The Postman has been to visit

 Today the postman brought this lovely (tiny) parcel to my letterbox.  The package was beautifully wrapped

 and opened to show this little matchbox

which opened again to show this exquisite little book inside.  Gina from Fan my Flame made it, along with over 80 other matchbox books!  I am so glad I succumbed to temptation and bought one.

Book Parade 2012

This is Children's book week in Queensland - maybe all over Australia- I am not sure about that.  Every year Mackay City Council Library Services holds a fantastic parade in conjunction with the local Walkerston State School and the St. John's Catholic Primary school.  As My grandchildren attend the State School, of course I have to go to watch.  The theme this year was supposed to be "Your favourite story book character", but there were lots of TV and film characters. Perhaps they don't read much at home!

 Alexander is the Mad Hatter - a very happy one too.

 Hamish is easily recognisable as Harry Potter

 I don't know what this one was, but his parents had gone to a lot of trouble

 I love the witch.

 Here you can see quite a group of children in various guises

The teachers get into the spirit of the day as well!

And here is one last one of the two boys together.  All over for another year.

A bit to show - at last

 Finally I have manged to do something a bit creative.  I have had my lovely Landscape dyes for so long I thought they would no longer be any good, but they still worked, and now I have several new scarves.

 The green and the fuchsia scarves were $5 scarves bought at the opening of a discount store in a new shopping centre here, lovely fine silk, but I have realised they have been sewn up with polyester thread, but I doubt if anyone else will notice it. 

This one was practising nuno felting.  Again it is so long since I have done any, I had trouble remembering what to do, and I could have used a lot more wisps of wool without making the scarf too heavy - perhaps another scarf coming up to refine the technique.  At least I have taken notes and photos this time for me to look up later!

We had 6 mm of welcome rain yesterday - the first for over a month.  We should be back to beautiful sunny days again for a while now - the sort of weather which makes you glad to be alive.

Visiting at the Botanic Gardens

We had dinner at the Gardens Cafe a couple of nights ago with some visiting friends.  The cafe has only been opening at night for a few weeks, the food is very fancy but tasted delicious.

 This is my dinner - I can;t remember all of it, but it was chicken wrapped in prosciutto with vegies and a wild raspberry sauce - from raspberries grown at the Gardens.

 I thought the dessert, balsamic strawberries with native rosellas and vanilla icecream would not be too large or too rich, but Bill had to finish mine off - which he didn't mind at all!

 I have shown you photos taken in daylight of the sugarcane wall, but there is now a spotlight on it at night with a very dramatic effect.

 Today we had a birdwatching walk in the Gardens for the Friends group and Maya had set up this wonderful collection of bird nests for us to look at.  She has collected them over a few years from various locations around Mackay.

 Some of them are really intricate and a few are just a mess!

I haven't done anything creative since before the Olympics started - sock knitting can happen while I am watching!  Some of it has been very exciting, but I think it will be just as well to get back to normal next week.