Raspberries & lilies cushion

My lovely friend Heather gave me this fabric with lilies on it ages ago now, it has so many colours in it you'd be amazed. I teamed it with two gorgeous colours of shot crushed velvet from Denholme, (one of the last fabric manufacturers in the UK who by the way provided all the velvets for the latest Lord of the rings movie).
Now the cushion is winging its way to Singapore to my cousins as a present for entertaining us so royally on our recent trips.

Proper Easter snow

Well even though we travelled half way round the world to avoid winter, it came & slapped us on the face in the nicest possible way this weekend. The first time I saw snow here in the UK, Richard laughed at me because I rang him at work to tell him that it was "on everything, even the birdhouse & the hedge". I don't know why I thought it might miss bits out. We woke up this morning and it looked like this outside the bedroom window....no bird house but definitely on the hedges. We went to Church and sat spellbound through the sermon just watching those big fat flakes swirl around through the stained glass windows, just like inside a snow dome.
One of the reasons I love my Richard is he says things like "Let's not go home yet, lets go and see what it looks like in Quidenham" (or other exciting place).

After fun at Church, we went to the Man's place at Manor Barns, for Easter egg hunting. Clarry & Tess made a sensational Easter cake, soon after this photo was taken the chickens all caught alight. We were a bit late for general egg hunt hilarity in the snow but we did manage to warm ourselves up by the bonfire!!!!!! Billy was there in his slendid new Frog coat and Zeb made an appearance with his Mumma and his Uncle Matty and Aunty Sam.

I'm dreaming of a white.....Easter???

The weather forcast here is for snow. Snow at Easter? It's the earliest Easter since 1913.

I've seen a few fat flakes outside the window but nothing settling on the ground yet. The maximum is meant to get to 5 today. Richard was going to go to the boat but we decided 5 degrees and snow was beyond the call of duty.

It's amazing what sense Easter makes when it's Spring. To all those in the Northern hemisphere this is a given but if you live in the southern hemisphere somehow all those lambs & chicks & bunnies never quite make sense. I've had friends here in the Uk express great suprise that it could be Autumn in Australia.

I'm doing a spot of house cleaning because it's Spring...so far the fridge has been defrosted (full stop). As I wash the dishes & look out the window I've been smelling these hyacinths that I finally decided to pick out of our tiny garden.

To think of all those days we took for granted in Melbourne where it was sunny, sunny, sunny every day.

I wish for smellovision via the net....when will technology ever catch up with us.

Zebedoodle

Look who came over for a bath the other night.....

we're planning to show these specially at his 21st birthday party.

Cue song here...

'All the leaves are brown, and the sky is grey Change song here to 'A little ray of sunshine, has come into the world'. (Don't however keep singing this song because it's about a girl not the Zebedoodle)
Things are looking up.

Post holiday blues post

It's been frosty & cold & bloody miserable round here. So hard to come back from a holiday. All goofing off, sunny weather & no housework.
How does one delight in one's surroundings wherever one is in the world?
Spring is starting to comee through though. There are primroses out in my backyard and all the trees in the hedges are starting to be puffs of white. My morning walk now contains fields, cows, rooks, frost and the odd pheasant. No longer rosellas, cockatoos, heat, sisters & nieces.
Ricardo is working over at a nearby village called Great Ellingham, soundproofing the belltower. I have been over to help him for a couple of hours. There are 60 steps up Great Ellingham tower and no step is the same height or width as the next one. Bloody difficult to carry a sheet of plasterboard up when there's no handrail and no lights.

One for Amy..

While we were in Singapore we went out to dinner with my lovely cousin Jono & his wife Robyn. We went to a popular seafood restaurant & had sensational chilli & pepper crab... there was however a bizarre creature in the tanks of water at the side of the restaurant that looked slightly phallic to say the least. The Canadian Geo duck (pronounced gooey duck) is nothing like a duck but is a kind of burrowing clam. I wonder who on earth looked at this thing and went mmmm that looks delicious.

Needless to say we didn't sample any.

Not much happening,,,got a cold. More soon I promise.

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.
- Albert Schweitzer (1875 - 1965)
with thanks to Tony Backhouse for alerting me to this quote. xx

Jiggety jig

Well it's farewell to Singers, farewell to travelling, warm weather for a while and weird foodfarewell to family too.Hello to crisp mornings, snowdrops and daffodils, bellringing, friends and our own kitchen.

Big beautiful Sydney

There is age old competition between Melbourne & Sydney. A bit like New York vs LA.

Melbourne has a sort of continental dignity & conservatism whereas Sydney is brash, showy and exciting. I'm a true Melburnian at heart but I always love going to Sydney. It always seems to be warm. On on the plus side this means ...... Frangipani and Bouganvilea& on the minus side.... huge cockroaches .

The harbour is a sensation & I still catch my breath when I turn a corner & see the Sydney harbour bridge & the Opera house.

One of the other Sydney benefits is the amount & variety of boats.....it makes someone VERY happy...

We stayed with Ricardo's friends Jim & Helen. Jim plays blues harmonica like you wouldn't believe. Jim's always asking us when we are moving back to OZ. When I see he & Richard together I think we are committing a crime against humanity by keeping them apart.

Sorry Day

When the new Rudd government came in in November last year, it was one of their promises that at the opening of parliament this year there would be an apology to the Indigenous peoples of Australia. What a privilege to be here for this historic event. I didn't think I'd live to see this day where us "White Fellas" apologise for our sins in the treatment of Aboriginal people. Including the stolen generation.

It was only 41 years ago in 1947 that a refendum was held in which 90% of the Australian population agreed that indigenous Australians were allowed to be counted in the National census.

In 1962, the Federal Government gave Aborigines the optional right to vote. State laws, however, still classified "natives" as "wards of the state" and as such they were denied the right to vote in State elections. This is not ancient history.

This beautiful photo illustrates the hope we all have that words might make a difference. (From THE AGE website).
Quite a good website here too, to help understand.