Tag Archives: holiday

A Clean Slate

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It is well over a week since my last post and quite a bit has happened since then.  I did not anticipate being away from my blog for quite such an extended period of time.  However, the combination of a busy final week at work before the Christmas break as well as organising and hosting a couple of family events on Christmas Day and again 48 hours later meant that the blog was firmly on the back burner in the final days of 2016.  The internet has not been entirely helpful either which made the prospect of shooting off a quick blog post seem all too difficult.

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But here we are, on the first day of the new year.  A clean slate which is completely unsullied and just waiting for us to make our mark.  I have plenty of plans but there will be more about that in some upcoming posts.

I have not been idle during my absence from the blog and I have have even remembered to take some photos of some of my projects and I will share them with you, too.

Tomorrow I will review a few things from Christmas – the successes and those which did not quite go according to plan.

I hope you had a warm and loving Christmas with those who are near and dear to you.  May 2017 bring you kindness, joy and peace.

A Sleepover & Singapore

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We have a guest who is having a sleepover tonight.

2015-01-06 01Psycho Dog is on the left and Cousin P on the right.  Cousin P belongs to my sister who lives about 20 minutes drive away.  It is great that we can share the dog-sitting when either of us go on holidays or simply will be away overnight.  The dogs get on well together and seem to enjoy the company, although they are usually both exhausted once the other goes home.

The other news of the moment is that we have booked our flights to Singapore for a holiday later in the year.  No other details have been arranged although I will look for some suitable accommodation before too long.  Unlike our other overseas trips we will not be touring.  We will spend a week in Singapore, hopefully close to the centre of town.  There will be no changes of accommodation and we will simply use public transport to make our way around.

Sorting the Photos & Myself

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Some of you will remember this blog post from last year when I shared the awful realisation that I had deleted all the photos from my blog posts.  While I have put that experience behind me and moved on, I am aware that many of the older blog posts really do not make a lot of sense without the photos.

I am forever trying to sort out all of my digital photos and naturally my recent focus has been on getting all of the ones we took during our holiday into order.  However, I have been looking at many of the others and have found that most (if not all) of the ones that I deleted are still in various folders.  It will be a huge job but I am going to attempt to reinstate them in the relevant blog posts.

As with any big project it is best to do a little bit at a time so I have set myself the goal of fixing at least one blog post every day.  There will be no particular sequence but one day it will all be fixed, I hope.

It is now almost a week since we arrived home from overseas and I have worked 4 full days and am exhausted.  I am definitely looking forward to the weekend and the family coming to visit tomorrow.  We are looking forward to showing them the photos and giving them the small gifts we bought.

Catching Up on Comments

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I have been somewhat tardy in responding to your thoughtful comments over the past 3 weeks.  I have just gone back and replied or acknowledged all of them.

I read each and every one of your comments and am touched by the thought you put into them.  They really add an extra dimension to the blog and I would like to sincerely thank you.

The past couple of days have been a whirlwind trip to Sydney with my Belle, Miss O and Izz but more about that another day.

It has been hot here today and tomorrow is expected to be in excess of 40C so our focus while be on keeping cool.  I will be looking for some little jobs that I can do while staying as cool as possible.  Some of you are struggling to keep warm at the moment so my thoughts are with everyone who is doing their best to continue to function despite extremes of heat and cold.

No Place Like Home

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We have been away for a few days in Melbourne.  It was a lovely break and we stayed with our daughter.  Our activities can be summed up in a few words – shopping (clothes and shoes), eating and sightseeing.

Both The Duke and I bought clothes and shoes that we needed.  Some of it is to replace existing items in our wardrobes that have seen better days.  I will do a separate post soon about the clothes and how they will fit in with my existing clothes.

Missy took us out to dinner last night at the Woodlands Hotel which was really lovely and today we caught up for lunch with other family and friends.

Yesterday we went to the Immigration Museum and saw the most interesting exhibition, “Leaving Dublin” which is a photographic essay of the current wave of people leaving Dublin as a result of the economic downturn.

As the saying goes, ‘there really is no place like home’ and now I need to unpack and put a load of washing in the machine, make our lunches and plan what I am going to wear tomorrow.

Garden Update

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Much of what goes in the the garden happens without a lot of input from us due to the fact that both The Duke and I work full-time.

Today I want to share some progress on a couple of different fronts.

On Monday we finally had the large poinciana tree near the driveway removed.  This has been planned for over 12 months but when another large limb dropped a few weeks ago we were galvanised into action.  The tree lopper came on Monday and by the time we arrived home there was no sign of it apart from a small pile of sawdust where the stump had been ground.

This is now the view from our front verandah.  We will be replanting beside the driveway but have yet to decide exactly what we will do.

This is the remainder of another tree stump which we also had removed to make way for a revamp of the vegetable garden area.

The harvest from the vegetable gardens has not been as great as last year but today I was finally able to pick the broccoli.

2.1kg of broccoli from 6 plants is not a bad return and that is only the main heads.  As usual, there will be more smaller secondary florets.  We will use some of this before we go away and the rest will be blanched and frozen.

The cauliflower has been a disappointment compared to last year but at least I got some.  There was also 1 other small head which I picked for dinner last week.

Like everything else, the snow peas have not been spectacularly prolific but here are enough for the stir-fry tonight and the salad for my lunch tomorrow.

Finally, this is 836g of ginger that we pulled up on the weekend.  It grew from 1 small piece that we planted last year.  There is still more in the ground but I saw no need to harvest any more!  We will be dividing it up and planting lots of separate pieces.  The plants look lovely and thrive with the other ornamental ginger, cordylines and heliconias that are growing in the shade of the the cedar tree.

Last but not least I wanted to let you know about my 2 new blogs.

Eating For Health is about my decision to try a grain-free, sugar-free diet.  Click on the link and find out more.

Somewhere, Anywhere  is my travel blog.  This will be an online journal of our travels, beginning with our upcoming overseas trip.  You will be able to follow our adventures as all of the updates will be posted on there.