Post 617. Christmas Wishes

I managed to mend (at least for now) the glass angel whose head had come away from the solder, so my nativity is now only missing shepherds.

I spent Wednesday morning at CMI Toyota, knitting and emailing while my car was serviced. Just before 7am, Couriers Please informed me they would deliver the bishop cushions that morning, but I managed to contact them and redirect the delivery to the Pack and Send down the road. All power to Couriers Please! 

I was not as fortunate the next day, when I cancelled Pilates and waited in all day for a delivery that never came! While the courier left a delivery card, they did not ring. The system records attempts, and there were none. I have now learned from reliable sources that some courier companies tell couriers not to ring apartments because it takes too much time! I now have the bags. The account of the new merchandise is in my embroidery blog. 

As I was confined to barracks on Thursday, waiting for a courier who didn't come, I decided to wash all my woollens. I put the 9 merino ones in the washing machine  and the five possum merino in the sink to hand-wash. I dried the machine lot first, a bit of turning and bone dry in 3 hours. 

I then spread out the possum merino ones dripping wet. This, at least, is a very good job jobbed.   

I had tickets to the Messiah at the Cathedral on Friday night, but after a lot of thought, gave it a miss. The temperature on Wednesday and Thursday was 39C and 40C, and forecast as 30C on Friday. The Cathedral has no cooling system and the heat builds up over several days. The deciding factor, however, was the cricket. The Cathedral is within an easy walk of the Adelaide Oval, and when a match is on, all parking around the Cathedral is restricted Event parking. As the third Ashes Test Match was in it's third day, scheduled to finish at 6pm, parking for a 7,00pm performance at the Cathedral was sure to be challenging. I opted out.  The attendance over 5 days was 223,638 a record for Adelaide Oval, so a good decision.

Apart from a couple of big supermarket shops and visits to an Art shop and the Post Office,  most of Friday and Saturday was spent adjusting the print on the Bishop bags. On Sunday I ordered 6 more, this time in a paler background colour, in the hope the printing will be clearer. I've organised for these to be delivered to my daughter's home.🤞 I'm hoping this will now be enough bags for those interested.

Once that was done I put the cricket on the television and set to work to get my Christmas gifts in order. I'm missing some of the Christmas sacks with initials on them for each grandchild, but as they are all now adults, and I have no shortage of gift bags, I improvised.  The bags are slowly turning up in unexpected places and I will swap on the day.

I haven't watched a cricket match for decades. As a child I heard the cricket on the radio throughout summer - pretty much everyone listened, and my family certainly did. On Sunday it proved very entertaining. Both sides went all out, making mistakes, but nevertheless demonstrating enormous skill and tenacity.  It was cricket at its best, and uplifting to watch, regardless of who won.

I kept watching until stumps, finishing the second front of my cardigan while doing so. I think I rather overdid making it larger. It is more a coat than a cardigan - but that's good. I've started on the sleeves. I was tempted to knit the two together on the same needles, as my mother and grandmother would have done, to ensure they are identical, but decided to keep it simple. If I managed to match the two fronts working them separately I can manage the same for the two sleeves.

The Christmas emails, eCards and calls keep coming in and four more cards came in Monday's post. I do so love getting the updates. It really lifts my spirits. It's my community, connected strongly over distance.

Monday's dinner was a sausage and vegetable bake, the original recipe from Ken Cock, the dear friend who died this year. My version has many more vegetable varieties than his, but still holds his memory. The photo, of course, is before  cooking! 

As family began to arrive my buzzer failed to work. That heaven for phones! I could go down and let them in. I reported the problem to the Strata. This morning I checked with my neighbour, and placed a sign over my buzzer instructing deliverers to buzz her. Our Strata rep, just back from a 2 week holiday, checked with other reps (the key one of whom was on holiday in Thailand!), then came up and showed me how to reboot my connection. It worked!  My buzzer is now operational! A learning curve for all of us. 

Apart from 2 parcels I have re-routed, I am still waiting on a couple of deliveries one of which is a dress I ordered to wear on Christmas Day. It was meant to arrive yesterday by Express delivery, but appears stuck in Melbourne - no surprise at this time of the year. It is now at Melbourne Airport, so pretty unlikely to arrive tomorrow.🤷

The weather has cooled a little. and is forecast to stay this way until  the weekend. By that I mean 23C-26C  - comfortable for eating outside, not pretty snowflake weather. 

The doves were back today, finding spots where the tiles were warm, but not too hot, to groom and fluff up their feathers, managing to look a bit dishevelled but nevertheless helping each other  to get it together.

Let's shake out our feathers, and help each other to peace and goodwill this Christmas.