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February 11, 2013

Feb-ru-ray, the first ten days but no cake

I’ve got four days left at my current job before I embark on a big change and go off to be an accountant. I’ve made three cakes to farewell others in the last 10 days and I’ll be making another one tomorrow night for one of the guys who is posting out on Wednesday. All those cakes will be in another post shortly…

On Saturday I went up the coast. After having my farewell party the night before. I was very good and only had four drinks all night. One of those was a frozen apple pie cocktail. That wasÂ divineÂ Just like drinking an apple pie. So, so, so good. Â Saturday was not classic beach weather but the water was nice and the waves were quite decent. An old Woodfordia friend was having a vintage garage sale on Saturday -> thus the reason for the trip up the coast. I picked up the mostÂ divineÂ Osti shirt dress. So, soÂ divineÂ and just the loveliest colours. A photo may appear at some stage.

Going back to the day before, Friday. Friday marked Chan’s last day working for the company and it marked a week left for me with the company before I change jobs as well. Big things abound for the both of us this year. We’ve been desk buddies etc for the last 18mths 🙁 We met up for one last coffee atÂ Pour Boy, the best coffee consistently in our end of town.

I took my first box of stuff home the other day. That’s the first time it really hit me that I’m changing jobs. Nothing says change like packing up five years of your work life and then walking out the door with an archive box filled to the brim. I’ll bring another box home tomorrow and that should be just about everything I think.

I’ve got my eye set on a few events later this year which mean I need to get my fitness back to a pre-uni and pre-flood level. I moved away from Asics GT 2100 series that I’ve lived in for the past x years and picked up a pair of Mizuno Wave Inspire 9. OMG, I enjoyed my Asics but these shoes are like playing in a whole new ballpark. They’re light, just the right bounce and by darn they are blue.

Just like almost every other house in SQLD, the Â mock oranges have flowered and then of course it rained so off came all the petals. Will have to give the patio a very big clean on the weekend as those petals almost bake onto to the tiles. Fun times. People keep commenting on the scent when they visit but I smell nothing 🙁

Chan finally had dinner at Catcus Jack’s after hearing the rest of us at work rave about it for for the past few years. Chocolate Nachos, so, so, so good. One time we will go to Cactus Jack’s and have dessert first I think.

Last Sunday, I finally got my beach wish for the summer. Blue skies, great weather, open beaches, perfect water temperature and darn decent waves. I’ve tried a couple of times this summer to go to the beach but every time I’ve beenÂ thwartedÂ by crap weather, closed beaches or last minute plan changes. The girls at work near on couldn’t believe it that I finally got my beach day.

Just loved this detail on the Ladies change rooms at North Burleigh.

I picked up a tray of strawbs at the start of the month for $9. Hello strawberry jam!

Strawberry jam, cooling so I can test it for set.

Strawberries, sugar and lemon juice waiting to become jam.

Glass jars all washed and waiting to go in the oven before they get filled.

And one last picture for this lot. A snipped of one of the baby quilts I’m making at the moment 🙂 Just love that May Gibbs fabric.

There we have. The first ten days or so of Feb-ru-ary in photos.

January 15, 2013

A visit to the Royal Tasmania Botanical Gardens

In the family I’m from a stroll round the local Botanical Gardens is always in order when one goes visiting a new town. There’s new plants to see, old ones to admire and just a lovely time strolling the paths.

Of course one of the few things on my must do list for Christmas in Hobart was a visit to the Gardens. le Sigh. I love those gardens. I didn’t get to fully explore the Japanese Gardens this time, just had a quick rush in to take photos of theÂ Ginkgo biloba.

Oh and a little snap of theÂ Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum cv. Utsusemi) as well.

Highlights included this Rhododendron Azma in the Rhododendron Terraces

Mum and Margaret did a lot of this. Botanising we call it, both of them with their BSc hats on.

My favourite area of the garden on this trip was probably theÂ DeciduousÂ Lawn and the Oak Collection. Â I had a very nice time taking photos of backlit leaves. The angle of the sun in Tasmania makes it so nice for taking backlit photos.

Like this one (unlabelled tree).

or this one (English Oak Hybrid (Quercus x robur))

or this one (Pyramidale Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum)).

My most favourite photo of the outing was this one, a very quick photo as we got back to the cars. Taken just like that because the light was just right. My cousin Erica and her little bear.

Aren’t they just special?

If you want to check out the rest of the photos from our jaunt to the gardens, head over to Flickr to my Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens Set

October 21, 2012

happythankyoumoreplease

watched Happythankyoumoreplease the other week whilst on sick leave and whilst parts were weird, parts were sad and parts were darn funny. There was this one scene that just about summed up a part of me oh so very well. More so than I think I’ve ever summed it up myself.

Annie: So, what got you into photography?

Sam #2: Oh, I wouldn’t call it photography.

Annie: What would you call it?

Sam #2: I love taking pictures, I guess.

Annie: Okay. Well, why do you take pictures?

Sam #2: Umm.. I don’t know.Â When I see something I like looking at, I get to keeping looking at it.

That last line, right there. Yep. “When I see something I like looking at, I get to keep looking at it”. That’s why I take pictures. I like how something looks, or the way the light falls on an item. I take a picture and then I get to keep looking at it.

These are three such pictures.

October 11, 2012October 11, 2012

The Hippeastrums say hello

Well I must say I hadn’t planned on it to be over two months between posts but such it is.

In that time uni has been well uni. It’s my last semester and and the two subjects I’m doing are ones that require a lot of brain wrangling.

I had a birthday. I’m now 27. Gosh, it’s hard to think that this time ten years ago Â I was busy decorating my formal dress, having fun and looking forward the two and a half months I was having going round the world instead of going to schoolies.

The girls at work made my desk into a “winter wonderland” aka filling my drawers and covering my desk with very finely shredded paper and then wrapping it all up in bubble wrap and presenting the above tim-tam wrapped berry and cream pikelet stack to me as my cake.

Mum sent me a bunch of flowers to work which was very nice.

My birthday presents to myself was a tablet (Google Nexus 7) which I love and would be more handy that I imagined in the past few weeks, a pair of new shoes and nose surgery.

These are my shoes. They’re silver. Oh so pretty. Oh so comfy. They Spin in silver from Ecco.

For the last couple of years I’ve pumped drugs up nose on and off in a bid to clear it. I’ve not really smelt or tasted things very well. One reason, why I’m always slightly paranoid about people’s response to the food that I make; does it taste ok? That all came to head earlier this year when I got sinus pain whilst flying. A change of nose drugs didn’t really do much so it was time to consider other options. I had a septoplasty andÂ turbinectomy at the start of the uni mid-semester break.

Gosh, I’m still in recovery and if it wasn’t for those who I’ve spoken to who’ve had the the surgery previously I would seriously be questioning why I undertook it. Imagine a tap on your nose that you can’t turn off and splurts out rubbish down your nasal passage and your throat all day long. Â I work in the medical field, I’ve seen, read and heard enough gory surgical tales that 99.9% of it is water off my back. Facial surgery though is that .1% that makes me go argh. I do though get a kick out of the fact though that I can now say I’ve legally usedÂ cocaine. Â Yep, it’s commonly used during nasal surgery as a localÂ anesthetic.

Work sent me these lovely pink roses (I can sort of smell them) and no, they didn’t see the irony in sending me roses as they came from head office and not my office. We got a laugh out of it though. I also finally picked up the Figgjo Flint Lotte water jug that I’ve had my eye on for some time.

Now it’s time to have a little nap before I venture off to uni this afternoon. I’m not using four pillows anymore but am down to two pillows. The blanket came from the farm, the pillow andÂ sÃ¦ng cover are from Ikea, love those dots.

And here is another photo from the garden to sign off with. I’m so happy it’s finally raining! Not only to settle the dust so it doesn’t irritate my nose but to water the garden and to give the tank a good fill. Not sure about you but my water tank has been empty for almost two months. A Pale-headed RosellaÂ (Platycercus adscitus) enjoying the Grevillea.

August 5, 2012August 5, 2012

Stained Glass Shop Windows and Other Details

Having seen the Stained Glass Shop Windows that Mum has been collecting on Flickr. I took some photos of my own during the first half of my trip. On the last day coming through Armidale, Guyra, Glen Innes, Tenterfield, Stanthorpe I saw plenty of good stained glass shop windows and the windows in Glen Innes were a stand out in the vast number of them still in place but I just wasn’t in the mood for walking up and down the main streets taking photos of the stained glass windows or the pressed metal ceilings or the shop fronts. Next time! I’ve included Google Street View links where I can so click on those links and have a virtual stroll.

These first two windows are on shops that are not very far apart on the main street (Marshall Street) in Goondiwindi, both a fairly standard swag pattern. The first shop also features a pretty standard pressed metal ceiling on the awning. This pattern is sold these days as Dancetti, very Art Deco in styling, this design is seen on shop awning ceilings all throughout Goondiwindi, Moree, Narrabri, Gunnedah. I’m fairly certain I saw it in Tamworth as well. Â The design veryÂ effective in the typical proportions of a shopÂ awningÂ (long rectangle) and not very detailed so I imagine it would have been one of the cheapest ceilings you could buy.

I don’t mind the swag styles above but when it comes to style I’m much more a fan of the geometrics of Art Deco than than the flowy, flowery Art Nouveau. The simple stylised arrow designs in these windows below are what I like,Â strictly speaking they are on a pub (The Victoria Hotel) so they aren’t really shop windows but still.

Now we are talking! Oh hello geometric!Â These windows belong to theÂ Waynes World Discount Variety store in Moree (71 Heber St, Moree). The second photo is the front of the shop and there would have been originally a sign in the area which is now boarded off below the stained glass. I really like how the pressed metal ceiling has is geometrical like the stained glass. The design of the pressed metal is calledÂ LinfieldÂ orÂ LabyrinthÂ depending in you you buy it from these days.

The final window of the this post comes from Mum’s new home town of Narrabri. These windows are on the building that now hosts Max’s Spares (85 Maitland Street) are so over the top and magnificentÂ and just so right.Â I would have loved to have seen these windows back in the day and to know what was in the oval space. It may have always been plain glass but I imagine it would have had some form of advertising on it. I think that Max’s Spares should put signs in them with words like radiators, fan belts, gaskets and the like.

Finally sneaking into this post is this a photo of a vent in the bricks at the Narrabri Railway Station. This part of the station was built in 1098Â (click to read the NSW Heritage databaseÂ for the station) and I would be interested to know if other NSW railway stations built in that period had the same vents. Just look at those circles and waves.

So there we have it. A sampling of stained glass shop windows, a peak into pressed metal ceilings and lovely geometric brick vent to finish off with.

July 18, 2012

Heading west from the Toowoomba range to Millmerran, Queensland

This weekend just gone I took a five day weekend and headed south of the border. Well really more south west but it wasÂ definitelyÂ across the border. I put on a number of caps for the trip, I was an interstate removalist, Â a fruit wholesaler, a handy person, a providore, Â a general hand, a driver and countless other caps.

Yep, I packed up the car and went to visit Mum. I left Brisbane on Wednesday night and after a taco dinner (south of the border … ) with some dear friends I headed to Millmerran for the night. I ~~penned~~Â typed this little rhyme after getting to myÂ accommodationÂ for the night. It pretty much summed that leg of the trip up.

Drove on the Gore,
It’s a bit of a bore.
Catching shut-eye in a donga,
Going to read about Beluga.

Of course, I didn’t actually read about Beluga but it was the only word that I could think of that was even close to rhyming with donga.

If you need a place to stay in Millmerran, IÂ recommendÂ the Millmerrran Village Caravan Park. Clean, tidy and very helpful staff.

My donga in Millmerran ticked all the boxes for somewhere to crash for the night and I had the best shower there I’ve had in some time, oh the water pressure!

Arty shot of autumnal plant in the caravan park.

Breakfast shot. The contents of that PET bottle? Orange juice squeezed by me (well perhaps the Kitchenaid), good hit of Vitamin C.

Cacatua galerita! Lots of them. These birdies were part of my first mass bird sighting of the trip. There would be many more. The size of this flock would be chicken feed to what I would see south of the border. Still, I do love a Sulphur-crested Cockatoo. They are just such personable birds.

Bye-bye Millmerran.

From Millmerran I headed onwards toÂ Goondiwindi or Gundy if you speak the speak. My stopover in Gundy will be another post, ahh sweet Gundy. Gundy was where the op shop deities started to shine on me. Oh sweet Gundy.

Props to you if you picked the source of the post title. According to last.fm, I’ve played this song nine times, I’ve actually played it whole lot more than that, the OCMS CD had a period of very high rotation in the car.

That sums up the first leg of my road trip. What I’ve not told you about is the fact that I managed to ~~get lost~~Â take a creative detour both going into and out of Forest Lake on my way to dinner (all those darn changes to those roads) or that the cloud was so thick heading up the range and through Toowoomba on Wednesday night that I barely got above 20km/hr for that stretch …