A Very Belated September Update

After returning from our trip away, back in mid September, we seemed to hit the ground running.  I have just been looking through my photos to see what we actually did.

Of course, we went to the quilt show in Sydney.  Then we bought “Rosie” and sold “Snubby”.

We also sold a little Honda CT90 that Mick did up as a COVID project.  I never did get around to blogging about it.

Our lemon tree needed to have its huge crop harvested.

We used them to make some lemon butter, something we haven’t done for years.  We should do it more, as it is such a simple process.  Hopefully, we will have another, larger crop of lemons next year.

Of course, when you make lemon butter you end up with leftover egg whites, so a little batch of blueberry friands were made.  Although there were no new recipes tried, it was nice to revisit these that have not been made for a very long time.

The weather warmed up enough for us to have our breakfast on the back verandah.  It was so nice……then, of course, it turned cold again.

The garden continued to wake up, with our crab apple putting on a great show

The bees were loving it.

We experienced our first thunder storm of the season, providing us with a double rainbow in its wake.

I like to change out the little shelf in our kitchen each season.  It was fun to hunt out a few items that feel like spring.

I thought there would be more to share, given we seemed to be so busy, but looking back, much of our time was tied up with buying and selling vehicles, which involved a lot of mucking around.  Mick then spent quite a bit of time starting to tidy up “Rosie” and plan her fit out for camping.  For me, it was spending time in the sewing room.

It was nice to be back home and getting on with life.

Bye Bye Snubby

“Snubby” the silver sidecar has been a part of our life for over twenty years.  We picked up the bike on Mick’s birthday back in 2002.  It was one of the first shipment of the model into Australia.  We enjoyed riding her as a solo, towing a little trailer with our camping gear and even shipped her to the UK to travel around for two months over there.

We crashed in outback NSW in 2008, fortunately with no real damage to either of us or the bike, but it cured me of riding on dirt.  Mick had always liked the idea of a sidecar, so took this opportunity to add one.  He really enjoyed the process, as it was quite an engineering challenge.

We continued to have lots of fun holidays travelling this way, even upgrading to towing a camper trailer.

You can see more photo of her over here.

Gradually, he made improvements, the most recent being the leading link front suspension.  Snubby has won several awards for “Best Engineered”.

Snubby has 115,000kms on the clock and all of those were for having fun.  She was never a commuter bike.  

However, times change.  

We thought we would be out and about on the bikes more now that we aren’t working, but to date that hasn’t happened.  We now do our travelling with our caravan, rather than with the bike.  She has done less than 1,000kms in the last four years.

After much consideration, Mick decided that it was time to pass her on to a new owner and on Friday she headed off to her new home in Victoria.  

Maybe, a tear was shed, but it was the right thing to do.

However, we still have “Olga” the old girl BMW sidecar and some other bikes to enjoy.

Another Week Over

I’m finding it interesting to try and remember what we got up to in the last week.  It never seems to be much, but once it is written here there is just a bit.  I suppose the fact that we are not having to try and fit everything around going to work makes life much more relaxed and enjoyable.  So, what did we do?

On the stitching front I seem to be setting a trend of not sticking with any one project, rather jumping from one to another.  I probably need to settle on something and finish it soon.

Firstly, I finished cutting out the background for my Denyse Schmidt project.  It is now nice and tidy in a project box, waiting its turn.

Last week I mentioned that I was in the process of adding the borders to my Twister Quilt.  I told myself that I wasn’t going to bed on Tuesday until it was finished……..So, I cleaned the bathrooms, pulled everything out of the big hall cupboards and tidied them up, did the washing and ironing, cleaned and descaled the coffee machine and my iron……in effect, just about anything to avoid adding the border.  

Finally, at about 9 o’clock at night I bit the bullet and went into the sewing room and got stitching.  I hadn’t realised how big this quilt would be.  It is 84 inches by 75 inches.  After only quilting a tiny baby quilt it will be quite a jump to quilting this on the frame.  I’d really like to have it done in March, but will do a couple of more small ones first and see how I go. 

Here it is, ready for the next step.  I do still have to piece the backing and fortunately, I will have just enough fabric for that.  I now realise that I have not made the binding long enough, but will fix that up a little later.

Ages ago I made a pile of bibs from a couple of panels I found hiding in my stash.  However, they haven’t had their snaps added, as that is another job that I just do not enjoy.  I have been using the metal snaps and quite often they don’t go on properly.  Anyway, my neighbour’s grandson needed a few bibs, as he is teething, and this was the good excuse to get them finished, so he could have a couple.  Yes, more dramas with adding the snaps.  I have now been shopping and have a pack of a squillion colourful plastic snaps.  They should last me for the rest of my life.  So much easier to apply.

It is such a good feeling to finally have them all completed.

At my stitching groups I have continued to work on my EPP Dresden sections.  I now have enough for two sides of the quilt completed.  If I continue to get four done each week, they will all be completed by the end of March.  I would be very happy with that.

Finally, I have once again picked up my knitting needles.  Remember a couple of weeks ago I had started a scarf/shawl and said how I was rather obsessed with it?  Well, not long after that I dropped quite a few stitches, in the pattern section.  I tried to pick them up and continued to get in more and more of a muddle, so I decided to rip it back to the garter stitch section, but still had no joy picking up the stitches.  By then I was over it, so ripped out the whole thing, back to the start.  Even as I did it, I didn’t mind too much, as I knew I would enjoy knitting it once more.

On Wednesday I started over and have now passed where I was up to previously.  Yes, I’m really enjoying it again.

I have completed my 15 minutes each day last week, although most days it wasn’t all that much more.

My tally to date is:

15 minutes day/week = 7/7

15 minutes day/February = 25/26

15 minutes days in 2023 = 55/57

Success rate = 96.49%

I’m pretty happy with that.

I’m linking up with Kate from Life in Pieces.

Now onto other things.

Tuesday was Shrove Tuesday, so we had to enjoy some pancakes for breakfast.  Yummo.

We’ve been making preserves again.  This time Tomato Sauce, using my Grandma’s recipe.  There is another pile of tomatoes sitting on the kitchen bench, so more cooking this week.

We were out and about on Saturday, as the annual Bathurst Street and Custom Motorcycle Show was held in the centre of town.  Mick took in “Floyd” the new to us black BMW and “Snubby” the silver BMW sidecar.  “Snubby” didn’t want to start, so a jump start was required.  He nearly stayed home.

It was a good thing that Mick did take him in, as to our surprise he won the trophy for “Best Engineered Motorcycle”.

We had to laugh, as Snubby would have been the scruffiest bike down there.  However, all that red section at the front is rather technical and not something that was just bought off the shelf.

Two of our mates also won their sections, which was pretty nice, as most of the bikes were from out of town.

The number of bikes on show was huge and it was just as interesting looking at the the bikes that just came as lookers.  The streets were lined with motorcycles.  A great thing for town, as most were visitors and many stayed for the weekend.

Here are just a few of the variety of bikes on show.  Lots of sparkling chrome.

Later that afternoon we went for a drive out of town.  Some friends had gone camping and we popped out for a short visit.  

They were camped at “Flat Rock”, a popular spot by the Fish River, out at O’Connell.  You can see why it got its name.  There are lovely big, flat granite rocks by the river.

It is a really pretty spot, and was looking lovely with a nice flow.

On Sunday we went for a drive as well, this time visiting the Sofala Show.  It is always a nice little country show to attend.

After a few years of entries being down, the pavilion was looking good.

We didn’t stay all that long, as it was quite warm, but it was a nice little interlude.

So, that wraps up another week, and nearly, but not quite, another month.  I can’t believe how fast time is flying.

I’ll be back with a wrap up of the month and March’s goals next.

To finish, here are our nice bright crepe myrtles.  When we bought this house the back corner was a thick shrubbery.  We notices a tinge of bright pink just at the top of fence height and were surprised to find two crepe myrtles.  They have grown quite a bit since and add a nice pop of colour to the garden at this time of year.

Out and About in October

Considering we had just returned from a big trip, we were out and about rather a lot during October.  Where does one begin?

We arrived home just in time for Bathurst’s busiest week of the year - the Bathurst 1000 car race.  Although we have no interest in the race itself, we love seeing the town come alive and like to go and have a look at the street parade on the Wednesday.

There are always cars on display in the shopping centres and various businesses around town.

This was the first year that the race was back to full capacity after the pandemic, so it was really disappointing that the weather was so bad.  Yes, it rained on their parade.

Firstly, the race car transporters drove through.

Followed by the racing drivers. Some were lucky enough to be in hard top cars, but those in the sports cars made use of umbrellas.

On Saturday they have a Street Fair in Kings Parade in the centre of town.  We weren’t going to go, but it was advertised that the Cricket T20 World Cup would be there, so Mick wanted to have a look.  Well, it turned out that the Cup itself wasn’t there, it was just a promotional thing.

Mick tried to hit a six using a virtual reality bat.  No luck.

We watched a fellow playing with fire for a while.

There were hardly any people there in the morning, because, as you can guess, it was raining.  The roving photographer for the local paper was there and we ended up with our photo in the paper.

The next event was my favourite Church Fete.  Can you believe it - the weather did play nice.  What a pleasant change.  I assisted with the White Elephant stall, as most of the parishioners are rather elderly.  The day was very successful.

That was on the Saturday and on the Sunday we went for our motorcycle ride on Snubby, the Silver Sidecar.  

The motorcycle club in Orange held a small bike show in the little village of Millthorpe.  A few from our club rode up to have a look.  There were some really nice bikes there and it was nice to catch up with some mates we don’t often see.  Yes, the weather was nice for two days in a row.

I loved the seat on this old little Honda.

One of my friends and I have been planning a day out to Katoomba for ages and we actually made it happen.  Of course, the weather was rather bleak, but fortunately, not too wet.  The main purpose was to visit a little wool shop called “The Granny Square”.  

Don’t you like this lamp shade.  So simple and clever.

I need more wool like a hole in the head, but of course I came home with some.  I really liked this cowl on display, so have bought some of that wool.  I’ll probably use a different pattern, but I just love the subtle colours.

The wool is hand dyed.  I had recently come across a simple beret pattern, so bought some dark green to match.  I’ll share more soon. Oh, and a couple of other bits and bobs came home too.

Over the road was a “Street Art Walk”.   Let’s have a little stroll.

As can be expected from such a creative area, there was lots of other street art as well.

I loved these wrens.

We visited the famous “Carrington Hotel”.  The interior is rather grand, as expected from such an imposing facade.

It was a lovely day out and I’m sure, now that I have time, we will have some more.

Are you tired yet?  There’s more.  We really did do a lot in October.

Mudgee has an annual “Sculptures in the Garden” that we like to attend.  We didn’t think we would get there this year, but on the Wednesday the weather looked like it may be OK.  

We drove past lovely crops of canola and hope the farmers will be able to harvest it when it is ripe.

Windermere Dam is full, for the first time in 27 years.  All this water flows into Burrendong Dam and then down the Macquarie River, which is flooding.  The rain that has fallen since we were there will have kept things at capacity, so the flooding downstream will continue for some time.

As we drove into Mudgee we could see rain all around the district, but we were so blessed, as we did not receive a drop on us while were at the exhibition.  Here are just a few of the sculptures.

Back home, we attended another art exhibition. This time at the Bathurst Regional Art Gallery.  It was all works by Linda Jackson.   I remember from her association with Jenny Kee, “Koala Blue” and “Flamingo Park” back in the early eighties.  She was quite a trail blazer.  Her work had such a variety of styles.  The exhibition was titled “Romance of the Swag” and featured art depicting several of the areas we have recently visited.  Just stunning.

There was a caravan and camping show down at our showground, so we went and had a look.  There wasn’t a lot there, as many exhibitors were unable to attend, due to the wet weather and road closures.  It was still fun having a look at caravans and realising that we are very happy with the one we have and wouldn’t swap it for any on display.

We did come home with a sticker for our van.  It is now official, we are “Off to See the Wizard”.

The last event we visited was the local open gardens, which we attend every year with my friend Lisa.  They haven’t been on for the last two years, so it was nice to be out and about to see them.  Once again, the weather for the weekend was actually nice, before reverting to wet the next day.  Here’s a little taste of what we saw.

Phew!  They say that once you retire you wonder how you had time to go to work and it has been a bit like that this last month.  There is so much to see and do at this time of year.  November will be the same.  Having said that, there is too much, as there are so many things we would like to see and do, but already have other commitments.  Not a bad situation to be in.  We will never be bored.