Post 438 Satisfying but Tiring Week.

It's been a busy week one way and another.

On Wednesday the much awaited lunch actually took place! John, being the gentleman and caring friend he is, brought flowers as well as champagne.

The moussaka was excellent and the gingerbread well received. There were little bears as well as angels. I invoked the angels to make sure we did get to meet this time! 

Cathy bought me a plant, an Almanda Blue, a form of lobelia I had admired at her place. I don't have a photo, but it is on my eastern balcony in a tray of water as it needs to be kept damp. Here's hoping I can grow it into its full glory.

It was a relaxed and sustaining afternoon and lilies have opened, providing continuous interest and joy. 

My Thursday optometrist appointment brought some sobering news. The eye treatment we have been following has modified the condition but not prevented it advancing to a stage of beginning to damage my cornea, so I now have an appointment with an eye surgeon in ten day's time to see if further intervention is required.  My Pilates class was taken by Leanne, the owner, because my instructor's teenage son has Covid. Leanne is always interesting - she always varies standard routines with additional challenges very specifically focused on each individual.  

Inevitably, the wine I had succumbed to ordering from a promotional phone call arrived while I was at Pilates, so was taken to the Post Office for me to pick up. Ironically, I'd have been home to receive it if I hadn't stopped at the PO on the way home to send a letter by express post!

I also had a phone call from the agency that supplies my cleaner, to say they are branching into carpet cleaning. Since I still haven't heard back from the carpet cleaner who visited my 2 months ago, I made a booking, which was today. 

This is the first time I have lived in a carpeted home - and the first time I've had the carpets cleaned - so I could only follow instructions to prepare. I was up early this morning to move all my indoor plants, small furniture, ornaments and sundry bits on to the balconies, bathrooms or kitchen. When Matt, the carpet cleaner arrived, we moved chairs and a bit more furniture. He cleaned all my carpets - 3 bedrooms, hall and living room and the arms of my 3 seater lounge. 

After getting him settled, I went out and came back when it was dry.  It took about an hour to move everything back in but it looks fresh and clean. I now need to do this regularly.

While it was being done, I went to the State Library to meet Michael, a man who went to Teachers' College with John, my lily-bearing friend above. Michael runs a weekly program on community radio, in which he interviews people and tells their stories. He has done several hundred broadcasts. When Michael asked if he could interview John, the latter deflected him to me - arguing my Baby Boomer Teacher book would be of interest. Michael meets with his subjects 2 times to get to know them, before recording an interview. I agreed to meet him today - and ended up spending two and a half hours sharing stories. Our second meeting is next week. John will keep!

While I was on this organisational roll, I ordered a Sutton Hoo Beastmaster kit from Tanya Bentham. This is an indulgence, but I plan to talk about Sutton Hoo in my Anglo-Saxon embroidery presentation later this year, and this looks like a good example, not of Anglo-Saxon Embroidery, but of Anglo-Saxon design being repurposed to a different craft form. Left is the Sutton-Hoo original in metal work and garnet and right is Tanya's embroidery kit version.

My Guild mate Margaret Morgan finished her knitted Shetland Shawl. The size isn't discernible from the photo but it is around 90cm square. I love the work and the colour.     

I finished the horse blanket (perhaps I should call it the pretty little horses blanket!) and consulted with Margaret about washing out the solvi. Her advice was sound, nothing ran the folds came out, solvi dissolved and the blanket is clean and ready to gift. It is very hard to photograph. I will publish a bit more detail tomorrow in my embroidery blog.

I managed to add the pocket to the second of my summer dresses that I dragged out last week. It's called spot the pocket!

Yesterday the fire alarm went off in our apartments just before 2pm. I evacuated down the stairs with my handbag, meeting up with 11 other residents on the footpath as the fire brigade came within minutes, blocking the road when they could find no parking space. 

After about 15 minutes of checking, they concluded it was a malfunction caused by pressure in the water pipes in our carpark - presumably related to sprinkler systems.  

I was pleased to back inside in time to turn my oven on for Monday dinner! It is reassuring to have such prompt service.

I'm a bit late posting this. I haven't had a lot of time to pull it together today. It has been that kind of week!  

Post 423 Bats and Ballots

Continuing my theme of 'March in recent years', this is 21 March three years ago with my cousin Pen and Mark in Lynton, Exmoor. Again, I am so pleased I was able to visit them when I did. We created so many memories to hang on to. 

In contrast, "abundance of caution" has made this a very quiet week. In line with SA Health Guidelines for close contacts (7 days isolation 7 days caution), I have avoided all those crowds I usually mix with(!). On Wednesday I had a problem-solving session with a Guild member - at an outside table in a coffee shop. Seemed to work. Although my Pilates class is never more than 4 people, it is indoors and I cancelled to be safe. I did a bit of food shopping and visited Create in Stitch to replenish my supplies of DMC Etoile thread, used up on the Bush Sentinelles.

The big event of the week was our State election on Saturday. I had mailed my postal vote last week. I spent election night having dinner and watching the count at friends' place - an old tradition. Pre-polls suggested a tight result with a probable change of government. It turned out to be a landslide change. Once I might have been excited by this. Now I have very mixed feelings. I am really over the tribalism. I can no longer see the two Party system (indeed the Party system itself) as efficient, effective - or decent and honest. I don't believe the promises and claims. I want cooperation and collaboration. At least this result is clear-cut. That makes a bit of a change in SA. I'm hopeful we will all now get on with doing the very best possible for our community. Today at the hairdresser I overheard several conversations from the adjoining barber - middle-aged men born in Eastern Europe, sharing their fears, knowledge and hope in the face of the Ukraine crisis -geographically removed, but utterly connected.. It strikes me we need to draw on the depths of experience and understanding in our diverse community to find workable solutions to both local and global issues - we are in this world, this State, together.

On Thursday night I had an idea that sent me back to Create in Stitch again the next day for a large wooden hoop. 5 members of my Adelaide family were still in lockdown. Because they had isolated as a family, rather than make the infected member isolate in their room alone, they had 14, rather than 7, days of isolation. The infected member, on the other hand, was free to leave the house once negative. It was hard to be missing school, work and sporting finals. So I designed and worked a little tribute for their release from quarantine today.  

That took up most of Saturday and Sunday along with making a couple of moussaka and an eggplant parmigiana (bought too many eggplant!). I delivered them to the lockdown house in the hour that our water was off due to the installation of new taps in the basement carpark. 

My neighbour called me late in the afternoon because she had a leak in her bathroom roof - I'm not sure how plumbers in the basement results in leaks in the roof, but hopefully it will be solved soon. The same neighbour had called in last Friday to talk to me about her experiences growing up in Adelaide in the 1950s - triggered by reading Conversations with Baby Boomer Teachers. 

After she left on Monday, I was enticed again by the bats - the dots high in the sky,

 

then a discernible shape 

and my favourite - curved shape  on an almost impressionist landscape.

Today's hairdressing visit took a while but I'm happy with the result. My hair is thinning and the grey is increasing, but I will pass with a push, as my mother would have said.   

I'm now finishing off the Mosaic Carpet Bag, and setting up the Aesop Frame which I will be working on for weeks to come. It's time.

Post 399 Three lunches, three embroidery projects, and a lot of books.

Last Wednesday my grandchildren and I had our school holiday lunch at the River Cafe   It was relaxed and now fairly predictable - which at the moment I think we all like. They are such interesting company. 

While out I  missed the delivery of the proof copy of the book, so dashed to the PO just before closing. It looks good, and it was much easier, with the hard copy to refer to, to find and make the online changes that Pat had identified. I managed to make the changes, upload a new version, then delete the old. The only sustained problem in so doing was with the ISBN. I've now sorted that out with Bowker, who were very helpful. I finally ordered 50 print copies. Anyone wanting a copy can order at here . Selecting your own country at the top right hand corner of the page should ensure printing and delivery from your country. I have put no royalty on the book, so the cost is printing plus postage. You can also read the whole book as a preview, or download a free ebook. Blurb informed me on Monday that they will have a 'small price increase' across the board from the 18th October, but have not specified what it is. They appear also to be offering a 25% discount on printing costs with code GREAT25 at checkout.I don't know how long that will last. 

I finished the embroidery on my coat and wrote it up for my embroidery blog. I'm pleased with it. I like the tapering fall of the design. Now I need to find another project for B2B.                                                                                                                                  Thursday was relatively busy. Before going to Pilates I met with the accountant to submit my tax. He was well prepared and we got it all done - a big relief, and a small refund.  At 6pm we had a Convenors meeting at the Guild, the first in 3 years. It was very efficiently run. The Convenors' Guidelines need updating, given the Covid requirements.  We were invited to bring our meal with us. I had my main meal late in the afternoon, and took coffee and yoghurt at the meeting. 

When I got home I settled down to work on this magnet that I am planning as a Christmas present, while watching the movie Rams as a download on demand. I was a bit disappointed in the film, which I've wanted to see for a while, When I woke up the next morning, my left wrist was very painful - RSI from holding the small plastic canvas in my left hand. I wore my wrist brace all the next day, used cream and cold packs, but it was still sore. I was cursing because I had a two day counted embroidery class coming up on the weekend.

Friday, on the other hand, was leisurely, allowing me to get organised for the weekend, hang out the washing, do a bit of shopping. Partly to stop myself using the hand, I went to Frewville to get a few supplies, and had a late lunch at Mr Nick's - grilled trout with corn and leaf salad. Excellent. 

I had planned on a toastie for dinner, but wasn't hungry enough for anything but yoghurt. The lunch didn't detract from my weight loss although it did fluctuate by 0.6 kg over the rest of the week, for no reason that I can identify.

Saturday's class, Christine Bishop's Leadlight Counted Set, started at 9.30am sharp and went until 4pm.  I had prepared the outline some time ago. The whole design is about 8" across, and folds up to make a pouch. There are. I think, 14 different stitches used.

I found the first day a bit difficult because my hand was still very sore, and my left eye was weepy - the ongoing tear duct problem, but Christine was very helpful. I tried working it in my hand but moved to a seated 6" hoop so I didn't have to use my left hand to hold it. That worked better, but I had to work away from the edge to fit it in the hoop.  I still made fair progress. When I got home I mounted the linen on some sheeting and moved it to a larger hoop.  

This is where I reached on Sunday evening. Pretty pleased with that. It has been interesting working the different stitches. I'm almost disappointed to be in a position to repeat them.

Monday was spent shopping for and preparing dinner - stirfried duck with noodles and vegetables. It worked well, except I forgot to add the bok choi at the end. There were plenty of other vegetables, which is why I was able to forget! We had an interesting discussion about mandatory vaccination - and mandates in general. Our vaccination rates have risen significantly, especially amongst the 12-15 and 16-18 age groups. Fionn puts it down to education. He thinks schools have done a good job of educating kids about vaccines and other safety issues, like driver education. It's a good testimony. 

Today I went to the Retired Secondary Principals' Association lunch. These are held twice a year. Numbers have been down since Covid interrupted the twice a year routine. 

There were only 14 there today, at the Blackwood RSL to hear Deb O'Reilly, Director of New Schools for the Education Department, speak about the current approaches to the built environment of schools and the new schools currently being built.  It was really interesting. My late friend Heather Woods, who took a great interest in advances in this area, would have been delighted to hear of the progress being made for student learning. 

While I was there I received messages to tell me of a couple of deliveries that were coming today and sure enough, they arrived  15 minutes before I got home and had been taken to the local PO. There were three boxes, two of them containing the 50 copies I had ordered of Conversation with Baby Boomer Teachers! It is good to have them and a shame I wasn't able to take them to today's meeting. The third package was a book from my brother in preparation for some research he wants me to help with.  I rang to thank him and we ended up talking for nearly 2 hours.

Altogether a good day.

Tomorrow is the WES Group meeting, and my turn to present - Viking Embroidery. I have quite a lot to gather together to take with me.

All in all it has been an eventful week: a few stresses and obstacles, but plenty to be thankful for. 

Deo gratias.

Post 398 Words, photos, stitches and, hopefully solar panel connection

We've had a fair bit of rain this week and in between showers my dove pair have dropped in to remind me to put out more seed. 

On Friday he (assuming the larger is male) stood very close, waiting as I hung out the washing but backed off when I got within about half a metre of him.

I spent most of last week buried in BookWright software reloading, editing and finally uploading the book to Blurb. I found it an intense and stressful time. It required numerous adjustments to get the pages to fit and run smoothly. I was expecting it to crash any minute. I figured out that one of my problems was not saving regularly. I have become accustomed to software which saves automatically and realised I needed to manually save after each change. When I thought I had it done and began to upload I got a message to say trade books needed to be in page units of 12, or extra pages would be added to the end of the book. As I didn't want 8 blank pages at the end I had to do another round of adjustment. I'm happy to say I got there. 

As recommended, I have ordered one print copy to check. I'm waiting anxiously for it to arrive before I make the link to the print version live. There is a free ebook version available here  for anyone interested. I'll report on the print version as soon as I have it.

I'm very grateful to my friend Pat Manser who jumped through hoops to access and read a copy for me. She found a quite a few typos and two clangers which I need to try to correct. I think I've figured a way to do that relatively safely. 

It was the Labour Day long weekend here. I had a really lovely evening at Katherine and Anthony's place on Saturday but spent the rest of the weekend at home, either engaged with the book, stitching or playing with family photos.   Left is me, my mother Sylvia, her mother Nell and Nell's father George Bearcraft.

Right is me, my father Len, his father Jim and Jim's mother Caroline Parker.

I've been putting together photos for each of my grandchildren with generational sequences. It's more revealing than a family tree. I have photos of all 4 of my grandparents and 5 of my 8 great-grandparents.  That means I can do 5 of 6 generations for each grandchild, plus 1 of 5 generations. I managed to get them set up and printed late on Monday.

 

The exercise, especially in a week where I have worked so hard on a book, has given me the opportunity to reflect on what my lineage has given to me. Words and photographs stand out. These photos are only with me because of the Box Brownie camera given to my uncle for his 15th birthday four months before the family left England for Australia in 1928. His parents could ill afford it, but he used it to photograph all their family before they left. He also went on to become a photographer in Sydney - not an easy journey. The family valued photography. However, both my parents valued words above most things - Dad, though himself a reserved man of few words,  through a commitment to books and 'the classics' as a path to understanding, Mum through story, poetry and recitation. I see her now as a bard - creating knowledge, clarifying ideas, maintaining values, shaping our world through story, repeating, adapting, adding, interpreting. It was a huge gift to my brother and I - and to our descendants. I would have it no other way. I've begun to think of an embroidery design that encapsulates some of this.

A couple of lorikeets were back on Friday evening. I was only quick enough to catch one on camera.  

My balcony flowers, easier to capture, are responding well to the rain.

In spite of my intention to only work on embroidering the lapels of my purple coat at B2B, I decided to move it forward. Because it can't be worked in a hoop I needed to wear my wrist brace on the left holding hand. I decided to stop pushing the needle through with my finger nails after I pushed the wrong end of the needle and put it right through my nail.

I did make good progress though, and finished one side on Sunday night. That, of course, was incentive enough to keep me going.  It's not, I decided, a good project to put away for a month at a time.

I now have all the purple and some of the green done on the second side. I shall write this project up for my embroidery blog once finished.

This week I was grateful for the Australia Post rescue service. My copy of Rowan Knitting 69 finally arrived - inside a large AusPost plastic bag. The original paper packaging envelope inside was in a sorry state and open on 2 sides. The contents had been put inside another plastic bag along with  a letter from the Netley PO depot in Adelaide, telling me the package had arrived in this state, had probably been soaked in water and providing contact details for compensation. Inside the second plastic bag were two sheets of corrugated cardboard taped together (by the shop) and inside that was - another plastic bag containing the magazine.

I'm torn between gratitude for an undamaged magazine and horror at the plastic it took to get to me - from Sydney. Better make sure I make something from it.

Today was the day our electricity was to be out while our solar panels were being connected. I decided against going away and settled in to read and stitch. I made a thermos of coffee before the 8 am starting time  - my base level requirement.  It was a sunny day, lovely to have balcony doors open. Not sure that the solar panels will begin working until tomorrow - when rain is forecast!

My electricity did not go off until 2.30 pm and was back on at 3.15. Glad I didn't go away!  I spent much of the time correcting the errors in the book, using a laptop copy of the file I have uploaded. I now have a fairly correct version which I'm hoping I can upload to Blurb before I remove the existing one. 🤞 I might wait to see the printed version, in case there are page issues. The print copy has arrived in Adelaide, so shouldn't be long.

The best news of the week is that all four grandchildren have now had their first vaccine. Fantastic. I'm looking forward to lunch with them tomorrow. 

Post 396

On Wednesday I had lunch at Mr Nick's again with Dawn and Jennifer. They are both thinking of joining the Guild, and since then, Jennifer, I know, has joined. I hope they get as much pleasure and learning from belonging as I do.

It has been a week of periods of rain and sun. The balcony plants have responded well.  

I got carried away with more Viking work before posting a summary of my efforts on my embroidery blog. I'm not entirely satisfied with my final choice of metallic thread. The exercise has made me consider the whole issue of historic reproduction or representation and the limitations of both. On Saturday I visited Create in Stitch and bought some silver Perle 5 to have another play. In the very least there is a lot to talk about in a workshop!

I was back at Pilates on Thursday, where the class was taken by Leanne and stretched me in a slightly different direction. In the late afternoon I sat on the western balcony, feeling good in my body and the sunshine until it got too hot and I moved inside. The Strata AGM for our apartments is coming up. I mistakenly thought it was last Thursday and had, after some issues with the software, voted online. I had my dates wrong and it's next Thursday. No harm done, I am at least ahead of myself, if not on the ball.

Friday would have been my father's 102nd birthday and I had a whim to gather and post some photos to Facebook. It's good to look back over photos and remember him in the numerous contexts of family that occasion photos. Some of my favourites though, are the ones of him caught in typical, ordinary poses.

I also started preparing my 2020-21 tax return, gathering and ordering the various documents and receipts for a visit to the accountant. I was about half way through when I left for Sit'nStitch. I finished the process on Saturday, and have emailed the accountant for an appointment. I'm pleased to have pushed myself to do this. It's much easier to keep on stitching! 

The process of getting organised encouraged me to keep going and finish the task of gathering my Conversations with Baby Boomer Teachers into a book. I had progressed this a few months ago, but left it at the proof-reading and adding the last chapter stage. I spent all Sunday working on it and spare minutes on Monday. I had originally intended to try creating a cover from a photo collage, so gathered a few possible photos together before deciding it wasn't going to work. I have come up with this fairly crude but simple effort. The photo is a of banner created as part of a Multicultural Community Art Work  by the girls during my principalship at Gepps Cross Girls' High with the help of a group of artists for an exhibition called Threading Our Lives. I thought it appropriate. I also have an offer to design a cover from a BB artist, but it will probably take some weeks. Comments are welcome.

While on an organisational roll I cleaned up my emails - either completed or deleted all those surveys, requests for feedback, articles I'd been saving and got it down to 20. So far I've managed to keep it there or below. Another little goal!

It rained on and off all week, but the plants still needed watering a couple of times. I watered before hanging out washing on Sunday and filled up the water bowl. My dove friend arrived on cue. He/she no longer waits for me to go inside before tucking in.

On Monday I cheated a little for dinner and bought two of Enzo's lasagna trays from Frewville, on chicken and one 'meat' - an interesting distinction! They went down well. Next time I might try spinach and feta.  To offset buying the ready-made lasagna I made another batch of Anzac biscuits. I also finished off this Sashiko napkin to place beneath some of the biscuits.

Late on Saturday I got a message from Ancestry. One of their recent additions is a service that packages data from individual family trees to show progression, or connections. The service had combined these four photos from my tree - me (a long time ago!), my mother Sylvia, her mother Nell and Nell's mother Kate. It gave me an idea that I spent most of Sunday playing with, before sending some experiments off to Officeworks for printing. 

There might be more news of the experiment if and when it works.

I had to stay in today until Chris arrived. He is a building inspector, engaged by our Strata to measure any issue of 'water ingress' since some residents have reported issues on their east facing windows. He was very pleasant, informative and interesting to watch. I had some issues a couple of years ago, but they appear to have been fixed by some flashing and capping work done on the roof. Chris's water meter says there is very little moisture in my walls - and that the building next door is now protecting my south wall from weather and moisture!  It's interactions with pleasant, expert people likeChris that really lift my spirits.

After he left I zipped out to the post office, then came home and finally ironed the alpaca shawl and wove in the yarn ends. The only way I could photograph it was by hanging it on the line. I wished I had ironed it earlier - I could have asked Chris, the building inspector, to hold it up for me!

It is lovely and soft, and toasty warm when wrapped around. I still have another of the Noro shawls to knit for myself, and I already have several shawls. One way or another it will find a good home.

Saturday was JEMS day. Niamh finished her Father's Day gift for Anthony and we enjoyed our milkshakes afterwards. I was delighted that mine didn't interrupt my downward weight trajectory. As of today, I have lost 9.4kg since 27 June - onward and downward!