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.

Finally finished!

I have  been working (on and off) for the last three weeks or so on a workshop from Roben-Marie Smith called collage, construct, confirm.  This is the result:

 I have to admit I didn't enjoy this workshop and for much of the time I thought it was just an awful mess, but I am quite happy with the end result!  It started of with collage and paint on canvas and then more paint and oil pastels and various other layers on top of everything.

 I didn't bother to paint the journal pages as I have always felt it is better for the person using the journal to do whatever they want on the pages.  There is a pocket on the left side, which you can see in the bottom picture.

I know I took some photos of the canvas after the original collage, but I didn't like them and I can't find where I have stored them!  I changed a few things around, using a machined cord and a flower button made from heat shrink plastic as the fastener for the portfolio.

I have learned some new techniques while doing this workshop so it was not a waste of time, but not one I will bother to repeat.
Now I shall do something I will just like doing I think, not quite sure what yet, but a project requiring a lot of concentration while the Olympics are on, I want to watch them while I am working!
 

Phone photos

I have been practising with my mobile phone trying (mostly not very successfully) to take some photos.  I know it is a very good camera embedded into it, I just have to learn how to drive it properly!

The sun came out on Thursday afternoon so off I went for a  walk in the Botanic Gardens

 I was trying to zoom in far enough to see the egrets and a couple of royal spoonbills all congregated on that bit of a  peninsula in the middle  of the lagoon.  If you double click you may get an idea!

 This is out of focus, but I love these flowers - Phillip Island hibiscus.  The foliage is a lovely shiny green and the flowers come in bursts all year.  Apparently it is endangered on Phillip Island, which is a small island just off Pitcairn Island.

 I love the colour of the new foliage, on a lilypilly I think.

 The sugar cane growing in the heritage garden is arrowing well this year - looks a purply colour here, but seen in the sun from the other direction is a silvery shade.  I love seeing whole fields of arrows.  When we were first married almost all the cane arrowed every year, but that variety had to be removed as it was suscepti
ble to Fiji disease which almost wiped out the crops.  Bill thinks the crops which are arrowing now must be cultivars of that NCO310 variety.

This is a water feature in one of the gardens, with the sun shining through in spots.
I have taken till now to post this as I have had fun and games capturing the photos off my phone.  I need to have my grandson here to show me some more - he has the same model phone as mine, but he just fiddles and finds out how to do everything he wants to do - oh to be a teenager again!
Nothing much has happened in the creative area for a while - the sun came out so all the windows and screens have been cleaned, the stove has been cleaned, also the dog and all his bedding have been washed, plus a couple of bedspreads!  The rain is forecast to be back again by Tuesday, just drizzle, but most unpleasant and not what we are supposed to have in July!
Time to go for another walk, good exercise for my knee which is feeling really good, just need to sort my feet now.

A day at the Botanic Gardens

 Yesterday we had a guided walk at the Botanic Gardens for the Friends group, followed by a BBQ lunch.  We decided to go ahead regardless of the weather, but were favoured with a very pleasant day.  The photo above is one of the waterfall features which I love.

The Gardens cafe has exposed beams under the roof of the deck, which the local wildlife likes to take advantage of, quite undeterred by the cafe patrons below.

 These photos are back to front, the top is a closeup of the possum sleeping high up in the rafters, he/she is the tiny speck above and to the right of the column in the lower photo.

 The python slept on while everyone was taking photos and trying to zoom cameras on their phones etc to get a closeup!

Our congea is in full flower again and the grey and gloomy days really show up the dusky pink flowers.  I don't know what has happened to the weather - July is supposed to be cold and dry, but it is wet and positively hot!  I am back to a T-shirt and shorts.  This is ridiculous.  Supposedly a strong southerly is about to blow the cold weather back again, I just hope it blows the rain away.  Our airport was closed for almost two days causing total chaos for travellers.  Thank goodness we are not planning on going anywhere.

An old, old menu

You will have to double click on this to make it large enough to read.  I was sorting through some old papers today. looking for something I could photocopy to use in a project I am about to start, when I came across this fascinating menu.  My great aunt accompanied a family to be governess to their child, children while they went on a trip to Japan and on to America.  I wish we had asked more questions when there was someone alive to tell us the story.  I know they went from Japan to America, and I think via Alaska.  I know they went to New York and also that their ship sailed out of San Francisco the day before the big earthquake.  I can vaguely remember my aunt telling us stories of  the trip, but infuriatingly, I can't remember any details!  This menu is over 100 years old, interesting to see what was offered on Hotel menus back then.  Does anyone know what a Burdock saute is?

I think I am getting back to normal again, hoping to start on a journal project tomorrow - a good day to stay indoors.  We have had no rain over the last few days, but the sky is overcast and there is a 30 knot wind blowing, most unpleasant.  At least this is the winter season in Australia so we expect days like this, I feel for all of you in the UK where you are supposed to be having summer.

Time for bed.