Frustration plus

I am almost at the point of putting a brick through my computer - I have had a warning message from Blogger saying I need to migrate my google account to a newer version, but when I try to log in it does not recognise my username or password.....grrrrrrrrrr
Then I thought I would try posting to see if I still could.  Took me ages to get to this bit, not sure if it will publish or not.  I think I shall have to wait till we return from Cairns and have some more free time - or perhaps more patience!
I hope you are all having better luck.  I will be back next weekend.

An excursion and a TENS machine

Not sure how much of this will work - it is all different!  Why can't blogger leave things alone?
The Gardens Friends had a wonderful excursion yesterday to Carmila Beach, about an hour an a half rive south of Mackay.  The flora is particularly interesting around that area, with many species being grown in the botanic gardens.

 I really love casuarinas, they are a really tough tree and grow along so many of our beaches, giving excellent protection.  The link below explains much better than I can the botany of them.
http://www.burkesbackyard.com.au/1999/archives/25/in_the_garden/trees_and_palms/casuarinas

(This link does not appear to be working, but if you google Burkes Back Yard Fact sheet/ casuarinas, I am sure you should find it - I hope so anyway, it was very interesting!)

 The beach is lovely, and as you can see quite deserted!  There were plenty of people in small boats out to sea fishing, but we had the whole picnic area to ourselves.

 Ignore my ugle hand, this is a closeup of the branchlets and if you enlarge you may be able to see where the tiny leaflets are.

 There were lots of these seed cones on the trees, but there was a light breeze blowing and the only way I could get a photo in focus was to point up towards the sky!

Carmila creek runs into the sea at the picnic area, and this looked such a tranquil scene I couldn't resist another photo.  They should all enlarge with a click.

 This is a cover for the wonderful TENS machine below which I bought just before Easter.  I can't sing its praises enough, I thought it would help with the fibromyalgia aches, which it has, but it has improved my knee so much that I can mostly go up stairs with one foot on each tread - a vast improvement to having to go two feet on each tread!

It is small enough for me to take it in the car and use when on long trips, yippee.  It will have a very good workout next Sunday when we leave for Cairns.  Should have some good photos after that trip!

Birthday time again

Gosh, it is nearly two weeks since I last posted, the time has simply flown!  Our grandson Alexander turned 9 last week and had a fancy dress party to celebrate.  His theme was Zombies and he tried to look as gruesome as possible for the photo.

 Hamish is still very taken with pirates, especially the blowup parrot, which did not stay on his shoulder for very long!

The DIY party shop came up with the goods in the form of a headstone for the tombstone cake!  They certainly do things differently these days.  The kids all had a good giggle over it - a chocolate mud cake hid underneath the icing.

 Of course they all had to pore over the present opening.  Alexander is besotted with Leggo, which obviously his friends knew about so he had lots to put together that night.

 One reason I have not posted for so long is that my sister had been up here visiting and the time has simply flown.  Unfortunately she brought the unpleasant weather with her.  We had really magnificent weather all over Easter and today, when she has gone home again, the weather has turned equally beautiful!  We still managed to have a lovely time without too much rain, just overcast and 30 knot winds blowing!

On Monday afternoon the sun sort of came out so we went for a drive and I took this photo looking into the sun at one of the beaches near here.  I rather like the effect - the tide was well out, so the sand looked like black strips.  I think the photos should enlarge if you click.
Now I need to get stuck into making more souvenirs before we go away at the end of next week to a conference in Cairns.  Hopefully in the next couple of days I shall have time to catch up on some blog reading as well.  I have missed it.

My last page sent and some souvenirs

Ritva has received my Hundterwasser page so I can now show it to you.  You can enlarge all the photos by clicking - ad when you see the thread at the top left of the photo here, you will be glad to know that I saw it before I posted it and cut it off!  I forgot to take another photo though.

 I first heard of Hundterwasser from Dale at The Thread Studio, she is a bit fan of his.  There are amazing images on the web if you google him.  This rally is the last picture from This year's swap.  We all have some wonderful pages to put together in some form to display.  I just have to get around to doing it!

 I have been making a few more souvenirs to get my stocks up.  There are a couple of fairs in late May and of course I don't know how long I will need to recover from my knee surgery before I will be back at the sewing machine.

 The colours are not quite right in this photo, I have tried all sorts of editing techniques - the two lower cases should be a bit bluer than they are showing here.  I used evolon as the basis for them, just for a different texture.

I am quite happy with this notebook cover after being very disillusioned when I first made the fabric(?)  It is tissue paper and one of Lynda Monk's techniques, but to my shame I can't remember exactly which one, and of course in my usual slapdash fashion I didn't take notes of what I was doing.  I do know the slip is PVA glue set in a mould and then painted and gilded.  I like that finish.
Today is Good Friday, the start of Easter.  We had a brief shower overnight but the weather is glorious again today.  The south-easter has got up however and that usually brings showers in three days so perhaps we will have a wet finish to Easter.  Have a happy Easter and I hope you can all do all the activities you wish to do.

The Mad Hatters' Parade

I have to share this photo of our youngest grandson Hamish in the Mad Hatters parade at his school.  The children made the hats at school - with a lot of dedicated help from the teachers I would say, and then the Grade 1 and Grade 2 children paraded before the rest of the school - and doting parents!

 Hamish is on the right.  You should be able to click or double click to see the photos better.

This is the lovely page I have just received from Janny in the Netherlands - the last page in this round of swaps.  I can't believe the year has gone so quickly.  This year is vanishing before my eyes, a quarter of the year gone already - scary thought!

Absolutely fabulous weather here at present, lovely cool nights and sunny days with not too much breeze.  Too nice to stay indoors so I am off to fertilise some of the plants in my garden.  I hope you are all enjoying the weather you like.