Post 413 Coming to you from Carrickalinga

Since Saturday I have been staying with family at Carrickalinga. This is the view from the beach house where I am currently staying. This is looking north, back towards Adelaide. It is warming up (currently 32C) but still pretty pleasant.

I am staying at the moment in a A frame house, with one of my daughters. The house has lots of light in the living areas. There is lots of wooden panelling and mezzanine structures.  It makes for a very good beach house.    Birds perch under the eaves.                  

My other daughter and her family are staying close by. They are further from the beach, but with fabulous views over the surrounding countryside. 

Kangaroos graze in the evening on the open paddocks and on the hills.

I'm hoping my balcony garden is not suffering too much in the heat. I watered it thoroughly before leaving. I also gave the doves a last feed.

Up until Friday the abseilers were hard at work and no doubt will continue while I'm away.  Today I had a call from them apologising for the noise last night. Apparently some of their equipment blew off the roof in the wind. With a bit of luck they will be nearly or fully finished when I return.

The days before coming down here were taken up with shopping, packing and a bit of stitching, except for the excitement generated by the British National Archives release of the 1921 census data around 10.30pm Adelaide time on Thursday. Although the data will be available through Ancestry in June, I indulged myself and purchased copies of the transcript of entries for both sets of my grandparents. The paternal one included my father, who was 20 months old at the time. This confirmed their address and my grandfather's occupation. It gave me his employer's name for the first time. The maternal one also gave me a little more information about my grandfather's work. Amusingly, my grandmother's name, Nellie, was transcribed as 'Willie'.  I haven't accessed the raw form, but I suspect this is result of transcription by computer. 

I've advanced my Hearts and Roses bag. The outside  and inside flaps are finished. I am now working on the last of the pockets. The light here is not good enough to work on it after dark and I am running low on a couple of thread colours and attempting to ration and improvise. Once I've finished the pockets I won't be able to do much assembly until I get home. I need a sewing machine to stitch the outside to the lining pieces before I stitch them together by hand. I also need an iron. I think it will look good, I'm less convinced about usefulness, but we'll see.

Happy Birthday to Melody, whose birthday is today on the other side of the world. Mine is tomorrow and I'm looking forward to lunch with family - outside at the Normanville Jetty Cafe.