Post 568 A Birthday to remember!

On Wednesday, after a morning of packing the car, drenching the plants and closing the curtains, I picked family up from the airport, before heading. straight to Carrickalinga. There was an accident on the expressway that delayed us for some 15 minutes, but otherwise we made good progress.

We had a holiday rental on the beach. We've stayed there before. It's a very 1970s Aframe, with a  master bedroom and ensuite on a mezzanine, accessed by a spiral staircase, with living area below, both overlooking the beach. Through the door at the back is a rumpus-room setup, bathroom/laundry and a bunk bedroom. The house is currently For Sale. 

The other family holiday rental is a 15 minute walk up the hill and has spectacular sunset views. They cooked a BBQ dinner for our arrival.

I had a good, and very lazy, four days. I didn't have a swim. The rest of the family gathered early in the morning and in the evening to swim (far too hot to swim in the middle of the day: we are neither mad dogs nor English).  The day temperature fluctuated around 25-28C, a good 5-7 degrees cooler than Adelaide.

Our Strata requests we turn the water off in our apartment when we go away, so I had done this as I left. The taps, both hot and cold, are situated in a cupboard in the lift foyer on each floor. Mine are behind a downpipe, not easy to get to.  As I turned the stop-cocks off, the hot water meter fell off on to the floor of the cupboard. The round meter, on the left, should be on the round dial on the right.  I didn't have time to deal with it before going to the airport, so reported it the next day. This resulted in several phone calls on Thursday, and my neighbour giving a plumber access to the cupboard. On my return on Sunday, the dial was as I've left it. I'm assuming the plumber is trying to source a replacement. To my relief, and as the plumber predicted, once I reopened the stopcock, the hot water supply is unaffected.

 

Sunday was my birthday. We had dinner at the Normanville Surf Club on Saturday - an excellent, relaxed meal with lovely views and attentive service. The Canberra visitors were flying home on Sunday afternoon, so we packed up our house by 10am and imposed ourselves on the rest of the family for brunch before heading back to Adelaide at 1.30pm.

I didn't manage to photograph the piles of bacon and eggs Fionn cooked on the BBQ, nor the haloumi Brigid cooked, nor the numerous mocktails made by Niamh and Veronica, but the fruit and cheese convey the idea.

I was, in the words of Fionn, showered with presents. 

This is some of them. Two are really enticing kits, one Japanese fabric to make into a bag in any way you like, and the other a very inviting cross stitch mat on Nordic style. 

Veronica's very cheeky earrings consist of working pencils (!) and silver bird claws made by an artist who is also a taxidermist. These, I think, will provide a better signal than an evil eye amulet. I can't think of a clearer way to say Do not mess with me! I shall use them accordingly.

We made it to the airport in plenty of time for what was, unfortunately, a fairly turbulent trip back to Canberra. 

Back at my place, the plants had survived well. I had clearly overlooked the Christmas poinsettia in my pre-holiday watering frenzy. It looked sad, but has revived with water. I unpacked food and immediate needs, had an 80 minute phone conversation with my brother and numerous messages from friends to round off the day.

On Monday I set about finding places for my presents. Brigid had given me a hanging bird with a crystal, which needed a spot where the bird colours could be seen and the crystal wouldn't set anything alight by focusing the sun. I tried suspending it in the fly screen of the balcony door, but the colours are lost in the light. The Japanese women enjoyed holding it above the bookcase, 

but in the end it hangs nicely from the converted oil lamp.

Fionn's bird is taking longer, because the solder gave way at the base and I am trying to find a fix. I don't solder, and I’m out of superglue. Trip to hardware shop tomorrow.

Niamh's pin cushion demanded white or yellow pins, requiring a trip to Create in Stitch. It looks fantastic. All I need to do is to put the same pins back as I use them.

My next task was the fabric Alison and Karl gave me. It is woven in Harran, Turkey and purchased in a market town.  There are 3 metres of it and it deserves a proper dress. The dressmakers I know are retired or semi-retired. I could be a nuisance and call in a favour. Once I could have tackled it myself, but not now. After a bit of searching I found a dressmaking business just over a mile away on Unley Road, so took the fabric there straight away.

They were amenable, but needed me to supply the lining fabric.

I was headed to Create in Stitch for the pins, so thought I'd ask there before heading to Spotlight. Simela found me a fine cotton in a cream colour, which works well. I went straight back to the dressmaker, and have ordered a very simple, A line, long dress. I have a fitting on 31 January. 

While I was away my neighbour had taken in a parcel on my behalf.  This turned out to be a birthday gift from my friend Vivienne, who has knitted me two hats! They fit nicely and will come in handy in winter. The other component is ingenious, two clip-on earrings, joined by a chain, to form a shawl clip! Another useful winter accessory.

Fionn got it right - showered with gifts!

My prediction about which project I would progress while away was well off the mark. I began the Evil Eye protection embroidery and just kept going. I really loved doing it. I finished it early on Saturday. When I got home on Sunday I mounted it in the display hoop and on Monday found backing fabric. Detail in my embroidery blog.

I managed a few knots for the tassels, but nowhere near enough. I’ve almost managed one tassel, rolling some of the linen trimming into a round and covering with needle lace to form the head. It’s slow work. 

This morning I composed a final, rounding-off sentence for this post, before discovering that my storage locker had been broken into during a Sunday night car-park break in. My locker is about 75cm wide and 1.5 metres deep. There are storage boxes at the back and a 1.8 x1.8 metre trolley in front. The trolley is quite hard to move. The photo on the left is face-on to the locker gate. The large cardboard box sits on top of the trolley that has to be manoeuvred out when the gate is open, to access the boxes piled beyond.

The intruders cut, not the lock, but the metal the lock goes through. They must have pulled the trolley out, removed 2 boxes behind the trolley, replaced the trolley and arranged the door to appear locked! They took 2 boxes,  marked Personal Treasures and Treasures from Asia respectively, into the street and abandoned them, opened. A box of diaries was opened and some diaries, I think, are missing, as are the remaining 8-10 copies of Conversations with Baby Boomer Teachers that I self-published.  With the help of neighbours, the rest is back. The weirdest thing is that the intruders put the locker back together. It’s not easy to do. They could not possibly have been searching for diaries (could they?)! There is a lot of Strata security activity. We had CCTV installed late last year. I haven’t asked yet if it picked up anything.

I had written this morning that it has been a good week and thanked everyone who sent messages. Today’s discovery has not altered that. Yah Boo Sucks to intruders. At the end of the day, it's just stuff. If I ever meet them, I shall thank them for being tidy. I hope, however, I'm wearing Veronica's earrings! 

I really appreciate the connection, support and love shown to me this week. I may not have swum, but I feel afloat. One nice touch is that while we were at Carrickalinga, Fionn asked what happened to a boomerang we had above a door in our Hindmarsh house. I didn't know. Turns out, it was in the box of treasures found abandoned in the street. It did indeed come back!