Post 316 Lazy day at Lady Bay

 

I slept for nearly ten hours last night and woke still feeling lethargic. I felt much the way I used to feel when we arrived in Bali for a month's holiday when I was still in paid employment - exhausted from finishing up at work, packing, getting on a plane and then on to local accommodation. All I wanted to do for a day or so was sleep and eat.

All I have done this time is pack bags and drive from Adelaide! Nevertheless I went with the lethargy,  had my usual breakfast, showered, read on the balcony. 

At 28C it was a  pleasant morning,  5 degrees lower than in Adelaide.

                                                                                                                                                        I wasn't happy with the Phoenix wing as I left it last night, so I tried a couple of ways to fix it.

There was plenty happening at the pool, mostly parents teaching young kids to swim, or put their heads under water, or duck dive. I'm curious about the lack of safety fence at the back of the pool. I need to walk down and have a look. It doesn't look right from here. Maybe there's a moat or some device at the back.

A goal for tomorrow.

The other thing that caught my attention was a man who appeared to let his golf clubs run ahead of him  on the path from the green. Suddenly, the clubs veered across the grass and I realised he was managing it by remote control. The still shot doesn't, of course, capture the weirdness of it  - a man casually following a moving golf bag across the course.

My  Standard  room is well set up. This is taken from the small kitchen area. The wall in the left foreground is the bedroom wall and there is a very generous sized bathroom with spa bath and walk-in shower.

It's a long time since I've napped in the day time, but I did this afternoon.

I then visited Katherine's mob and ate some of their barbecue dinner. There is an excellent butcher in Normanville who Anthony has cultivated over the years.

I wanted to be back here before dark, partly because I'm still not entirely familiar with the road to Lady Bay, and partly because I thought there might be the chance of wildlife on the road after dark. I was right to be cautious - except the kangaroos were all on the golf course!

There was a whole mob, spread over the hill where the remote controlled golf caddy had been this morning. It was at this point I regretted my decision to leave my SLR at home. I really needed it!

I got most of this square finished while visiting Katherine and Anthony's place, then finished it back here.                         

                  

While watching the end of a Midsomer Murders and a whole Endeavour, I made another round of changes to the Phoenix. It's getting closer to acceptable. I might need to leave it now and move on to other parts. Any further changes need shades I don't have.

Today was also Deirdre and Alan's 50th wedding anniversary. Their daughter and son had put together a presentation for them of various bits contributed by their friends and family. Mine was the PowerPoint I was working a week or so ago, turned into a pdf. I'm sure they've had a great day. 

Post 315 Lady Bay

It took me quite a while this morning to prepare to leave for Lady Bay.  I took my time but it was pretty steady activity. I packed a suitcase with clothes and toiletries, another with my embroidery, crochet and books, a third with beach towel, bathers, sunscreen, hats and beach shoes and a fourth with fruit and muesli. That's the trouble with holidays close to home. 

Watering the plants took a while. It's only a week, but it's 31C in Adelaide today, 35C forecast tomorrow, up to 37 by Sunday. I left as many plants soaking in water as I could.

Turtle got fed up waiting for me to provide more seed and gave up. I'm afraid the disappointment will last for a week.

I cleaned out the fridge, put out the rubbish, turned off the water, packed the car and set off, stopping on West Terrace to buy petrol.

Lady Bay is about 85 km south of Adelaide. It is close to Carrickalinga,  where my Adelaide daughter and her family are staying for the next ten days. Usually I rent another holiday house nearby with either my other daughter and her partner, or with my brother and sister-in-law. Sometimes with both. This year neither are able to come. I didn't want to rent a house on my own, so I have booked into the only hotel accommodation around here - the Lady Bay Golf Resort

As you can see, it has a pool, tennis courts and the brown expanse between these and the sea is a golf course.

The resort appears to have a helipad - presumably for busy golf players.

I have no interest in playing golf, or using the gym - or even the spa. I do have a spa bath in my bathroom. I have a bedroom, bathroom, sitting room and small kitchen. 

I had a small drama when my room key did not work. The handyman came and had the same trouble. Apparently the locks have all been altered from a key card to a key but the locks not fundamentally changed. This has not worked well. I persuaded him to tape my lock open until the locksmith gets here - probably on Monday.  It's not as risky as it might seem. Rooms are arranged in pairs, with a lockable door from the corridor to each pair, then another door to each individual room. The door from the corridor locks.

I went to Katherine and Anthony's place for excellent fish and chips. When I got back the sprinklers were on. Water is scarce in most parts of Australia and unsurprisingly, the sprinklers are clearly only set to water the greens.

There were flights of birds just before sunset. I couldn't make out what they were apart from the galah on the right. There were a group of magpies making a lot of noise on the path below my balcony but my photos are hardly worth sharing.

The evening saw a couple of families in the pool, a couple of tennis players  and numerous golfers and golfing buggies.

Sunset over the headland was hard to capture until the sun was below the horizon because of the glare.

I did get a start on the Phoenix, but I was pretty slow. It's been a very busy day for me, compared to my usual routine. I hope to rectify that tomorrow!

I also missed some of my eye drops and heat pad treatments. I'll fix that tomorrow too.

Although golf is not my thing, I'm conscious of how lucky I am to be able to be here - just to get away from home is privileged. I won't squander it.

Post 314 Running around

It was a running around kind of day. In between my various appointments and tasks I was, of course, checking news bulletins to follow what was happening in Washington DC, as well as the latest Australian Covid news. I have chosen to focus the 314 posts of this blog on daily life rather than current affairs and don't intend to change, but it IS a record of a Covid year and the significance of today's events did reach Australia and needs to be acknowledged.

It was the day of my six monthly dental check up,  even though I had seen both dentist and hygienist three months ago. Unusually, I had been unable to get adjacent appointments, so saw my dentist at 10.00am but the hygienist at 2.30pm. My dentist is expecting her baby on 1 February, so her appointments were a bit tentative. 

She ordered some Xrays to be taken this afternoon by the hygienist.

From there I went on to Create in Stitch to get the extra threads I needed. I'm afraid the sale won't make their day!

At Unley Village I called at Taking Shape. Yesterday I received a $65 loyalty voucher from the shop, so thought I'd use it to offset the cost of this top I saw last week. In a pandemic there doesn't seem a lot of point holding on to an unexpected gift horse.

 My car purchase three years ago came with free monthly car washes. I haven't been for several months, so headed there on my way home. It was a bit of a wait today but I had my Kindle and the coffee is good - and the precautions are in place and monitored. 

The attendant who washed my car kindly adjusted the clock to daylight saving time for me - which shows how long it is since I had the car cleaned!

I managed about an hour at home for lunch, then headed back to the dentist. The Xrays were helpful and the hygienist took nearly an hour. We are all happy about the extraction I am booked for with a periodontist in February.

I just had time to call at Frewville for milk, watermelon and some prawns before heading to the optometrist. He is happy with the progress of my damaged eye surface and I need to keep the treatment up for another month. 

My computer/embroidery/distance glasses were ready and the fitter had clip-on magnifiers for me to try. I settled for the 2.5x magnification clip-ons which seem to work well with these. This is for embroidery, especially in group situations.  I have spared readers the sight of the clip-ons.

I finished up most of the carrot salad with the prawns and fresh bread for dinner.

Around sunset, I heard the distinctive call of the Adelaide Rosella and grabbed my SLR. It was a single bird, sitting on the very top of a tree some 10-15 metres behind the apartment building. There was an answering call some distance away, but I didn't see the second bird. 

The long tail isn't visible here, so the rosella looks a bit smaller than it is.

I haven't seen one in these trees for a while.

With all the running around I was lucky to get two squares crocheted today.  

The blocking is now complete. I will roll it up tomorrow so it doesn't get crushed while I'm finishing the last two pieces to complete the chair. I won't take the cover off the chair until all three are finished.

Tomorrow I head for Normanville for a week.  It's only about 90 minutes drive and I'm can't book in until 2pm so there's no hurry.  I haven't done any packing, although I have thought about it. I also need to soak the plants before I leave tomorrow, and get petrol - which unfortunately is on the expensive end of the cost cycle. It will be a fairly busy morning.

Post 313 Mostly crochet and getting organised

I took this photo last night, looking East at sunset - and forgot to post it yesterday. I don't live in or near a jungle, but there are some great glimpses of trees and the Adelaide Hills.

And I do love the pot of purple petunias.

While I was reading this morning, the two young doves arrived , polished off the few seeds remaining from yesterday then came to the container of seed just outside my door and stood beside it. Blush even pecked at the plastic sides!

I didn't obey immediately, but when they had given up I went out and put out some seeds. 

The photos were taken through glass and fly wire, but I quite like the effect.

I adjusted the pins on the blocking twice during the day. It's looking good but still slightly damp.   

                                        

In the meantime I sorted out my Appleton's threads and hooped up the Phoenix and Tree. I have most of the threads I need, but need some very pale greens and a more gold yellow. Tomorrow I have a running around day so will call at either the Bobbin Tree or Create in Stitch, both of which I now know have reopened after holiday closures.

I haven't started the Phoenix. I gave myself a break and relaxed with some more crocheted squares.   I've been trying to work out whether to roll more small balls off the humungous 200 gram balls to take to Normanville. It's hard to judge how much I will need, so maybe I'll roll off a few small balls and put the big ones in my car.

I've now made 25 squares. The colours are randomly chosen. I'm considering whether they should be directly joined or have a single colour border. There's plenty of time before I have to decide.

I also got out the two remaining Nicola Jarvis birds I have to embroider, along with the Ink and Spindle linens that will make the bags on which they eventually perch. I'm planning to take these to Normanville as well. 

I wouldn't want to run out of things to stitch. 

What kind of birds will they be?

It was a mild, charming sunset. I rather like the ones that have a lot of grey cloud

Someone finding this blog in a future world might tag me as a tree worshiper.

I completed another two squares this evening . The last one (bottom) has better joins than the others, thanks to a tip in a book I've been reading - but more of that another day. 

Tomorrow, if, as Hank Williams used to say, the Good Lord is willing and the creeks don't rise,  I have two dental appointments, an optometrist appointment and a shopping list. I could have done the shopping today, but it seemed more efficient to do it while I have to be out and about anyway. 

We'll see how it turns out.

Post 312. They are coming - and Lady Anne is blocking!

 

It's 9.30 pm as I begin this post and I have just blocked Lady Anne's Flowers. Progress photos follow below, but I thought the blocked finish deserved to lead the post. 

Most of the day was spent working on this piece. I had to move the hoop again before I finished the hillocks. (I can see from the photo that the blending in the high hillock needs adjusting!)

I used a smaller hoop to finish the last section. I didn't photograph the raggy-looking piece when I took it out of the hoop. I couldn't wait to block it!

Today's good news is that Alison and Karl have booked to come to Adelaide for a weekend later this month. I knew they were hoping to come, but had not allowed myself to believe it would happen in the current lockdowns. The surprise sent me look at the Barbara Hanrahan linocut print hanging in my hall. She made it in 1975 to celebrate the return of her partner, Jo Steele, after a long absence. I've always liked the fine detail of it - the repeated depictions of joy and celebration.              .

It shows numerous faces with emissions from their mouths and eyes - sight and speech. but in a Covid context, looking like a social distancing warning.      This is very much a Barbara Hanrahan work. It does not transfer, but it captures her excitement and joy in a specific circumstance.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          I feel I should make a banner saying 
"They are coming" and hang it from my balcony.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Instead, I paid my tax bill for 2019-20. It's not due for another month, but I want a clean slate. I checked and double checked the reference number before hitting the button. Ridiculous I know. It feels very good to have it out of the way. 

I have the Phoenix and Tree linen to set up as my next Crewel project tomorrow. I think I'm a bit short on light green and brown Appleton's wools for this project so I might need a trip to The Bobbin Tree this Thursday to ensure I have enough to take to Normanville on Friday. Tonight I'm relaxing with another crochet square.