glory day

We drink in the Town and Country

Every so often David's extended family come together for a weekend of catching up, hanging out, eating/drinking too much, playing games and generally just being a family.  I owe what little knowledge I have of non-Sydney NSW to travelling to these gatherings.

This year the family event was held at Umina Beach, on NSW's Central Coast.  We were able to get there by public transport, which was a major plus for us - neither of us drive and sometimes the negotiation required to travel with others does my head in - and it was really quite a nice spot.

I know I've blithered before about how much I love David's family, and how they have always been welcoming and warm towards me.  This weekend I really enjoyed hanging out with two of the girl cousins (aged 14 and 16) - girls of that age (I have a niece who's 15, and I include her in this generalisation) seem to be so much more together and grounded than I ever was at that age.

We all stayed at the Ocean Beach Holiday Park,  which was a great choice.  We all had little individual cabins like this:

and the park is planted out with native plants, so we saw a wide range of native birds feeding outside our cabin:

 

(not pictured: the awesome bush turkey.  Note to all native birds: please don't turn up until I've had my morning coffee, as until I've had it I won't be able to remember where the camera is).

There was a beach nearby for walking and shell-spotting:

 

and on Saturday night we came together for a shared meal and a DVD presentation of a few generations of family photos.  It was amazing to see so many facial features passed around among the generations.

It was lovely to catch up (albeit briefly) with so many cool people, and to meet the newest member of the family.

On a side-note, I am completely  enamoured of my new camera.  There was a spider's web outside our cabin:

  

which CrappyCam  would never  have captured.

Also, I don't really think of myself as a high-maintenance girl, but I packed our suitcase on Friday and I could barely lift it.  I'd thought we'd be ok with the wee suitcase, but by the time I was done the big suitcase was totally over-filled.  I could barely lift it (and I ripped the lining in my coat when I did) but I managed to wrangle it to Central station.  So perhaps I am high-maintenance, after all.

Today we arrived home to a very  grumpy cat, and watched the tape of the worst  All Black game in (to my mind) nine years.  So then it wasn't just the cat who was grumpy.

Stealth ninja attack

In news completely unrelated to my search for the perfect wrap dress, my dear friend Ke gave birth to her baby boy very early this morning.

I can't wait to meet him.

But it's the start of something new.

Sunday is my Inspiration Night.  I don't know whether it's because for so many years it was the night before going back to work but on Sunday nights I always fill a few pages in my "ideas" diary. 

I swear the last two days have been the coldest so far this year.  There has been much snuggling under blankets and mooching around the house.  Poor David has come down with something throat-y and is currently sick and grumpy.

My camera finally died - what is it with me and the bad electronics this year?  This is the last photo I managed to take that was recognisable:

I mean, you can kind of see it's a cat in a shoe-box, right?  Every photo since then has just been a mess of pink, white and purple lines.  So I'm calling it over.

This camera has never worked properly, even after an extensive working over from the manufacturers, and it's only because of my frugal, hates-to-admit-defeat-and-throw-anything-out nature that I've stuck with it for the past four years.  I've spent the day researching a new camera and hopefully I'll be able to replace it soon.

Last night we went to Ke's place for dinner, which was absolutely gorgeous as usual.  The Potato and Brie Tarts!  And this divine chocolate creme brulee that David cannot stop talking about.  Not only was it a fantastic dinner but Ke is having a baby in two weeks.  I'm sure that if I was about to give birth* I would be lying on the couch calling for more chocolate, but she went all out on a Farewell to Freedom dinner.  Thank you, Ke, and I love you lots.

*obviously we would also be on the planet Jupiter, as an alternate universe is the only place where I could get and stay that pregnant.  But I hear it's nice this time of year!

There has been rugby watching all weekend - NZ Maori narrowly (far too narrowly for my liking) defeated Fiji, and the All Blacks demolished England (even if they did fall asleep in the second half).  We didn't go and see Uni play as I still haven't re-tailored my Uni jersey - seriously, this thing was designed by an engineer who has never met an actual woman.

Month of Sewing My Clothes
Number of projects completed to date: 8.  I'm not doing very well at staggering the "needs to be started from scratch" pieces with the "just needs to be hemmed" pieces.

Showers and blankets

Last weekend was Ke's baby shower - the cue for De and I to start cooking as many bits of finger-food as our ovens could hold.  We think it went off ok and that everyone had a good time, and Ke got so many presents!  It was really quite overwhelming.

A few of us chipped in together to buy a pile of gifts and naturally De and I did the shopping for it.  We bought a whole pile of little outfits, toys, books - really just a whole lot of stuff that two women who don't have children thought would be useful/appropriate:

And then I wrapped it all up (and as wrapping presents counts among my top ten hobbies that was just a huge amount of fun!) and made a new cover for the wicker basket (the old one had brown and pink spots.  Unappropriate).

Then it was time to make blankets (blankets!)  De and I collaborated on one blanket - she made the top, I made the bottom then I quilted the two together - but I don't seem to have a photo of it.

But I have a photo of this one:

Of course CrappyCam insists on putting a purple wash over everything, so the colours are better here:

where an out-of-focus cat is "helping" me to finish basting.  It's a black, white, teal and grey patchwork blanket with a layer of batting, a teal polar-fleece backing, and it's edged in black satin.

I love this blanket.  It was the first I'd ever done, and when I [finally] finished I was just so damned proud.  I really hope it gets used a lot, because a lot of love went into making it.

5 Best Things #1: My SisterWives

The best, best thing about our holiday was hanging out with De and Ke, AKA my SisterWives.  We're not sure how that term came into being (we're really close friends, perhaps as close as sisters and we are all married/partnered?  That sounds like a reasonable explanation, sure) but we refer to each other as the SisterWives - and we also use the term as a verb, as in "are we SisterWiving tonight?"  It's a thing.

We were picked up from the airport in a limo, which, of course we're obviously such limo people.  We wore sunglasses and posed like rock-stars.  After settling in at the Awesome Resort we went out to the markets (I bought some black pearls) then had lunch and decided to do a bit of grocery shopping.

And it started raining, like really raining.  We scampered from overhang to overhang but still wound up at the supermarket drenched (although the hideously insanely overpriced umbrella we bought at least meant my hair product wasn't running into my eyes).  By the time we arrived back at the Awesome Resort I was a bit frazzled, but the rain had mainly stopped so we jumped into the lagoon pool:

Best. Decision. Ever.  We chilled out, swam a bit (not me), made up stupid stories, De sang a song about her toes - it was just what we all needed.  Over the next few days we went on excursions in various permutations of togetherness, watched movies, ate dinner (and in Ke's case, cooked dinner), talked a lot and generally had a lot of laughs, relaxed and enjoyed the holiday together.

I don't really take photos of other people (probably because I hate having my photo taken and it seems rude to do something which you won't do yourself, if you follow) but here's De feeding a kangaroo:

and Ke feeding a kangaroo:

I'm so very lucky to have my SisterWives.  I think it's awesome to have two close friends who will support me and challenge me through everything (and frankly I'm a bit shocked that two such amazing women want to be my SisterWives).  Spending time with them was 5 Best Things #1 of my holiday.

5 Best Things: a Prelude

I've just returned from an amazing holiday in Tropical North Queensland.  I'm not really a summer or a tropics person, but De won a voucher to stay at the Peppers Beach Resort so she, Ke and I spent 4 days in Port Douglas together.  Awesome.

I've mentioned before that I tend to get a bit overwhelmed when trying to describe things, so I like to do my 5 Best Things after I've had a bit of a think.  So far I've whittled down the photos from 484 to 185 (and most of those were camera error, grrr), and I promise not to post more than five at any one time (maybe).  Actually all the photos are of trees, butterflies, birds and various other nature-related things, so they're of limited interest to anyone who isn't me.

I'm going to have to break up the 5 Best Things a bit otherwise it'll be the post that ate the internet.  But here is the view from our apartment:

Champagne and friendship, oh my!

I spent this afternoon with Le, drinking champagne and chatting.  Such a lovely day!  We shared confidences and stories of lost youth; compared jowl sizes and made plans for the future.  Marvellous.

Marvellous: the state in which the weather in Sydney has not been.  With the rain and the thunder!  And the not-drying of the laundry!  And the wailing of the cat, poor thing (oh sure, he acts like he's the alpha but a little bit of thunder sends him running straight back inside).

I am still completely bogged down trying to sort out David's shirt pattern.  How can it be both too big AND too small?!  And my camera is still bogged down in the state of not really working, or I would show you the nine flowers budding on my peace lilly.

Normal-ish service will resume once I have dealt with these troublesome things.

And with this we conclude birthday week

Yesterday was my "Sydney" birthday - a riot of cheese scones, prawn toasts and champagne poured from china teapots.  I started this tradition last year (can you even call it a tradition after only one year?) and it's a guaranteed good time.

This is how the table looked at some point yesterday afternoon:

full of scones and tarts and eclairs and sandwiches and the odd champagne cork.  A wonderful day full of good friends.

At the moment I'm flat out trying to get the last few advent calendars finished - I'm at the boring 'sewing things on' stage, which takes a couple of hours for each calendar.  And when that's finished I've got all sorts of ideas for the next few projects, and I'm looking forward to diving in there.

Although, um, I haven't actually done the dishes from yesterday's brandy snap and 10 bottles of champagne extravaganza, so I guess I need to factor that in as well.

If a picture really was worth a thousand words this would be longer

Now that I have given Re her birthday cushions (only a month late!) I can show them here.

I made her two cushions with two different personalities, one for her lounge:

where she likes deep, rich colours, and one for her bedroom:

which is more pastel and girly.

And the Necklace of the Day is the one I wore today:

blue lace agate, lapis lazuli, silver, glass

It's another old favourite that I've been making and remaking for years now.

No sewing so far

I've had a really productive week drafting patterns, but it's a bit frustrating to have, as it were, nothing to show for it. I loathe pattern drafting, almost as much as I loathe cutting, so forcing myself to do a whole pile of it was really useful and necessary. If a tad boring.

I've also been having a few frustrations with my sewing room. It's in the attic which is freezing cold in winter, and insanely hot in summer - consequently I only get about a week every year when it's enjoyably useable. And I don't really know if there's an answer to that problem without radically re-imaging some other part of the house.

Goodness, what a first-world problem "my sewing room is not as comfortable as I would like". At times like this I remind myself just how very lucky I am (and feel slightly ashamed).

But I do need to do an awful lot of sewing over the next few weeks, so I'll either just have to put up with the attic, or come up with alternative arrangements quickly.

Weekend plans include going to see The Cure with De tonight, meeting up with an out-of-town friend for sushi lunch tomorrow, then dinner at De's place. Sunday will be a quiet day of hand-beading and watching movies. I think that's a nice mix of things for the weekend.

And because the internet is for cat photos, here's a photo of one of my fabric sideboards, minus the a lot of the fabric but with added cat:

This is one of his favourite places in the world, possibly because it is one of the 'forbidden' areas.