Look what I have!

Here is a photo of my Christmas present - a new second-hand Bernina 1630 sewing machine. I had my 1130 in being serviced and was idly looking at new machines - with no intention of buying one, when the dealer told me he had a 1630 which had been traded in and was as good as new - had only been used for one project. I couldn't believe it, the client was trading it on a new machine because it was 11 years old!!! My 1130 is much much older than that and has had a lot of very hard work, but it still sews beautifully and I wouldn't trade it for anything. My machine was the first in this range and the 1630 was the last but the tray table will swap over, and my 1130 feet will fit the 1630. There are masses more stitches on the 1630, so a very steep learning curve will need to occur after Christmas before I use it very much. Meanwhile I occasionally pick up the manual and try to make sense from it - I am not turning the machine on till we return from Buderim...........then it will be play time.

Here are another couple of photos from the Royal Tasmania Botanic Gardens, both from the Japanese garden, which was truly beautiful.

Jock has a new name - garbage guts! We spent quite some time at the Vet's this morning as Jock has been throwing up his food forthe last few days - except that it has not been happening during the day - more like midnight in our bedroom! He has mild gastro, caused by eating all sorts of things he is not supposed to, including licking all over a cake of soap he pinched, digging out my plants to chew, sucking old mango seeds after the flying foxes have dropped them - and generally acting like a naughty teenager! Thank goodness he will really be okay, he had some blood in one of the thrown up offerings and as we go away in just over a week, he will be in kennels, so we needed to make sure. He is definitely by far the most inquisitive of the five dogs we have owned since we have been married.

My list is getting shorter, but so is the time till we leave. We are going half a day earlier now, staying at Rockhampton (three and a half hours drive south of here), then we will only have a seven hour drive the next day - much easier to cope with.

Cheers for tonight.