This week's highlight was a fortuitous visit from Canberra family for 24-30 hours. 5 of us managed to go out to dinner, and all 9 of us met for breakfast the next morning. It's been a busy, joyous, concentrated time. As usual, I am not posting photos of people for privacy reasons.
We dodged the Adelaide 500 car race disruption most of the time. The race is over 4 days, partially on city streets, which, along with a number of feeder roads are of course blocked off. The continuous hum of the engines becomes an ignorable background noise. On the other hand, the RAAF demonstrations of F-35A Lightning II and a Pilatus PC-21 aircraft come as a shock when unprepared. I wasn't sorry when the waxing gibbous moon rose on Sunday night in relative silence. Sound from the concluding concert did not carry in my direction. It takes several days to restore the city, and those who live in Eastern suburbs will be relieved to have their routes into the city restored in a few days time.
I was in luck with the arrival of my latest purchase from the Innovations Catalogue - a bamboo plant stand. It came just after Karl arrived from Canberra, so he helped me assemble it. We were proud of our handiwork. It now adorns my Eastern balcony.On Sunday I went to the St Margaret's Plant and Bake sale, buying about 8 plants, mostly succulents and daisies. St Margaret's is always a healthy and reliable source. After a bit of food shopping on the way home, I planted them and did a bit of tidying and attending to my balcony gardens.
I was very tired, but happy, by Sunday evening.
As I signalled last week, my blogging week began at Margaret's place, working on our presentation on Shetland Knitting for the December WES meeting (and eating Margaret's delicious quiche with home-grown spinach!). We are still working on our PowerPoint. This has been a bit of a rush, but I think we've done enough. I have now written about the buggieflooer beanie in my embroidery blog, and worked the same motif on a cross stitch pouch.
The excitement and joy of having family together carried over as they were flying home on Saturday evening, as Anthony drew off his first frame of honey. I am the lucky recipient of a jar, which I’m planning to use for this year’s Christmas gingerbread biscuits. There is a lot more to come when more jars arrive.
This is the other thing I bought from the Innovations Catalogue - battery operated set of LED lights for the season. An indulgence, but a lot safer than candles, and a reminder. I steadfastly deleted the deluge of Black Friday offers in my inbox (hate the import of this custom) except for the carpet shampooer I had been planning on buying and likewise some more blocking squares from The Yarn Trader. Now, between the Hap Stretcher and blocking squares, I can block any shape without getting down on the floor to use the carpet (although the carpet will be clean!).
My new glasses were ready and I picked them up Monday, after the window cleaner finished at 9.15 am and before I visited my Superannuation company to clarify a few things . The glasses are bit of a change in colour and shape.
Family dinner was delayed to accommodate a school meeting from 6.30-7.30pm , an easy adaptation that accommodated all but Brigid who had a meeting. Exams are in progress - along with the vital planning for dresses for the Year 12 formal early next year - which Year 11's attend, dressed to impress, but not to upstage Year 12s. Tricky.
My new pool dress/cover-up arrived and I was getting ready to try it out for Aquafit today when a phone call cancelled the class due to electrical failure. We had a fierce electrical storm this morning, the second for the week. Roads were flooded and apparently 30,000 premises lost power. In both storms the window in my spare room leaked, caused, I'm pretty sure, by a flashing problem on the roof above. This time I got the towels in place in time. I have reported it to the Strata committee and will need to follow up when the rain is over if I don't want to end up like the Arkansas Traveller , a song and moral I remember well from primary school.
Today was also the 60th anniversary reunion of my school leaving year. There was a lunch and school visit in Sydney today to which I briefly considered going. Pleased I didn't add that into this week's mix.
I've instead been working the Buggiflooer Beanie pattern in the same set of wools, but using the orange tones as the dominant ones. Not sure yet how successful it will be. At the moment the lighter blue seems out of place.
As I brought the washing in this evening, a couple of honeyeaters were feeding on the jacaranda. The Noisy Miner attempting to intimidate from a higher tree eventually gave up, and left them to it. A small moment of peaceful persistence paying off for the honeyeater. 
