This Christmas season has seen many, many changes in our household. A couple of months ago, after Mum had come back from exploring the bush in NSW, a conversation was resurrected from one we had had years ago about why we (really my parents) live in Brisbane. It was about Grandad of course and nothing could have taken my mother or myself away from SEQ whilst my grandfather was alive. With his passing in June and the passing of my father in May last year; that conversation could be had again as those events have changed a lot of things in our lives. I moved back home. We purchased an investment property. We’ve taken on a boarder (who may have had a Lotte bowl slip out of his hand and land on the floor in more than one piece … My Lotte is now more secure in where it is stored) and that’s just the billboard changes. Mum has had the chance to revisit that conversation we’ve had a few times over the years about leaving Brisbane and teaching somewhere else, I always used to suggest WA but that is an awfully long way a way. Mum though discovered a place closer to home though and next year she will be still be a Maths teacher but in NSW in a country town situated in the north west region. The town she is moving to is about a 7hr drive from Brisbane, luckily it is also on the Melbourne to Brisbane bus route so she will be able to hop on a bus to come home for a visit! Most importantly there is plenty of bush walking and an active club to keep her weekends occupied.

This has meant that Mum is packing up her life or perhaps I should say “culling her life”, there has been items leaving this house left, right and center. Some via Lifeline, some via Gumtree, some via Freecycle, others via the rubbish bin, some to people here and there. Some times it feels like that unless it is bolted down, it won’t be there when I get home from work!

Another change this year is that for the first time in the sixty years my mother has lived we have an artificial Christmas tree!!!! And we put it up on Dec 18!!! My father and my maternal grandmother are probably rolling in their proverbial graves (well more accurately, their ash particles are probably vibrating at a higher frequency than normal …)

However, it’s not just any artificial Christmas tree. It’s a 6ft Mistletoe Pine Aluminium Christmas Tree made by Raco. Yep, how many people do you know in Australia who are rocking an Australian made Aluminium Christmas Tree? Very few I would wager to say. I normally see two or so appear each year on Ebay and one of the ones that appeared last year made its way to me. I then gave the tree as part of my present to Mum last year (Well actually it was to both Mum and the house. Do you do that? We have often over the years had presents to the the house from the kitchen or to the fridge from the stove etc). My reading of the date codes on the box say it was made in 1964 and the price label reads £6/15/ which according to our friends at the RBA that is about $84 in the money of today.

Our tree has always been real and has always gone up around the 23rd or so and then comes down on the 6th of January or shortly there after (A major pet peeve of mine is when people talk of the twelve days of Christmas as been the twelve days leading up to Christmas, I grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. You seriously think the three kings got an early warning that Jesus was been born and started their journey twelve days before he was born ??? I’m a by no means a believer but it riles me when people talk about and use an idea that they clearly seem to have no idea what it actually means).

Moving on from that point. This is our tree. Click to see it larger of course!

Have you seen such a beauty? It makes such a lovely sound as you brush past it and oh I love how the lights reflect off it and dance on the ceiling. I actually lay under it on Sunday night whilst on the phone to a friend like a child, watching the light dance on “the leaves” … It is so smile inducing.

and the above photo is why.

My dear dear grandfather passed away on June 15. He was 91 years and a bit. In my direct family lines now, all I and my brothers have now is our mother. It’s been hard.

There is so much I could write and maybe at one time I will. Now though this is what I’m saying.

I helped plan another funeral, I made another slide show, I scanned bucket loads of photos and ephemera, I wrote the better part of another eulogy and then read part of said eulogy. We cleaned up a house and started sorting through a house full of belongings. My aunts and a few of my cousins made the trips over for the funeral and house sorting. There were laughs, tears and all that goes in between as tapestries came down off the walls, china came out of cupboards, wood items were stacked and everything was sorted.

Mum and I packed up everything else and took it all home to sort into something like 7 different stacks under the house. I’m taking a suitcase or two to the Suitcase Rummage this coming Sunday with some items.

I’m still studying – no real uni break for me. I had to defer my exams as it is a bit hard to have an exam on the same day as a funeral.

This was my grandfather. My Grandad.

Ben Folds – Zak and Sara – Typographical videoclip by c_kick from c_kick on Vimeo.

Isn’t that pretty cool?

And even though it is darn cold in Brisbane at least I’m not in Reykjavik like my brothers and my sisters (and the rest of the crew) where it has been snowing again, in the middle of summer …

For now, that is it – I must return to the joys of study.

My father didn’t do that. In the morning he was alive, he called the ambulance because he wasn’t feeling good, he walked to the ambulance and then maybe an hour later he was dead.

This is what I wrote a year ago minus 12 days – 12 days ago.

It’s been a period of adjustment at varying levels for all of us over the past year and it will continue to be for the rest of our lives. As there are all those things that you just imagined Pabbi would be there to see, things like more grand-kids, weddings, graduations, Christmases and of course more volcano eruptions.

Yesterday Mum and I went to the Service of Thanksgiving which is an annual event “in recognition of organ and tissue donors and their families who make transplantation possible”. We went because we donated Pabbi’s eye tissue. It was a good event to go and it was nice to hear the stories of transplant recipients as well as stories of other donor families.

Below is who my father was. This is the slideshow that we played at the reception we had after the funeral.

Tomorrow – I have work (of course), I get my tooth implant, I’ve got postgrad orientation stuff to do at uni and then I have The Whitlams with the QSO tomorrow night.

Friday – Work and then straight to the airport to catch a flight to Hobart.

Saturday – Wedding of my cousin on the beach at Coles Bay/Freycinet

Sunday – Post wedding activities and flying home Sunday night.

Monday – Work and first uni lecture

Tuesday – Fly to Japan for 2 weeks. (Yeah, I’ll be missing four classes – two for each subject, whilst I’m away)

I’m so crazy looking forward to going to Japan. G (one of my best girl friends) and I are going to have a blast (literally as they having a bit of a cold snap at the moment and it is forecast to snow for the days we are up in the alps!!!).

It’s going to be crazy. I bought a new lens the other week, the 28mm 1.8 which will be one of the two lenses I’m taking to Japan, the other will be the 50mm 1.4. I was thinking of taking my 16-35mm 2.8 but it is a heavy piece of glass. I took a few photos with the 28mm the other day and I’m impressed

Yep, some more of my Figgjo Flint Lotte. Here you see a creamer which doubles as a bobby pin and nail utensil holder, a sugar pot that holds bracelets and hair clips and my soufflé dish which holds jewellery.

I had almost the best weekend after my exam. I got the CityCat home, did all those jobs round the place that I had put off for the last two weeks, went to the markets, purged stuff from my room, made a really nice turkey and pork bolognese for dinner with N on Saturday night, went to Finders Keepers with G on Sunday arvo (we think it should have been called the Brooch Market as I think the majority of stalls had broooches for sale). Then since Mum was leaving for Patagonia and Antarctica on Monday morning for the next 7 weeks, I headed over for a bon voyage dinner (cold roast lamb, fresh roast vegies, chocolate self saucing pudding and custard – so so yummy).

This is all sounding pretty good isn’t it? but here comes the event that changed the best weekend to the almost the best weekend.

I went to the sewing room to borrow a sewing machine to fill in my time that was formerly occupied with study … Then I stood on something and let out a few words. A sewing room of course meant that I stood on a sewing needle. I looked at my foot and couldn’t see anything but a itsy bitsy teen drop of blood. I ran my hand over the carpet and pulled out a needle fragment – about 1cm long.

Ok I thought, I must have just stood on that spot in the carpet and it poked me and didn’t do anything else …. you can see where this is going can’t you ….

I walked back out to the kitchen, grabbed an ice-pack and numbed my foot for a while and then it was time for me to head home and for Mum to pack her bags.

I woke up Monday morning in pain, so much pain. I called Mum at sparrow’s fart to wish her will on her trip but the call was mostly me sobbing in my pain about my foot. Poor Mum, here she is heading half way round the world for the next 7 weeks and she has a 25 year old daughter sobbing down the phone line in pain.

I took Monday off work, went to the local GP and got a tetanus shot and he told me just to keep my foot elevated and stay off it. By the way, tetanus shots are so painless now – nothing like they used to be. I’ve had no bruise or arm pain – bonus. At this stage I had no reason to think that there was any part of the needle in my foot.

Monday night I was still in agony. Tuesday morning, I drove into work (no way could I walk to and from the train station) for a couple of hours to sort out my work and then I made an appointment with my family GP on the Northside for that arvo. A bit of a chat, a script and an x-ray referral later I was heading down to the local x-ray clinic for a few scans as the amount of pain I was in was indicating that something must be in there.

A few jokes with the radiographer later and ohh look at what we have here. Yep, there sure is a needle in my foot. I must have stood on the needle, part of it went into my foot and then broke off (thus the part I found in the carpet). A call to the doc to tell him that I yep I’ve got a needle in my foot. He then went into organising me to see a surgeon to remove it as it is not something that a GP can remove due to possible complications with the bone/nerves etc. Fun times.

Why hello sewing needle, what are you doing in there?

I had today off and will have the rest of the week off at least.
I’ve got a consult with the surgeon tomorrow morning and hopefully they will be able to fit me in for surgery on Friday…

I’ve spent the better part of the last three days, in bed with my foot elevated and an ice-pack strapped on it at times. Laying down in bed the pain is only there in the morning. I wake up to the most excruciating pain.

As I type this now, I would only be able to tell you that I had a needle in my foot by the fact that I can’t move the smaller toes on my foot or the fact that it is slightly swollen.

If I stand up though, that is a whole different story … that is when the pain kicks in and the needle starts to make its presence known. I’ve become apt at walking on the heel of my foot.

I’m sooo looking forward to the consult tomorrow morning. I just want that thing out of my foot! I’ve spent a fair bit of my life walking round bare-foot and I think after this I will be wearing shoes a bit more than I used to. I don’t want a repeat of this adventure any time soon.

The lesson to learn from this post? Wear shoes when walking round a craft/sewing room.

To be continued …

This is the last year for the F-111, well so they say since last year was meant to be the last as well, frankly I’ll believe it when it doesn’t do a flyover next year …. There are no Roulettes this year which is quite a for me. I love seeing them doing all their formations etc instead there’ll be some Black Hawks flying about …

I made pizza muffins earlier – basically this recipe but with more veggies in. They’ll be snack food tonight along with some Lebanese pastries I picked up on the way home from uni this morning.

I had my first uni exam this morning, 9am on a Saturday … I was fairly confident going in, going out well, I’m still confident I’ll get a decent mark but not as confident as I was going in.

Some collected links from the last little while which I’ve been meaning to share.

Loving this photo of my brother for everything that it is and everything that lies behind it and ahead.

The Cath Kidston August “magazine” arrived the other day and oh so many pretty things. Kind of makes me wish I had picked up another bag whilst I was in London

If Historical Events Had Facebook Statuses 1 and 2

this amazing blog which puts the fun back in the sky

Scratch It World Map – I so want one of these (me and everyone else on the net it seems)

Amazing collection of photos from Russia circa 1910

Amazing interactive panoramas

Fish Apartments, makes me want a fish

New York, the tale that was

We’ve had a slide show of slides that Pabbi took before Mum and we will be having a slide show shortly of slides that Mum took after she arrived. Mum is currently knitting me a shawl, we’ve climbed a mountain in the midnight light. We are going to brew beer tonight with Karl and watch the soccer and a hundred other things that have been done and yet to be done.

A few photos from June 20.

This is one of my nephews wearing Amma Rut’s (Mum/Ruth) glasses.

We spent part of the afternoon at Þingvellir, where we laughed at this sign. The sign mentions nothing about throwing Australian coins into the river…… I would love to get one of those signs. How often do you see a sign like that????

This is Öxarárfoss at Þingvellir. This waterfall looks quite large on the road in but when you walk up to the base of the falls it is actually quite tiny…..

13 days ago, I was looking forward to the weekend. I had all sorts of things planned, none of which I can remember now.

12 days ago, my father died. My father, Paul Palsson, dead. He died from an abdominal aortic aneurysm. In the morning when Mum and Matthew left he was alive. By the time Matthew had arrived home from work later that morning, he was not at home. The neighbours saw Pabbi walk into the ambulance. The hospital called, “your father is in a bad way, please come up”. When he got up there Pabbi was gone. After sorting out things at the hospital, Matthew called me. I didn’t believe him. Then I listened to what he was saying. Pabbi was dead.

12 days ago, I drove over to the house in total hysterics. At some stage, I bit my hand in an effort to calm down.

12 days ago, Mum was out bush walking. The bad weather meant they came home early. When I heard Mum open the door, I rushed at her and cried.

12 days ago, I stood beside my mother in a dimly lit room at the hospital, and “viewed” my father. He had no false teeth in, his wedding band was not on his right ring finger. His eyebrows were bushy. His hair was that weird silvery red blonde colour. He was cold but he was my father and he was on a trolley in front of me.

12 days ago, I was in shock. My father was 66 years old when he died. I am 24. There was so much more I had imagined I would share with him.

12 days ago, I sat at the kitchen table with Mum and Matthew and started typing. Typing the words which would form the frame of the eulogy I would give.

11 days ago, I sat across the kitchen table from my Mother and met a funeral director. A man, who was straight down the line and listened to our thoughts and requests. We cleaned. We went to the farm.

10 days ago, I went to work. My mind was in a hundred and one different places at once. I left work and realised that I wouldn’t be going back to work this week. I got home, packed a few bags and went home to the family.

9 days ago, I didn’t go to work. I visited the travel agent with Mum and booked flights. Pabbi and Mum were going to Iceland on June 12. Now Mum and I are going to Iceland on June 15. Margaret and Reg arrived from Tasmania.

8 days ago, Karl and Erica arrived from Iceland. Susan arrived from New Zealand. We finalised the details. Music was confirmed and food was cooked.

7 days ago, we had a funeral. We said our farewells, I read the eulogy. We ate, we talked and more. That night we visited Matthew’s laser lab and learnt all sorts of things about quantum. Erica went back to Iceland to continue her holiday.

6 days ago, I went to the orthodontist and had a bracket repositioned. We went to the farm for dinner and had Susan’s chocolate self-saucing pudding for dessert.

5 days ago, I had apple cake and ice-cream for breakfast. We cleaned, sorted and made stacks. I had dinner out with a friend and her family and then went to see Where the Heart Is by Expressions DC. The dancing and music was powerful.

4 days ago, we went through slides, cleaned, sorted and more. Karl flew home to Iceland, I went home to my place. My home felt so strange after a week with my family.

3 days ago, I went back to work. I went to SES. I brought my flowers home to my place. Ever since, my room has been filled with the scent of lilies.

2 days ago, I sobbed as I ate my breakfast. Work was work and then I went out to dinner at Jellyfish for a birthday of a friend and had the most amazing meal. The fish, the wine, the dessert, all just amazing.

1 day ago, I realised that keeping busy does keep your mind off the matter but as soon as you stop and take a moment, it can hit you. The time between when you turn off the light and when you fall asleep is filled with thoughts. Unlike 12 days ago, 11 days ago and the like, sleep is no longer so broken. My mind happily stays focused for the most part.

Today, I’ve found some words to type.

Tomorrow, I’ll go to work and then it is the long weekend. A long weekend which will see me packing and planning for Iceland.

Life goes on, differently each day. Time will change things and time will heal things.

Growing up, we spent a lot of camping time in Girraween and the granite country surrounding it. Granite is by no means a kind rock; it rips your skin to shreds, you get granite impressions in your skin from where you have sat/leant against the rock, when it is worn by water over the years it becomes insanely slippery. It’s a rock of many personas. Some people have pants with knee patches, or cardigans with elbow patches, as children my younger brother and I had shorts with bottom patches made out of canvas. Shorts perfect for playing on granite.

Anyway back to this weekend just passed. As I was leaving a day early, we went down in two cars. Mum and another lady, Fiona in one and myself in the other. We stopped at a servo in Warwick for dinner. I had a tropical burger, it was such a large burger that I had to eat the patty separately!

You see that skewer through the burger? Yep, that is holding the thing together!

Quite a little while later, we pulled off the Mt Lindesay Highway a little south of the “Historical Village of Boonoo Boonoo” to our camp site for the weekend. The tent was quickly put up and bodies tucked themselves into sleeping bags after a long day.

Friday was to be a gentle day. A drive to Basket Swamp, walking round the top of the falls, then walking down to the bottom of the falls and going “Cripes, these are some falls and that is a lot of water over those falls”. The last section of the road in is 4wd only. I was the only female driver and the youngest driver by … well to put it one way, the other drivers are in all the range to be older enough to be my father or grandfather. That was an interesting experience…. Messages over the radio advising of approaching cars, passing cars, holes, cattle and everything else.

At the top of the falls, someone discovered these cool water pipes. These are pipes/tunnels/holes that spurt water out of the rock.

Looking down the Basket Swamp gully from the top of the falls.

and this is Basket Swamp Falls.

Then it was time for lunch, some pulled out the chairs and enjoyed their spread at the turning circle at the end of the 4wd track, others such as myself went back out to the top of the falls to enjoy lunch there.

On the drive out we stopped to look at an old mining site and took a walk up to the Timbarra Trig Point. The ladder up to the actual trig point has been taken down due to well founded safety concerns so no 360° view to share but still there were plenty of sights to see.

And that was Friday. Back at camp of course there was happy hour and then half a dinner since we had all eaten too much at happy hour. I made pikelets with caramel Top’N'Fill for dessert and snacks for Saturday.

Saturday, the day I was looking most forward too. South Bald Rock and most importantly the chance to go through the cave in the daylight. When Iceland came to visit December 2008, Mum and us three “kids” went to South Bald Rock but the inclement weather stopped our cave attempt. We left camp nice and early to give us plenty of time to go through the cave system.

On the way in I “found” an Easter Egg on a cairn ….. I left it though for the party that was following us ….

We had a very quick walk in, came across the rangers so had a chat to them. Then it was up the granite.

After a break for morning tea, we headed to the entrance of the cave. A few people upon seeing the entrance decided not to continue on so a party of 9 headed in.

We wiggled, moved and twisted our bodies in a hundred different ways to squeeze through holes.

We came across this glow worm cave which was pretty cool. There were about five or six worms active and lots of threads. This is a photo that Mum took, you can see the threads hanging off the “ceiling”. Click the photo to view larger.

Another space in the cave

Inside a large space in the cave

A photo that Mum took just after I popped out of the opening which put us in the space in the above photos.

Mum has more photos here – South Bald Rock

Some photos of people coming through that squeeze.

With only a few more squeezes to go, Mum broke out a bag of Easter Eggs here to share round.

The last squeeze was quite a challenge, it involved getting one knee up behind your backside and the other in front of your chest and then turning your body 90 odd degrees and reaching for a hand hole and then just hauling yourself up and out…. Fun times.

Then it was time to bag the summit, take some video which I will upload later. Back down to the flatish part of the slab where we had morning tea to now have lunch, more exploring of granite and discussion with other walkers of other caves. Then it was time to head through the bush and down off the rock and to walk out.

We had a fairly quick walk out which was really good. I was quite tempted to trail run the last 3km but decided to be a good girl and stay with the group. Some of us took a little detour up and over a slab which was beside the trail at one point. It was a glorious slab.

Coming up the detour slab

Coming over the top. Granite mmmm.

Pretty things

Granite, Gums and Clouds, 259/365.

When we got back on the real track we passed the border sign.

Then well a little while later we were back at the cars. Then it was back to camp to wash, relax, eat and most importantly make Chocolate Mousse for dessert.

A pack of UHT cream, a pack of instant chocolate mousse mix and a little bit extra milk made up on powder and then start whisking with a fork. A little while later you get the picture above, let it sit in the coolest spot you can find whilst you have tea. Then enjoy that sweet glorious chocolate.

That was Saturday…. Tomorrow would see me heading back to Brisbane.
Sunday morning, I packed up, had breakfast and collected Easter Eggs as various people went round camp handing out eggs.

Went round the camp site saying my farewells and then at just about exactly 0830 I drove out. I decided to take the scenic route home via the Mt Lindesay road and quite enjoyed it, especially because I found this beauty.

Woodenbong Public Hall, 260/365. Oh that design.

I arrived home a little while after 1pm, had a bite to eat, unpacked and then conked out for a few hours sleep before the magic that would be Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club. The Concert Hall was fullish but by no means sold out. I had bought my tickets the day they were released; I was smack bang in the middle six rows back. It was pretty much what I had expected but by no means would I say it was amazing. Featuring two of the members from the 1997 album, the rest of the Orquesta is a collection of it seems rotating musicians who are to a degree cashing in on that famous name. Whilst I enjoyed just about every moment of the concert, it did seem quite often that the musicians were just going through the paces and quite possibly would have liked to have been elsewhere. Typically a live performance is 100 times better than listening to the album as very rarely does that “special buzz” make it through to the recording. I had expected a lot more of a buzz in the live music.

The gig had good parts and parts that could have been better. Part of the problem I think is the venue for the concert. Whilst the Concert Hall is a nice venue, it was not a wise venue choice for a bunch of musicians making music that is designed for dancing. The Hi-Fi, The Tivoli or The Zoo would all have been much, much, much better venue choices as people could have danced and as a result of that I think the musicians would have been able to put more buzz and excitement into the sound. Also there was absolutely no merchandise…. ????? I thought for sure there would have at least been the flogging of some t-shirts and the original Buena Vista Social Club album and movie. It seems I was not the only person who felt like this either.

Monday was work in the morning, visiting a number of grocery stores picking up half price Easter chocolate for a project and making a big batch pumpkin and red lentil dahl in the afternoon.

Red Lentil and Pumpkin Dahl, 261/365

ahh long weekends.

My phone just rang, it was Matthew, my younger brother does not typically call me so I was a little concerned at first as to what might have happened. However, Mums voice came over the speaker wanting to know what my back yard looked like. After I gave her the run down she told me that her and Matthew were at the Toombul car park observing it in all its flooded glory. Matthew must have gone out last night as Mum had picked him up from the bus stop due to the rain. He had told her that Kedron Brook was over the banks. They then proceeded to check out Kedron Brook at as many vantages as they could to watch the flooding. They are now headed on to Downfall Creek to see what it looked like.

Mum was telling me they were taking photos on Matthews phone of the flooding. I didn’t comment then but I will now since I know Mum will see this fairly shortly, that is why I take my camera with me wherever I go!

Yep, that’s my family, well really the Stephenson part of us, straight down the line from Grandad, a man who has kept weather records dating back to the war. The family for which the first thought when it buckets, is “mmmm I wonder how high the creek is?” or Mum’s favourite idea when it has rained is to go waterfall chasing. Yeah, we like our weather.

I got up close to 5, thinking there must be a fair amount of water in our backyard by now, sure enough there was. (A fact of life when living at a bottom of a hill on three sides, is when it rains our backyard will fill with water.) Our street is more convex than most streets to help the street drain in such events. There was probably about 10-20cm over the “top” of the road and about 30cm at the kerb. In our backyard, the water was over the retaining wall. I took a few photos but was not in the mood to get the tripod out so they have been pushed a little bit in Lightroom.

204/365

I went back to bed for a little while but wasn’t in a mood to sleep, instead I took my book (it seemed quite fitting to be reading a tales of Brisbane, whilst watching the water drain off the street) and my quilt and cozied up on the couch on the deck, watching the taxi drivers trying to decide whether or not to drive the street. By 6ish I was ready to go back to sleep and returned to my bed to doze to the sound of the drizzling rain for you know, oh 45mins or so. I’m not one to sleep in!

The street now just has a little bit of water in the gutter and the water in our backyard has gone down a wee bit, it’s no longer over the retaining wall. I won’t have to water the veggies for a while….

The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain, as a child when I first saw My Fair Lady, I thought they were referring to a plane not a plain and could not for the life of me figure out why the rain would stay in the plane!

The rain in ‘Bris stays mainly in our yard!

And the Christmas Tree. The tree was actually in the living room but I carried out to the turf to take photos…. I love this tree. I found it on Ebay for $9.95, I carefully waited till the last minute to place my bid, hoping no one else wanted it as much as I did. No one else did and it was mine for the starting price. Let me tell you right now, I was prepared to pay a lot more than $9.95! A quick drive to Ipswich and it was in the boot of the car. It is made in Italy, I guess in the late 50′s to early 60′s. It is a little over 6ft tall and is a combination of white, silver and clear tinsel. I’ll have to take a close up photo today when we go to the farm as it actually have leaf shaped tinsel mixed in as well! There are a few of the little white pine cone branch tips missing but oh when the light catches on the tree doesn’t it looks amazing!

The wind of course picked up when we went to take photos, (hence why we are holding the tree) and the sun wouldn’t stay out for long hence why there is sun in Mum’s photo but not in mine.

160/365

It was just a few little knick knacks under the tree, I got a candy thermometer, Matthew got various fiddle toys, the kitchen got an oven mit etc.

It was roast veal and veggies for lunch which Matthew was cooking. Whilst we waited, Grandad put his legs up (of course) and Mum and I went down to the Black Flat to explore and take photos.

Then it was time for lunch (lunch round 3pm of course). Bon-Bons with silly jokes and trinkets inside, roast meat and veg, gravy in the Christmas gravy boat and of course dessert. Plum pudding, trifle, flummery, jelly, custard etc etc!

Then you guessed it, time to wash up again!

That was Christmas at the Farm 09. Who knows what next year will bring.

I woke up on Christmas Eve to see this. Strangely enough, now that I’m on holidays I’m typically up at 5, you just can’t ignore those birds! When I’m at work though it’s the alarm that wakes me some time between 6 and 6:30. I was pulling back the curtains, and saw this most delightful reflection on the window next door.

159/365.

That was the start to a bigggish day. I had presents to wrap, bags to pack etc etc. It was only six days ago but I know I did something of semi-importance before heading to Mum’s (I think it is kind of weird how even though my brother and father live there as well in conversation I will say going to Mum’s, carrying on though).

Christmas Eve, means Mahalia Jackson, a fancy afternoon tea, presents, four pots on the stove and waiting for it to get dark enough to have dinner. One of the downsides to having an European Christmas is that well we don’t have short hours of daylight in summer do we???? Dinner is of course, smoked lamb, mashed potato, peas, glazed carrots, cauliflower and broccoli au gratin with rice pudding for dessert. At some stage during dinner I asked Pabbi if he had ever got the almond. As it had come to me that I didn’t think I had seen his name in the book. Pabbi’s response was not since coming to Australia. I spoke to soon. As is always the case, Pabbi stirred the almond into the pudding and dished out pudding, making his usual comments of you sure don’t want more….. Well this year Pabbi got the almond! (Mum/Pabbi, has this been written in the book?)

We had a new addition to the table this year. For many years I have adored the Swedish Christmas Candelabra/Candolier that we’ve had but I don’t ever recall seeing it plugged in or lit up. This year, I pulled it apart, stripped out all the wiring and replaced the fake candles with real candles.

So pretty! Adds a fair bit more light to the table as well when paired with the four candles that we usually dine by at Christmas.

Once the washing up was done it was of course time for the tree. I got a 3L mixing bowl form my Kitchenaid, some biscuit tins (a pretty old Sunshine powdered milk tin and a collectible Milo tin from 2003 when they had the 70th birthday celebrations) and a bag to match my quilt.

Mum had asked me during the week if I had any brittle left from the packages. I said of course I do. When I arrived on Christmas Eve, Mum asked if I had any left….. I said no. One of Mum’s presents was a container of brittle!

That is Christmas Eve….

SE QLD has had a lot of rain the last 36 odd hours. This is what our backyard looked round noonish today. (photo by Ryan Sodziak)

I picked up my Food Connect box yesterday arvo and I haven’t posted a photo of the last box, here is the box from last fortnight and from yesterday.

I’m off to the orthodontist tomorrow and I’m at a point where I really just want this whole metal mouth experience that has been going on since 1996 (more than half my life) to be over. I know that I am on the last stretch now and I only have about 12 months ( sounds less than saying one year) to go with braces and then I can get an implant but I want it to have been over by now. I want to move to new horizons but it is impractical to move from Brisbane when I have to go back to the orthodontist in the city every 4-6 weeks. It is like the pause button has been pressed on one part of my life but not the other parts.

Mum left for Central Australia today, she is going to spend the next 2-3 weeks tripping round the centre looking at all things interesting. It was only a few weeks ago that she came back from her big trip round the South of Africa.

The Townsville trip was really fun. I had a great time hanging out with Sam, exploring Townsville, getting lots of work done, paying the final money on our Bali trip and generally having fun.
Here are my bags waiting for the taxi at my parents house.

The view from my room It was very pretty looking out over the boats.

And here is Sam at the Watermark on Friday arvo just before I left.

My Amazon order arrived today Full of some books for me and some books for Matthew. I am looking forward to spending some time reading in the next few weeks.

I am now up to watching the fourth season of The West Wing – I have watched three seasons in about three weeks… Just plain good drama. I love it.

It was Charlie’s birthday at work the other week. Charlie and I sit with our backs to each other on a connected desk. During the day, I sometimes swivel round on my chair and say “Hi Charlie Girl”. Charlie just laughs. Charlie had said she didn’t want a cake for her birthday so I made biscuits instead. They went down very very well and I now know that offering pretty biscuits to people will get me just about anything I want.

I really like this quote that is floating round the net at the moment.

Until you dream, there isn’t a mold. Until you speak, there isn’t a promise. And until you move, there isn’t a path

I went to see Two Fists, One Heart yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed, especially the strong WA music presence in the soundtrack. With a broad brush it had some similarities to Two Hands, in terms of fighting, cars, bouncers and the not the girl ordinarily expected girl as the romantic interest. I would definitely recommend checking it out. Parts made me laugh and parts made me sigh.

This morning I gave the kitchen an autumn clean, top to bottom, I scrubbed, wiped and shined. This photo was taken two weeks or so ago but it gives you a fair idea of what the kitchen looks like.

I also did the seemingly weekly clean of my room; vacuuming, dusting and tidying. I don’t believe I have shared a picture of what my current room looks like. It is small but I do quite like having everything at an arm’s reach.

Talking of my room, that reminds me, I must share the incident that happened earlier this week. I was getting ready for bed, I had closed the deck door, turned off the lights, started the dishwasher and gone to clean my teeth. As I was brushing my teeth, I heard a tumble. I thought something had dislodged in the dishwasher and thought nothing much of it. I finished cleaning my teeth, looked at the dishwasher and it was fine. Then as I stepped into my room, I saw that some of the things from my bookcase had fallen onto the floor, as I looked up I came face to face with a Possum sitting on top of my bookcase. I was slightly shocked to say the least. Possums on the roof, possums on the power lines or possums in the back yard are fine. A possum on my bookcase is another matter. As you can see from the above picture, my room is narrow and there is only one way in and one way out. As I entered the room further the possum jumped and I ducked, it landed on my bed and scattered up to the desk. I started yelling at it to get out of the my room. Johnno hearing my yelling came to investigate and we managed to get the possum out of my room and into the kitchen, then with some fancy footwork the deck door was opened and the possum was let free. As the light was turned on in the kitchen and I walked back into my room, I discovered something the possum had urinated all over my room; the carpet, my bed, the wall, my desk, my laptop etc. Cleaning up possum urine is not pleasant. It is a tick slightly gelatinous liquid and cleaning it off the laptop is not at all fun. Normally I close my laptop when I switch it off at night. That night though for some strange reason I had left it open… if only I had closed it. Now that that story is off my chest…

Something that would surprise most people would be that I actually scapbooked today! I know! It has been a good handful of months since I last did something but the other week, I packed up a fair amount of stuff from my old room and brought it over here. In the picture below you can see the little chest of Ikea drawers that I have covered. They hold my computer cables in one little drawer and then in the others scrapbookig goodies.

It is now just gone 10pm and means it is time to retire to bed with a book and prepare for tomorrow been Monday.