glory day

Now I must rush and watch 'Merlin'

SEWING:

A quartet of shiny knit skirts.

I have one more knit skirt to sew but I'm going to put that off for a bit.  Next up some banded tops (ie, plain tops with patterned bands around the neck to wear under other tops) before moving on to something completely different.

LOVING:

The weather.  It's been perfectly Goldilocks this week - not too hot, not too cold, but just right.  If only Sydney could always have this weather I would be very happy (and my whinging level would go right down).

Ah, and as I type this I see it has started to rain.

ADMIRING:

A thread-holder-thingie that a fellow volunteer put aside for me:

I love how all the spools of thread look like funky wee coloured test-tubes.

Pretentious and arrogant, certainly, but definitely pretty too.

Look at my pretty apron - vintage Australian wine bottle labels on Polish linen:

I feel the need to take up baking again.

On Friday a large group of us went to Encasa for a birthday party.  I had been drooling over the menu all day, and it wasn't until we got there that I found out we would be eating from the set banquet menu.  That news nearly broke my heart, seriously. Luckily I wasn't actually able to eat most of the banquet dishes (onion allergy FTW!) so the lovely waiter agreed to bring me a steak with a cream and prawn sauce.

It was divine and I positively swooned.  A tender, juicy steak, plump prawns, creamy garlic-y sauce and little bits of fried potato - I would marry this dish if I could.  I'm sure David wouldn't object.  And I shall be having this dish again.  Divine.

Mr Puss works that blanket like a champ:

On Saturday we watched the All Blacks lose to France.  After the inevitable wailing, rending and gnashing it was all a bit of a relief, really.  For the past few years the AB's really haven't played well yet they still keep managing to win (except for that debacle of a World Cup, obviously).  And because they've kept winning they haven't really addressed some of the basic problems (cough*coaching staff*cough).  Hopefully a home loss to an NH team will force some changes, and hopefully we haven't left it too late for the 2011 World Cup (oh please oh please).

On Sunday night we went to see the Fire Water presentation, which was a huge disappointment.  Despite watching from the Opera House as suggested we couldn't see very much, and what we saw didn't look that exciting.  We debated hanging around for a later session but couldn't really be bothered. 

The lighting effects around the Harbour were fun - particularly on the Opera House - and while we took about 957 kajillion photos none of them really came out.  This photo of the Harbour Bridge isn't too bad:

Actually that photo looks a hell of a lot better if you click and enlarge it, otherwise my apron looks three times the size of the Harbour Bridge.   Strange.

David and I were reading in the paper the other day that Sydney is not regarded as a pretty city, but that's just such bullshit.  Any city that has the harbour and the Rocks area (not to mention Hyde Park, Manly, Darling Harbour, I could go on) is a very pretty city indeed.

Even the cat likes it, and he doesn't care for many things

It is not true to say that people only volunteer to work in op-shops so they can have first pick of the incoming goods.*

So in completely unrelated news here is the gorgeous velvet bedspread I got from the shop this morning:

*that's simply one of the perks.

Nostalgic for something I can't quite remember

I have to say that a trip to ikea is not my favourite thing. While they do have some quite nice stuff I really hate traipsing through the warehouse surrounded by people who don't walk quickly. Usually by the time I've reached checkout I'm ready for a cup of tea and a wee lie-down. However a friend needed curtain advice, so Saturday was spent at ikea.

Where I just fell in love with these:

They're not my usual style, but there was something about them that made me so nostalgic for my childhood home (where, to the best of my recollection we didn't have rugs like that) that I had to buy them. And they'll look nice in the attic, which has an over-arching decorative theme of "green".

We went to the movies last week to see Black Sheep, a New Zealand movie about killer zombie sheep. It was mostly hilarious - dragged a little in the third quarter but was overall well worth seeing. And it did make me quite homesick - thank god we'll be visiting New Zealand next month! Can't wait!

Today I went to Freedom for this:

I'd seen it there a few weeks back, and I really need a new jug to replace the lovely green glass 50's jug that died in CatSmash '06 (our cat hates coloured glass - boy, is he ever in the wrong house!). And I couldn't stop thinking about this sleek little stripey number, and how nice it would look, so I went back and bought it. Sadly it really doesn't go with our mish-mash of other stuff - most of our stuff is quite old-fashioned, and works quite well as a sort of retro/vintage/shabby chic arrangement. But this lovely contemporary jug made everything else look shabby, rather than shabby chic.

However I think Ke will like it, and it's much more in line with the sorts of things she has. And I'd been trying to think of a way to thank her for helping me out with my job-hunting stuff, so there, that's that sorted.

Next week I'll go to That Vintage Shop and see if there's anything there. Bonus, another shopping trip.