Post 565 A Christmas Indulgence

I began this chronologically at the beginning of the week but reorganised it on Sunday after I spent just over an hour  exploring  Chihuly in the Botanic Gardens, a series of glass installations by Dale Chihuly with a Jam Factory retail outlet.  They were so stunning I have lengthened this post to include them. Feel free to skip any or all.

The first photo was taken in the Bicentennial Conservatory (the building in the second photo). 

The next two photos are installations in the open park. During the day visitors can wander around for free. I didn’t cover the whole park, but will return another day. It’s there until late April. At night the installations are illuminated and access is ticketed.

Coming in from the Eastern carpark, the first installation I saw was the floating balls. A small child in a stroller was yelling bubble, bubble and pointing, an excitement I saw repeated several times by various children at various works. 

The gardens are lovely anyway, but these create marvellous reflections and a sense of both the unexpected, and appropriateness. There is a wow factor, but also of yes, of course. 

There is an entry fee ($14) to the  Conservatory where the remainder of my photos were taken. Here you can get close and also view from all angles. I loved it. There are plenty of explanations and video stations, but I preferred to just take in the glass. I’d had to talk myself into making the effort on Sunday morning. So glad I did.

It was a good day for it, only 25C. The conservatory closes early when the temperature is over 36C and doesn’t open at all when it’s forecast to be 40C. Even at 25C it’s pretty warm inside. I took a lot more photos, but these are my  picks. I will  venture back again on another coolish Sunday and cover what I missed, maybe with a friend.

Like the Radical Textiles exhibition, it will be a major drawcard during the Adelaide Festival in Feb/March. Not to be missed if you are here.

Returning to Wednesday, I almost missed my six monthly car service . As I pay for one service I usually book the next, but it seems I forgot last time. Fortunately I checked my diary and managed to get a booking for last Wednesday only a few weeks into the seventh month. As usual, I stayed for the 3 hours it took for 2 mechanics to complete the service and wash the car. I took my Aquile embroidery, my knitting and my Kobo (I wouldn’t want to run out of things to do). Another woman waiting came over to ask what I was doing. She learned dressmaking from her mother, who learned it from her mother in India. We had a discussion about sewing machines, knitting and learning.

I wasn’t at home to receive the delivery of the alpaca yarn I ordered a couple of weeks ago, so collected it from the Post Office on my way home. This is from one animal, Casper. It is a beautiful dark brown.  I’m looking forward to mixing it with the alpaca I have left  from previous projects. I haven't put it away yet: it is so lovely to look at.

I also tried to visit the Haigh's Chocolate outlet on Greenhill Road, but there are road works happening on their side road. Their carpark was full and no road parking, so I couldn't stop.

The Rita Maria Faleri Aquile is quite challenging. I undid two eagle tails while waiting for the car. I had hoped to live with the mistakes, but decided to adjust. The small sections are especially tricky. The thread is thick, and although the loose weave means holes are easy to see, it is worked in hand, and the threads move around. 

Thursday was the last Pilates class for the year. I managed to return Paul's book on Mitochondria. He, Heather and I had a lovely focused class, much cooler in the studio than outside. I had intended to have lunch at Queen St, but it was crowded, no parking and the kitchen had probably closed anyway, so I went home. 

Friday was my Crown installation - an easier process than the preparation a week ago. Clemmie explained why she hadn't used 3d printing for this. As I suspected, the older method can achieve subtleties 3d can't, and we were altering the shape of the tooth to reduce the gap between it and the next one, to help with cleaning.  She adjusted my mouthguard as a stopgap, but I have an appointment to make a new one. 

I had chosen bags for Clemmie (bluebird of happiness) and her assistant (Clementine Ford is a bit of a hero of both). Both seemed to delight, so I am very happy. I will miss Clemmie - but she will do well wherever she is, and so will her child. 

This time there was no waiting time to eat or drink. I came home via Haigh's chocolate outlet again and this time they had staff directing people to spaces in between the cement trucks and workers' vans on the side street. I managed to buy my supply of Christmas chocolate, and then stock up on groceries and alcohol-removed drink at Unley. Most of the washing I hung out around 2.30pm was dry by 6pm.

I spent an hour or so catching up with my brother on the phone. Our mother would have been 99 on Saturday. He visited her grave and took frangipani - from his potted tree grown from her enormous one where we grew up, and which provided my wedding bouquet. 

 I wore the mourning locket with the hair she was so proud of.  It seems a strangely Victorian concept. Collecting it when she died was really important to my father. I rarely wear it but it seemed important this year. 

Each day brought physical Christmas cards or letters, newsy email messages from friends and family, virtual cards and a phone call or two. I really look forward to catching up (such an evocative phrase!) but inevitably there is a sprinkling of sadness. 

The wife of a second cousin (with whom I had done a lot of family history research) died two weeks ago. There is a lot of infirmity. The joy, however, of ‘catching up’ (like today’s newsy email from friend Christine) lifts me up.

On request I took a bag of my remaining gift bags on Saturday night, where there was a lot of bag making activity happening, along with work calls, cooking, planning, eating and crosswords.

On Sunday afternoon, after Chihuly, I made gingerbread, interrupted by a long Christmas phone call. 

I thought I had checked ingredients before shopping on Friday, but I missed butter. I had 4/5 of what I needed, so topped up with margarine. I had intended to try icing them with white chocolate but, as usual, decided they don’t need icing (besides being too irregular in shape to ice easily!). The lighter ones are rolled thinner and more prone to burning, so I took them out sooner. As well as the smell of Christmas, they taste  delicious.  I tried several to make sure.

I did my final food shop yesterday. Every year I avoid Christmas Eve shopping, and every year as I manoeuvre my trolley around the crowd, I remember that everyone else thinks the same. I went with a list of 6 things and came home with two heavy bags and a box of drinks. I collared the last Pandoro in the Frewville supermarket!

Today I had a haircut in the middle of the day, travelling to the hairdresser on the city loop bus. I didn’t venture into the Markets, but it didn’t look crowded. This was the Market’s Santa seen from the bus. 

A Prayer for the Wild at Heart was still serving lunch when I got off the bus, so I indulged.  They are open, except on Public holidays, until New Year’s Eve, then closed for 2 weeks so I enjoyed the pleasant breeze, 27C and slightly changed menu.

My parcel arrived in Canberra, my packages are ready to take to lunch tomorrow (might need a small sleigh) and my candles are lit.

In the words of Tiny Tim, God Bless us, every one.

Post 530 Birds, bags, blooms and bedclothes.

On Wednesday I made a dash up to Stirling to Aptos Cruz. I had it in my head to buy a touch screen clock for Fionn’s birthday and I had decided to buy some water glasses for myself, to match the Champagne flutes I bought last month. (my best crystal water glasses did not respond well to being in the .dishwasher many years ago. While I still use the three that are left, they are cloudy.) I got both the clock and water glasses (and some wine glasses while I was about it).

Aptos Cruz is in an old church, and from the carpark I noticed a pair of Adelaide Rosellas, high on the building. I’ve not seen a pair before. They were not together but both, I imagine, within sight of their nest.

I watched until they flew away and was able to take quite a few photos from inside my car, some with the window down and some through the windscreen. The female is, of course, the one with muted colour.

The new Amanda Hampson, a sequel to The Tea Ladies  was released on Thursday. I ordered a copy online from BigW at the Brickworks, hoping it would be ready to pick up on my way home from Pilates but the notice came close to closing time, so I picked it up on Friday morning and did my big supermarket shop while I was there, before heading of the The White Picket  for lunch with Lorraine. The little Dulwich shopping area was abuzz. We had a good lunch and sat for a couple of hours catching up and reflecting. 

It is this time of year that Adelaide comes into its own. It is sunny without being too hot. Leaves are beginning to fall, but there are a lot of blooms and verdancy. Things still need watering, but not twice a day as they did even last week. 

Saturday was the end of daylight saving. Turning my clocks back was easier than I anticipated, in spite of the fact that the synchronise function worked on none of them (I suspect too many changes in connectors since the clocks were made). 

As it has been cooler this week, I decided to change over my quilt. Then, inspired by Fionn’s birthday present from his parents - a new bed and bed linens  - I decided to change all my bed linen from the mattress cover upwards. I can’t turn the mattress myself, nor remove the valance, but everything else came off. When I got to the linen cupboard to find replacements, I decided it was time for a sort-out. All the bed linen came out. After putting on a load of washing, putting some pillow covers in to soak and a much needed cup of coffee, I sorted the linen. 

Remembering a tip from my friend Pat years ago, I placed sets of bed linen in bags or pillowcases and labelled them. I now have three “Queen bed set”s,  one ‘king bed sheets for spare room’ and one ‘double bed top sheet’ (don’t have a double bed, so should I keep this? Probably not.) 

I found a lost king-single bottom sheet, which went to the spare room, a pretty much unused child's beach towel, set aside for charity shop. One sheet, with a note pinned on it in my handwriting " Queen sheet with 41cm removed" (I'm guessing it ripped and I cut and redeemed it, but I have only a vague memory. It is now in my stash of backing fabric). One set, bottom beige linen, top white cotton, went on the bed after the clean protectors, with the winter quilt on top. 

The linen cupboard is looking good. I admit I returned 20 or so pillowcases unexamined. 

I did two loads of washing in the afternoon, but left the pillow protectors to soak overnight, washing them the next day, along with one pillow. The pillow came out of the wash in fine shape, but with some strange brown goopy marks on the case. Foolishly, I put it back in the washing machine on the quick cycle. The result (including a few more of the brown goopy marks) went on the line, in hapless shape, dripping everywhere and has now, unfortunately, been consigned to landfill.

A more careful examination of my washing machine, revealed the brown goop around the door seal. Oh dear. How long since I cleaned my washing machine? Too long, it seems. I have now scrubbed the door seal and run the cleaning cycle. 

Is Autumn Cleaning a thing, or have I just invented it?

In between laundry drama, I have been working solidly on my Early Women of Books project. I've been switching between reading about the women, creating a summary to turn into a booklet, and stitching their names onto the bag fabric. My Quaker stitch is coming along a treat.

After the dentist this morning, cleaning this afternoon and another false fire alarm, I finished the bag late this evening and the booklet about 5 minutes ago! It will take me a few hours to write it up in my embroidery blog and publish the booklet. 

I apologise for all the jobs I have neglected while working on this over the  last few days. I have been obsessed. The trial bags printed using photos  are now on their way to me, so I should have the verdict by next week. To my astonishment, the bags were printed in China. I’ve ordered over 20 items from this company, all printed in Victoria. I think there should have been some explanation for sending this one off-shore. I’m very interested to see the result. Meanwhile, here is one side of the finished bag of Early Women of Books.

Tomorrow is WES Group so I had better get organised. There's also the Amanda Hampson to read.