Tuesday.....

Some days you just need to not think about work and spend time with lovely friends and just catch up for a coffee or three and some chat time.

Lunch at St Ali, coffee at Chez Dre and Mint Lemonade at Freestyle Espresso....I'd forgotten how much I love South Melbourne.

Coffee and conversation......something I need to do a lot more of.


Vicki x

Going To The Show......

Its been many years since I've been to the Royal Melbourne Show.  Originally an agricultural show, but over the years commercialism has taken over and now it's more about the rides and the show bags, and less about the animals, farm produce and craft.  Every time I go back to the show, I still get that nostalgia hit from memories of traipsing around the showgrounds with Mum, my sister and my brother during the September school holidays around 40 years ago.

My aim is to always spend most of the time looking at the awards for knitting, crochet, sewing and all the other craft and hobby competitions.....I'm going to be honest and say I sometimes wonder what the judges look at when awarding prizes for wool and fabric based competitions.  Some of the decisions rendered me speechless, and not always in a good way, but who am I to judge, the amount of work on all pieces is really priceless and unfortunately prize less in a lot of cases.

I also love looking at the awards for baking....cakes, scones, slices, biscuits then the making of preserves and sauces, always a lot of fun.....and then the cake decorating, it's all there to be viewed.  

No trip to the show in my mind isn't complete without a visit to the Country Women's Association as well as a look at the animals, my favourite bit of the show.  The dog competitions, with shades of "Best in Show", the absolute precision cutting of sheep fleece for judging.....the absolute boredom on the faces of most of the cattle, and the swishing tale of a rag tail cat, who was just getting a bit fed up with the constant petting.  The overfed, lambs and goats wandering around the nursery animal shed, all these things along with the colour and the spectacle of the show, make it an enjoyable day......but I will say,  I'm done for at least another 5 or so years!!

 


Enjoy,

Winter.....

Wet, windy and cold....that's Melbourne this week.  The very last of my orders have left the building, I've had some time to start writing up some patterns, I've made some booties and a few random knits that have lasted only minutes in my Etsy store before they have sold which is just fabulous and I've been cooking up a storm of food items that can be frozen....Lentil chilli, vege & barley soup, pinto bean casserole......the list goes on.

News around these parts is slim on the ground, but with a few knitted goodies now on the needles for friends also coming to an end, hopefully life should resume to normal and I can get all rugged up and head out into the cold myself.

Hope all is well in your part of the world.

Reflecting.......

I had an appointment today in East Melbourne.....an appointment that I go to on a yearly basis.  I always make a point of spending some time wandering through the Fitzroy Gardens and today was no exception.

Today I just reflected on the events that have taken place in the past 24 hours and just wondered why.....



Vicki x

All the Leaves are Brown and the Sky is Grey........

It's been a quiet week this past week......I've sort of felt a little under the weather, not sick just tired and lacking energy.  Our clocks went back one hour the weekend before last and the weather is finally,....yes finally changing to the Autumnal season that it should be......so maybe the shifting seasons have just zapped my energy a little.

I've put the last of the Summer clothes away.....I'm one of those pesky people that likes to pull out all my seasonal clothes and look for whats missing.....I did pull out some Winter clothes around a month ago, but the weather continued on with sunny days, so back they went.....I've shopped up a storm this past week....new shirt, long sleeve T's, merino knits and dresses, another pair of ankle boots, grey cords, belts, tights....I like to look at what I've got and just fill the gaps.....Navy, plum, aubergine and grey I'm loving a little too much at the moment......and my knitting orders seem to have fallen that way as well!!

I've started to slowly cut the squares for quilt no 2 for niece no 2.....the pinks are making me very happy, and just wait to you see what I decided for the backing fabric.....the clue is in one of the squares above.....Can you guess?

Hope your past week has been a good one....I've a busy one this week.....lots of work, lots of knitting, lots of sewing, and I've finally found a new doctor.....and a new hairdresser, double score!!.....but for now I'm off to make some warming soup I think.

See you soon.

Vic x

Too Hot To Handle......

Autumn.....who would have thought Melbourne would have created history with the hottest Autumn on record....9 consecutive days above 30 celsius, with 5 of them being over 35 celsius.

I've just come back from the beach.....these were taken at around 7.40pm and it's still 33c.....The cool change should arrive tomorrow morning at around 10am, and I for one can't wait.  We've also had  one of the hottest Summers on record I believe......maybe bringing out the Winter clothes 2 weeks ago was a little premature.....I do hear it's going to be a hot Easter also...I'll remember the long hot Summer of 2013 well.


**Added 13th March after the cool change has arrived.

Melbourne's record March heatwave has broken one final record just as a cool change finally brought some relief after almost 10 days of sweltering weather.  Overnight temperatures fell to a minimum of just 26.5 degrees, making it the warmest March night since records began, edging out the previous high of 26.3 degrees set back in 1927.