On Wednesday afternoon I managed to find a warm spot on the Western balcony in the late afternoon, right next to a kalanchoe which is beginning to bloom. These are the first open buds and this is about 1.5 times actual size: such delicate flowers on such a tough plant.
The day had kicked off with an optometry appointment - a checkup on my Blephatitis & MGD, which has improved but not disappeared. As this wasn't ablout checking my spectacle prescription, I wore my current multifocals to read the chart and had significant trouble doing so. Rebecca, my brilliant optometrist was on the trail. She ran all the tests for Blephatitis & MGD, then for my vision. My vision was almost identically to the last time - and to my current prescription. Yet I could read the chart more clearly without my glasses! Rebecca kept investigating.
My multifocal close range lens is set for screen reading, a suggestion made 4 years ago by a fitter, when my optometrist of the time refused to prescribe a pair of glasses specifically for embroidery on the grounds it was more flexible to use magnifiers over multifocals. While the screen lens has worked well for embroidery (and screens), it turns out that in a multifocal it limits the range of the distance lens. When we tested with a traditional reading lens the distance component performed normally and I could read the chart! So all that time I have been working with a sub-optimal distance lens! Fortunately, my distance vision is fairly good so I am not a danger on the road. I am not obliged to wear glasses to drive but usually wear multifocals all the time. I have ordered a new pair of multifocals with the correct balance and I am currently not wearing my glasses when out and about Even watching TV is better without them. I feel a bit of an idiot.
I had earmarked Friday to visit the Art Gallery for lunch and Dangerously Modern. However it was so miserably cold and wet I reneged, read a book, de-pilled my Aran jumper, progressed the last sashiko panel and finalised preparation for my Guild Conference presentation on Saturday. A late afternoon message asked me to bring my laptop - a big change in an organisation that insists on a clean usb as the only legitimate connector to the projector! I had prepared all options anyway. I made a cheese toastie for lunch and managed to find enough in the fridge for a very pleasant dinner. 
The rain continued on Saturday but I had things to do. I shopped for Monday’s dinner, composed my handouts for Book Club and visited the market at St Margaret’s to find a couple of plants I needed - a ground cover for the casserole lid and a succulent for my last empty clay bead bottle. I also nabbed a pot of hyacinths.Late in the afternoon, the drip in my living room wall returned for about 40 minutes -a drip sound about every 10 seconds. I reported it to our Strata rep. Seems there is still an unsealed spot somewhere on the roof. Good job the plaster repair to my ceiling from the last time had not been done!
Just as well I took my laptop. The Guild laptop, which had been updated on Thursday, took 90 minutes to update again and load - it was ready when I finished speaking!
I didn’t have an HDMI connector for my Mac with me, so that didn’t work. We have a camera that projects to the screen so Melissa trained the camera on my laptop and projected the camera image to the screen. I spoke from the PowerPoint images on my iPad, which Melissa could see from her seat near the camera, from where she manually progressed the image on my laptop - a very creative work-around! It worked well, the majority of the audience were engaged. I noticed 2 fall asleep, no surprise since some had driven several hundred miles to arrive at the Conference for a 9.30 am start. My Otami dress was very well received and lots examined in detail the items I took along. I think the session was a success. The room eventually emptied and we packed up computers and exhibits. The organisers were exhausted, having been on site at 8.00am. I was home by 8pm - hugely relieved and very connected to my tribe.
Book Club on Sunday was again lively. Between us we had read 64 books in the last 5 weeks. Three of those are next month’s suggestions and there are a couple of others I will follow up.I finished the last sashimi runner on Sunday night. I haven’t had a reply to my query about the designer which makes me suspicious. Rather than trying it out at dinner on Monday, I discussed the configuration with Niamh and we concluded a tablecloth is the best way to go, so I need to put a plain indigo border around it and fill in the centre gap. That’s easier said than done. Dinner went well without it. It was great to have a relaxed catch up with everyone.
Today I called at Riverlea Quilts to buy matching fabric for a border, but we couldn’t get a close enough shade of indigo so I’m waiting on their next shipment to come in. I’ll write about it in my embroidery blog when it’s finished.
Today has been busy. I had a hairdressing appointment at 1.00pm. Cleaners were due at 10.30, and leak investigators at 12. The cleaners has a cancellation and came an hour early. Then the leak investigators did the same. By 12.45, when I left for the hairdresser, they had removed a light fitting to insert a camera, climbed all over the roof, and were about to cut a hole in my ceiling. It isn’t load-bearing, so they can’t climb in, but they can stand on a ladder with head and shoulders in the ceiling. 
By the time I got home at 2.00 they had gone, leaving a neat cover over the hole (right), which they had carefully cut to coincide with the existing damage (above). All furniture was back as they found it and not a speck of plaster dust. They called me 40 minutes later. The view from inside the ceiling enabled them to see the passage of the leak from a missing screw under the flashing on the roof. They have now replaced the screw, repaired the flashing and provided the Strata with a quote to repair my ceiling. If I were wearing a hat on my newly cut hair I would take it off in tribute. Great workmanship.
Also this week, my lifetime Qantas frequent flier card was rejected as “expired” when I used it for points at a petrol station. I’ve contacted Qantas and it is being investigated. I suspect it is related to the recent hack of their database.On a more positive note, I had several dove visits. The righthand photo shows, above and to the right of the dove, the size of a Kalanchoe flower similar to the one at the top of this post.
