Review of 2015 - Part 5 - November

Once again, if  you read my blog you would have thought that we didn't do much in November, but we were flat out.  Here's what we got up to.

As spring came along we were missing our vege garden, so Mick went and bought two raised garden beds.  That was at the beginning of October.  As we were enthused, we planted out then.  That is extremely ambitious for frost tender plants in this part of the world.  We normally get frosts up until November.  This year we had none.  Not one.  October was well above average temperatures.

Raised beds are the best.  You can see what is going on easily.  Weeds are right there, easy to pick out.  Add to that the fact that my Christmas present last year was worms, as we no longer had our chooks.  Worm wee is great fertiliser.  Maybe, just maybe, as the garden is small, just a stone's throw from the back door and we no longer have water worries we are looking after it....just a thought.

Anyway, things have thrived and we are enjoying it all.

The plants we brought from our garden at home have been doing well.  A friend gave us some raspberry canes, which we have just put in pots for now.  We can't wait to get them planted out in a proper garden.  I forgot to pick a branch of bay leaves from our old plant before we moved and we have discovered "Baby Bay", a nice compact version which is doing nicely in a pot for mow.  Our succulents are doing well up the stairs.

Of course, I had my annual outing with my friend Lisa to the open gardens.  This year we even talked Mick into joining us.  The day was cool and damp, but that didn't stop us.  Everything looked so fresh and green.  However, as October had been so hot, quite a few flowers were already past their prime.

There were a few new to us gardens which is always nice.  It finally started to rain while we were at the last garden.  We were so lucky.  A lovely day out, as always.

Next on the agenda was the Motorcycle Expo in Sydney.  We went along with a shopping list.  Our intercom is ten years old and starting to cause grief.  We came home with our Christmas gift to ourselves - bluetooth intercom.  We think we have it worked out.   I also required some new bike jeans for when we travel on Sophia the Moto Guzzi.  Something seems to have happened to my old ones while in the wardrobe and they no longer fit.  I just can't explain it.  While we were there we saw some lovely bikes.

The dealers certainly display their wares well.

There was even a display of the bikes out of the latest Mad Max movie.  I think they had a lot of fun putting these together.

While on the topic of bikes, we headed off for another weekend.  This time to the Butterball Classic Motorcycle Rally, based at Albury.  We used to attend this rally for a few years in the early 90s and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Life has since got in the way and we've never been back.  We heard that this year's is to be the last in this format, so we thought we'd better make the effort to go.  We are so glad we did.

We took the Friday off work and had a liesurely drive down (towing "Olga" the old BMW in the trailer), Young was our first stop, somewhere we normally drive straight through.  We discovered an old department store, which is now an arcade, complete with patchwork shop, with the most amazing staircase.  The weather was quite stormy on the way down and we were glad to be in the ute, rather than riding.  Lots of short, sharp storms.  There were some lovely bikes at the rally on Saturday and we were happy to see a few side cars.

The ride took us through the Victorian goldfields, ending up at Dartmouth Dam for lunch.  I had no idea that such a large body of water was in the area.  We then rode past Lake Hume on our way back to Albury.  We skipped the Sunday ride and headed for home.  We stopped at Gundagai to have a bit of a look, seeing as we had the time.  I had fun with some corkscrew grass.  Mick didn't know about it.  This was something we had fun with as kids.  First pick your long skinny grass seed.  It is actually about four seeds,  Gently peel them off their stem and pin them in your clothes.  Now watch as they curl around themselves like a cork screw.  You can see it didn't take much to keep us amused.  We made sure we left the seeds where we found them.  We don't want to introduce them to our place.  Our final stop was at the rose garden at Cowra, but they were past their prime, although still lovely to see.

I keep saying that we aren't very good at staying home.  This month certainly was a good example.  We were back in the car at the end of November, heading off to Braidwood for the annual Airing of the Quilts.  We hadn't been for a couple of years.

This year there was an extra feature to encourage a wider variety of people to the weekend.  The Vintage Machinery Club put on a display.  There were vehicles from Braidwood, Batemans Bay, Goulburn, Canberra and Yass.  They were all beautifully presented.  There were cars, bikes, tractors and vintage engines.  Well worth seeing.  Good on Braidwood for making the effort.

The markets were good, as usual and a few bits and bobs came home.

I was happy to run into Dzintra and her family while there.  We now look forward to catching up at Nundle.


On the Sunday we made a detour to Bungendore, as they had their quilt show on.  No photos allowed, but it was good to see some quilts hanging around the town.


Meanwhile, some stitching had to be done to send off to Carole in the USA for the Secret Santa Christmas Swap.  I made it on time.......just.


And, finally, the garden had progressed by the end of the month, with us picking zucchini, spinach, rhubarb and snow peas.  The feijoa tree at the back door was putting on a display and attracting lots of birds, which was nice.

So that wraps up November.  I'm tired just thinking about it, considering we were both working full time as well.  OK, we did take one Friday off.