Long Weekend Roundup

You have gotta love a long weekend - thanks Queen Liz for having an 89th birthday!  That extra day off just gives you that breathing space to keep up with your chores, catch up with family and friends and do lots of what you love to do.  Just lovely!

So, I will start with my latest Happy Dance - Day 10 of my PS Santa's 12 Days of Santa SAL, which I am doing with my dear friend, Linda.  So, a few days late for my original goal of May 30 but done, nonetheless; onto Day 11 next Sunday.

I am very pleased with my Leaping Lord!

I also had time to catch up with friends and family.  DS2 was down from Sydney and we went to see my dear Dad.  After that, I spent Sunday afternoon baking and cooking and generally being a Masterchef!

The gorgeous mother of my dear friend, Linda, is visiting from Hawaii, so I made her a special afternoon tea: scones with jam and cream and teacake.  We used my new teapot and cups which TraderVic gave me for our anniversary.

 I was given these lovely tulips by Linda and her Mum, Dee. Beautiful, aren't they?  Thank you, Linda and Dee.

While all of the baking was going on, I was also cooking this delicious Lamb Tagine in my Tagine for dinner for TraderVic and myself - I slow cooked it, so the lamb was delicious.

Last night, I was putting the rubbish bin out for collection and I saw a bright light behind a neighbour's house (sorry, the pic is very grainy).

Can you guess what it is?  Silly me, my first thought was "Have they opened a major sporting ground in that direction?", then my second was "Aliens!" but, of course, it was the full moon! lol!

Well, time to sign off as I have blogs and books to read and more stitching to do - natch!

But, I will leave you with pics of two of my favourite things - Furio and flowers from my garden (violets and hellebore).

... and one last reminder - time has nearly run out to be in the draw for the Travelling Pattern: if you are interested please comment on this post, I will be drawing the winner first thing tomorrow morning EST.

Happy stitching, everyone, and thanks for visiting.

hugs,  

Sunday SAL update...

I am finally getting back into my SAL routine after my trip away... it has only taken me a month and a bit! lol!

So last night (Sunday night here in OZ), I stitched on Day 4 of Santa's 12 Days of Christmas (PS) SAL which I am doing with the lovely Debbie and Linda.  (I also did a bit of sewing on my machine, working on finishing those bunnies but more of that when I am done).

So, this is before I started stitching last night (sorry, it is a really bad photo!)

... and this is what I accomplished last night.

Yesterday, I had a lovely lunch at The Red Door Corner Store in Northcote.  Now, the story behind this place is that we used to live just a few streets away, when the kids were little and TraderVic used to walk around there every weekend to get the newspaper as it used to be a corner Milk Bar.  The kids would go with him and the kindly Greek couple would usually give them a lolly.  Now it is a trendy cafe!  How times change.

My dear friend Marie had sashimi Tuna with Soba noodles.

My other dear friend, Linda and I both had a Heirloom Tomato salad with potato rosti.

... and of course, we had tea and coffee!

The decor has a nod to its heritage as a milk bar.

Later that day, I decided to go on a cooking jag - you know that I love to cook and bake.

So, I dug up a new to me recipe which is quite old-fashioned.  Beef Olives.

I also made a big pot of Pea and Ham soup for lunches this week.

So, if you take in the fact that I started the weekend with dinner and a play on Friday night, Saturday I had a massage, took lunch and spent time with an indisposed friend, stitched and sewed, had dinner with my best friend for her birthday (with TraderVic and her husband) and then on Sunday I went for an early morning walk, did the supermarket shopping, had lunch with my girlfriends, cooked up a storm in the afternoon and then sewed and stitched - I had a busy weekend!  (You might note that no mention of housework is made! lol!).

Well, off to work in five mins.

hugs,