Mellow Yellow Monday

I love colours, and am thrilled at the creative way some bloggers are using particular hues to highlight days of the week. Here is the latest splash of colour on this blog, thanks to the inspiration of mellowyellowmonday.blogspot.com
A corsage I made for a friend from the flowers in our garden.

Ruby Tuesday

Outside an antique shop in Nelson, New Zealand

Something beautiful on Shabbat

A couple of years ago, I did a floristry course for six months. This is one of the buttonholes I made.
Shabbat Shalom

Window Views

A blog to get us all looking at windows differently windowviews2.blogspot.com/
My contribution - building by numbers, Jerusalem

Dry Bones

Oh the joys of photography

Airbags

A friend mailed this to me. I'll never look at that airbag sign in the car again without wondering..........

Caption s'il vous plait

We've all seen this happen - the seagull mafia.

Anyone got a funny caption for this one?

Ruby Tuesday

A fuschia bush in our garden that we thought had died, suddenly came back to life last year!

Something beautiful on Shabbat

Here is my new little theme for Friday - something beautiful on Shabbat.

This week, peonies.

Think Green Thursday

For those of us who are wondering what small part we can play in NOT destroying the earth any further than we already have! Gee, that was a weird sentence.........Another great blog link at http://ramblingwoodsgreen.wordpress.com

Photo taken between Nelson and Motueka on the S. Island, a crafter's heaven called "My Back Porch"

Watery Wednesday

Mana Harbour, N. Island
Another great idea - posting photos of water. Living in New Zealand this will NOT be a problem. Check out www.waterywednesday.blogspot.com

It's been a bit cold here lately

Photo courtesy of stuff.co.nz.
We are forecast yet more polar weather for the weekend.

Ruby Tuesday

There is a really great blog over at workofthepoet.blogspot.com. Each Tuesday the blogger posts a photo containing something which is red in colour. Anyone can join in the fun, so here's my contribution to Ruby Tuesday. The poppy was picked from my garden on December 22nd, my birthday.

A propos of nothing

Taken outside a cafe this afternoon.

Halcyon Sancta

I have just had one of those supremely heart soaring moments, which are all the more powerful because they are so unexpected.

Moments ago, walking up my long driveway, I paused to look at a lazy moon, still in view (it is 10am). Directly in my gaze, sitting in front of the moon, on my neighbour's electricity wire was a kingfisher. Halcyon Sancta.

He was oblivious to me and to my large cat as we both stood stock still and gazed at him. What a precious experience. My heart is still beating fast.

It will be a Halcyon day

Man proposes, nature disposes

A curious little cameo from our neighbourhood. There has been a huge engineering project underway at the entrance to our small town. To our disgust, it has involved felling huge trees, flattening a massive section, causing mud slips over the main motorway; and that’s not to mention ruining a very good view. This is all in the name of commerce. It is about to be turned into a huge DIY centre (like we needed another one – we have gazzillions already).
So, every time we drive onto the slip road and past this monstrosity of a building site, I moan, I groan, I boo, I hiss.
Last week, however, I had cause to cheer. Picture if you can a twenty foot high outcrop of clay type rock. It is at the side of the slip road, so you get quite a good view of it as you slow down to enter the suburb. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There were hundreds of sparrows clinging to it, I presumed to eat small insects. A few days later, this tall cliff started to turn green – the birds must have been after the grass seed which had been sprayed onto it. Good for them! At least they got a “takeaway”.
Yesterday the birds were still there, snacking away. My husband commented that at least they were away from any local cats. But then we mused on the Kiwi’s love of extreme sports. Perhaps the cats would find harnesses and bungee jump from the top, scooping up sparrows as they went.
The building site has been dubbed sparrow cliff and we don’t talk about it in front of cats.

A History of Aprons

Quoted in full from a magazine I picked up recently. I think this is really gorgeous..

I don't think our kids know what an apron is. The principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath, because she only had a few. It was easier to wash aprons than dresses and they used less material, but along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven. It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears!

From a chicken coop, an apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven. When friends came, aprons were ideal places for shy kids. When the weather was cold, grandma wrapped it around her arms.

Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove. Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron. From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls. In the autumn, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees. When unexpected guests drove in, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a few seconds. When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out on to the porch, waved her apron and the men knew it was time to come home for dinner. It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that "old time apron" which served so many purposes.

PS Remember Grandma used to set her hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool. Her grand-daughters set theirs on the window sills to thaw from the freezer!

Quote of the week..

I saw this quote on the back of a large lorry (truck) owned by a big haulage company here in NZ.

"Magnificent trees grow when a little nut stands their ground"

View from my window

It is said that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. So inspired by the wonderful blog Ilanadavita.wordpress.com, I am borrowing the idea from her entry today. She has taken the photograph from her window, so here is mine.

Cat Walk

Taking advantage of late afternoon sunshine, The Better Half and myself took a long walk around the neighbourhood.
Final Kitty Tally: 7 black and white, 1 ginger and white, 3 tortoiseshell. Zero tabbies.
Theory on the colour ratio / visibility of the local feline fraternity.
Gingers are super hunters, so the Jaffa cats were presumably taking a late afternoon nap before the night rat/rabbit/possum watch.
Tabby’s are duvet dwellers. With the recent freezing snap, they are probably hibernating beneath goose feathers.
Black and whites are the social bunnies of the cat world. If they can find a sunny patch on the frozen tundra, they will occupy it in order to have conversations with passers by (feline or human).
Torties / Calicos are the posers of the cat world. Three colours equals three times the attitude, they are aptly named “naughty torties” Of the three we spotted, one was staring into a woodpile, willing a mouse to emerge, the other two were chasing each other over a beautiful lawn.
We returned home to one black and white sumo cat soaking up the last remnant of watery sunshine, and Miss Tabby Tortie snoozing on the duvet, paws aloft. True to type.

Guess the location

For all the "lurkers" out there. I wonder who will be the first to identify the location of this photo.

The morning after the night before

I really don't do well eating late. I spend a restless night trying to sleep whilst my insides try to pulverise, shake, filter and liquify my dinner. It's very distressing. Even feather quilts and a happy, purring cat by my side don't help. I simply toss and turn and have weird dreams. Last night we had great company, great conversations, nice wine and a real wind-down at the end of a busy week. I just wish it had started two hours earlier and finished early enough for my stomach to work its way through the various digestion programmes. I really don't like the "final spin" when I'm horizontal.

Thanks for dropping by

.....welcome to country number 74, Nablus in the Palestinian Territories.

Fruit cake protocol

How do you eat your Christmas cake? Where I come from, you always eat fruit cake with a slice of strong cheddar cheese. Tonight my husband is sampling the cake I baked yesterday with Greek yoghurt. Some folk have to have a glass of port or sherry.

I am curious. What are your "dos" and "don'ts"?

Mid winter baking

I participate in a dangerous pursuit every Saturday morning. It involves a large mug of tea and half an hour in bed, browsing through back copies of “Country Living” and “NZ Home and Garden”. My better half makes me the tea, one of the cats joins me in bed and I plot my next project.
Two days ago I was reading an October edition and fell over a recipe for Christmas cake. I have never made one before, and as I had all of the ingredients in my pantry, bar three, I thought “Why not?” It’s cold, we always have people dropping in for tea and fruit cake is for winter.
So after lunch today, I lined and constructed the cake tin (a recycled Amazon packet became the tin’s jacket). My husband watched me somewhat bemused as I arm-wrestled the cardboard and string.
So, it cooks, and I chew my nails, wondering if it is going to be an expensive, brandy laden disaster. A photo may follow.

Transitions.

The official beginning of winter today. I am spending a few days with my better half “taking stock and looking forward”. He is currently busy publishing a book, preparing to lead some seminars in Australia and visiting Israel later in the year.
Me, I am unemployed and a bit rootless. It is five years since I moved here, and I feel a bit like a post it note, I’m attached, but only just. It is the wrong time to risk starting a business of my own, and each job advertised attracts a tsunami of applicants.
So, it’s time to think out of the box, pray and trust and see what happens. Beloveds, watch this space.