The Last Week of January

Our week has been rather quiet, which has been nice.  

We did have a short outing on Australia Day to visit the old gold mining village of Sofala for their markets.

We arrived fairly early, before the main crowds.  The weather was perfect for having a wander around.

There are some interesting old buildings and it was nice to see the little businesses open for trading, in addition to the markets themselves, which were only small, but had some nice stalls.

We caught up with some friends for a chat and had a nice morning tea.

The little second hand book store had all their books at $2 each, so of course we had a look.  I was very pleased with my haul of vintage titles.  It turned out that the Abbey Girl books are duplicates of ones I already have, but at that price it was worth the gamble, and to find two Mary Grant Bruce books at that price was quite rare.  Once again, they may be duplicates, but worth the gamble.  The Ethel Turner was a nice addition to my small collection of her titles.

I just liked the name of "Bruce of Boonderong Camp".  I sat down the other night and read it.  It is a Boy's Own type of story, published in 1920, set in Melbourne and outback Queensland.  It was a lighthearted, stereotypical naughty boy makes good story.  However, reading it over 100 years after it was written, there were quite a few parts that are now considered politically incorrect.  It makes you realise how much has changed in that time.

I finally found another new recipe to try out.  It is a very simple blueberry custard crumble.  You just make a thick custard, sprinkle it with blueberries and top with a crunchy crumble.  

Definitely a success, although not all that photogenic when plated up.  The recipe has been saved for future use.

On the stitching front, things have been rather social.  There has just this month been a new patchwork group start up in Bathurst, meeting each Wednesday at a lovely old building that was formerly a convent.  I popped along for a couple of hours last week.  There were ten of us present, some handstitching, some using their machines.  

I just took along some hand stitching and it was a good time to start embroidering the antennae on my applique butterflies from last year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge project.

No photos, but I joined in with the Chookshed Stitchers  for a Zoom get together or a little while on Saturday.  I was going to save embroidering the rest of my butterflies for next Wednesday, but ended up completing them all on Saturday.  It was lovely to catch up with the girls, quite a few of which will be together in just a couple of months.

I have continued to go into the sewing room for 15 minutes each day, except Australia Day, as after we went to Sofala we were at a neighbourhood barbecue. There isn’t a great deal to show for it at this stage, but every little bit helps. So I have missed just one day for January.  Not too bad.  

I'm going to link up with Kate at Life in Pieces.

In the garden, our elephant ears plant has decided to flower for us.

And, our little golden rain tree that we planted eighteen months ago, is growing nicely, now covered in yellow flowers and a few of the pretty seed pods that follow.

Mick went been out fishing at Oberon Dam with his brother and my brother on Sunday.  They had a lovely time, as the water was perfectly still.  They caught a few Redfin.  Hopefully they can get out again before long, if the weather is right.

To finish off, here are a couple more photos from my morning walks.