Post 458 Challenging weather and lots of activity.

It's been a week of appointments and service. medical work, Vergola have finally appointed a technician and he's coming tomorrow! I've had dentist visits, blood  and eye tests and checkups. I have more dental work next month and I won't have blood  test results until tomorrow. I do, however, now have a fairly good report from my optometrist. My eye condition is under control, I passed my driving vision test and I have a new pair of glasses on the way.

My dentist is close to the Hameji gardens and I managed a visit after my treatment. It is a calming and meditative place. I love the way individual flowers, or rocks, or  plants, are given space and position. These two stood out.

There were also a couple of cockatoos and a duck feeding on the grasses outside, the duck silent and the cockatoos very noisy. 

We had an electrical storm on Wednesday night. Thunder. lightening and rain around 8pm but apparently most of the action was between about 2 and 5 am. Several friends lost power, which was restored just in time for an even bigger storm on Saturday.

Wednesday had been a busy day with WES group - giving the talk as well as running the meeting. Lots of discussion, plenty of sharing and things to discuss as well as the talk itself. A few members sick, a number caring for partners or family, fitting in between commitments. A really great group. The meetings and follow up take quite a bit of my energy - and gives me great satisfaction.

Saturday was the Christmas Pageant - a big event on the Adelaide calendar, signalling the arrival of all things Christmas. More important to me was the phone call to tell me the two cabinets I ordered 20 weeks ago from Nordic Design Furniture were ready to  be inspected on Pageant day. There are road closures all around me, so I planned my escape. It certainly rained on the parade and for much of the day. It didn't deter the crowds. The city was abuzz, families everywhere, and traffic crawling. I got to Nordic Furniture, signed off on the two pieces and paid the residual. To my delight they were delivered on Monday.

Leanne, the owner and manager of the Pilates studio I attend, has been making plants in clay pebbles for sale. I am hooked. I bought a couple more this week, now that my front balcony is restored and I don't have balcony plants inside.  

So far they are doing well. I'm looking forward to seeing how they go in the long term.

I organised the printing of my Christmas cards and spent a few hours redoing my list of address labels so I could have them printed at OfficeWorks. I picked up the  labels on Sunday and went for another walk in the Hameji Garden. There was a group of Magpies occupying one area and occasionally disturbing the peace.

Most of the flowers I had photographed earlier in the week were wilting but this new one had burst open along a path. 

At home I cooked up a couple of pies for Monday dinner - since I had my lengthy optometrist appointment,  late Monday morning, and the two cabinets being delivered Monday afternoon.

In the light of the delivery, I emptied the Indian trunk which has been storing some of my family history treasures and moved it so the new cabinet  can be put in its place. I discovered a secret section in the trunk that I had not known about. It was (fortunately, I'm inclined to think) empty. The trunk is going to Veronica, who is quite excited about it. Both she and Niamh found the secret compartment with little trouble. It isn't difficult once you know there is one. It's hard to believe I have used the trunk for about 15 years without noticing the space oddity. 

I spent this morning at the hairdresser and this afternoon transferring things into the family history drawers.  

There is a drawer for items from each of three generations 

 -  my grandparents, my parents, and mine. The fourth drawer at the moment is holding a variety of documents. 

I need to do a lot more work to determine what goes in the drawers and what goes into archival folders. There are more Bibles in the grandparent drawer (although they were not churchgoers in Australia) than the others!  There is satisfaction in the task, but also sadness. I'm happy for today to have got this much sorted and the drawers closed.  My main frustration is that I can't find the unfinished embroidery of my mother's, which I planned to put on the top of this cabinet, under the glass I had made for the top. Yes, it is in that safe place. I'm trusting it will turn up.

 

The other cabinet is a replacement for an older, elegant sewing cabinet which opens by the lid sliding in two directions, meaning it needs to be placed with plenty of space on either side. I think the drawers will work better for me.        

It's been a busy and eventful week. My thoughts with friends in NSW in the line of floods yet again, and those still without power in SA. I've nearly finished my brother's vest - and planning my next project - a story for another day.

                                                       

Post 314 Running around

It was a running around kind of day. In between my various appointments and tasks I was, of course, checking news bulletins to follow what was happening in Washington DC, as well as the latest Australian Covid news. I have chosen to focus the 314 posts of this blog on daily life rather than current affairs and don't intend to change, but it IS a record of a Covid year and the significance of today's events did reach Australia and needs to be acknowledged.

It was the day of my six monthly dental check up,  even though I had seen both dentist and hygienist three months ago. Unusually, I had been unable to get adjacent appointments, so saw my dentist at 10.00am but the hygienist at 2.30pm. My dentist is expecting her baby on 1 February, so her appointments were a bit tentative. 

She ordered some Xrays to be taken this afternoon by the hygienist.

From there I went on to Create in Stitch to get the extra threads I needed. I'm afraid the sale won't make their day!

At Unley Village I called at Taking Shape. Yesterday I received a $65 loyalty voucher from the shop, so thought I'd use it to offset the cost of this top I saw last week. In a pandemic there doesn't seem a lot of point holding on to an unexpected gift horse.

 My car purchase three years ago came with free monthly car washes. I haven't been for several months, so headed there on my way home. It was a bit of a wait today but I had my Kindle and the coffee is good - and the precautions are in place and monitored. 

The attendant who washed my car kindly adjusted the clock to daylight saving time for me - which shows how long it is since I had the car cleaned!

I managed about an hour at home for lunch, then headed back to the dentist. The Xrays were helpful and the hygienist took nearly an hour. We are all happy about the extraction I am booked for with a periodontist in February.

I just had time to call at Frewville for milk, watermelon and some prawns before heading to the optometrist. He is happy with the progress of my damaged eye surface and I need to keep the treatment up for another month. 

My computer/embroidery/distance glasses were ready and the fitter had clip-on magnifiers for me to try. I settled for the 2.5x magnification clip-ons which seem to work well with these. This is for embroidery, especially in group situations.  I have spared readers the sight of the clip-ons.

I finished up most of the carrot salad with the prawns and fresh bread for dinner.

Around sunset, I heard the distinctive call of the Adelaide Rosella and grabbed my SLR. It was a single bird, sitting on the very top of a tree some 10-15 metres behind the apartment building. There was an answering call some distance away, but I didn't see the second bird. 

The long tail isn't visible here, so the rosella looks a bit smaller than it is.

I haven't seen one in these trees for a while.

With all the running around I was lucky to get two squares crocheted today.  

The blocking is now complete. I will roll it up tomorrow so it doesn't get crushed while I'm finishing the last two pieces to complete the chair. I won't take the cover off the chair until all three are finished.

Tomorrow I head for Normanville for a week.  It's only about 90 minutes drive and I'm can't book in until 2pm so there's no hurry.  I haven't done any packing, although I have thought about it. I also need to soak the plants before I leave tomorrow, and get petrol - which unfortunately is on the expensive end of the cost cycle. It will be a fairly busy morning.