better start now!).

I do have to ask what the judges were thinking though...why did this "Feathers" yarn blanket get a prize...

...when some poor person slaved away at an entire rug-full of intarsia and still came away empty-handed?

There were loads of other nice things to see though. Here's a quilt that I thought earned its ribbon:

And although as a rule I hate crochet and don't find this piece appealing at all, even I have to admit that this is one damn fine piece of work. Such tiny stitches, and so much detail.

So far all this work was very serious. But wait...here comes someone with a needle and thread and my own bizarre sense of humour:

This suave-looking fellow had a label identifying it as the "cat-a-pillar"! There were plenty of other handcrafted toys there too, with a category for knitted toys - I think that might be the category for me next year, rather than the lace. Here's the competition:

But yes, if you were wondering, we did leave the craft pavillion eventually! We made a stop at the woodchop:

...and in the horticulture pavillion:

...and saw some fine barnyard beasts:

Goodnight...oink!

View from a teahouse

Looking out through the stained glass windows of Queen Victoria Building after having a cup of tea there this morning:

Two kinds of crazy

Pirates out on the town in Darlinghurst on Friday night:

A delicacy found today (served cold) in Chatswood, Sydney's true Chinatown:

Getting a little chilly

Yesterday was a day for doing two of my favourite things - revelling in autumn, my favourite season, and wining and dining with hubby. I'm only working part time at the moment - it's hard to keep your mind on the job when you're loopy on painkillers - so after work I went over to the botanic gardens to lie in the sun for a bit. The weather's had a sudden cold snap and I'm loving it. Nothing gets me more excited than the prospect of winter drawing nearer - a chance to wear all those handknits! (I think the lady above could use a couple of woollies too.)

Autumn in the city is colder than anywhere else in Sydney. It's always warm when I leave Manly in the morning, but the wind in the city really howls down the alleyways and the buildings keep all the sun out. The Gardens are always warm though. Right next to the Harbour they get the fresh sea breeze, and the shadows cast from the city buildings only reach them at the very end of the day.

This is the spot I picked yesterday for a bit of a snooze. Nicer I think and quieter than the spot where everyone else seems to want to congregate, around the ponds:

Call me a hermit (it's true, I am) but I like to hide away from the crowd and find a bit of the park that I can call my own. And sometimes there are rewards to going to the quiet places. While I was lying on the grass I heard flitting and flapping right behind my head. It would come and go every couple of minutes. I rolled over when I heard it and saw this little guy on the grass next to me swallowing back a lizard. He'd been sitting in a small tree over my head and hunting for things around me as the sun went down.

I did a bit of a wander too, in search of the Wollemi Pine, an ancient and very rare tree found only in a couple of canyons in the Blue Mountains:

After hearing so much about it I confess I was expecting something a bit more impressive. Something that looked like it could withstand dinosaurs and the ravages of time. To add insult to injury, this straggly little thing bears a sign that mentions how "inbred" it is.

To end the day perfectly, hubby and I went to a restaurant that has been around for many years but which is new to us, La Guillotine. Amazing food. If you like French and a cosy atmosphere you have to go. The perfect place to warm up after a cold day. And of course we ordered comfort food - I had the pate for entree and for mains the duck with cherry and kirsch sauce. Hubby had onion soup to start and a main meal of the chateaubriand. Everything was perfect, including the service which was spot on and well worth the money. My favourite was hubby's onion soup which I stole for myself! I would have taken a photo of its cheesy crouton-filled perfection, but before I knew it there was none left!

Knit one bone and cast off

Finally I post again! I have hidden myself away from society for several weeks now, nursing my purple cocoon and waiting for the big day when the doctors crack it open and reveal a beautiful healed arm. Well they did last Tuesday: see arm here triumphantly holding knitting aloft. Also see big scar!

Sadly, the butterfly I'd hoped for turned out to be a bit of a moth. Not just because it's pretty sick and scraggly looking, but also because of it having been dislocated in the wrist as well as being broken higher up - I have now found out from my physiotherapist that this means the wrist is not likely to ever be quite as flexible again, and that I can expect it to feel the joys of arthritis sooner than my other joints. Obviously this has me worried about my knitting. On the plus side she said I would never be able to do push ups again - oh what a shame that is, cry, cry, sob.

Anyway, there is now a lot of work to be done to rehabilitate it. Appointments with endless specialists keep me busy every day, and every waking moment there's an exercise or stretch that needs to be done. It really is a full time job. But, thankfully, attempting to knit again is one the things that will help the arm along. I've started out by picking up something I started just before the accident. At the time it was going to be a dusting mitt for a friend who just moved house. But I've decided to just keep on knitting and turn it into a scarf.


It's a fun simple stitch to do (line 1: k2, *k2tog, yo, k1* repeat, k2. line 2: knit to end) and also produces a diagonal edge that's a bit awkward for a dusting mitt that needs to be doubled over and sewn, but will look nice on the end of a scarf.

So far I can only manage 2 or 3 very slow rows at a time so I can see I'll be posting about some non-knitting items in the meantime.