A Little Progress

 A few half-square triangles for the next border on my Rajah Revisited quilt:

Rather than choose a colour scheme, I'm using dark fabrics in a range of colours.

In other good news, I have my car back, and it didn't cost me a fortune. That gives me some time to decide on its eventual replacement.

A Long Walk

 Took the dogs for a long walk somewhere we haven't been before.

And although I didn't get photos, I saw my first butterflies and dragonflies of the season. Spring is on its way!

Hello Cocky!

Without my car I couldn't make it to the half-square triangle project day today.

Here's something cheerful - a sulphur-crested cockatoo saying hello to everyone!

 In reality it was mainly just loud screeching. I like seeing these birds flying around our place.

Orchids and Car Trouble

Before I moved here I knew nothing about native orchids, but there are several species that grow on our property. Right at the moment two species are flowering.

This is a Tall Greenhood, and it is right beside the driveway:

Several flowers open and a few buds to come at the top. These pop up in various places over the property, but this particular one is in a spot where I have never seen it before.

The other orchid in flower is the Nodding Greenhood:

Each plant has just one flower. They grow in many places on the block, singly or in small groups like this.

Something that doesn't bring much joy: 

My car being loaded onto a tow truck at 9:30 at night in the rain. Hopefully it will be repairable, but I won't know until next week some time.

Things to be Happy About

Yesterday I was talking to someone about the state of the world, and how all the news seems depressing. They suggested I should look for things to be happy about to counter all the doom and gloom. So here is my first effort at that.

 There are lots of flowers and buds on my "Limelight" protea:

And the leucadendrons are covered in flowers:

 

This is one of about 4 bushes of various sizes in the garden. They don't seem to attract birds or insects, but they look colourful. 

Revisiting the Blog

This is my Rajah Revisited quilt, in progress since Feb 2018, but in reality not touched since the end of 2020. The next round is 168 small half-square triangles, and I need to make a decision about what colours to make them in by the end of this week, so I can make them in a special HST project day on Saturday.

Testing the idea of restarting my blog.
 

 

Ups and Downs

This week I took a trip to Maryborough to visit the Golden Textures exhibition. Since my last visit in 2021 the gallery has had a complete make-over.

The architects have kept the history of the building (a former fire station), while updating and extending the display areas. One welcome addition for those on a road trip is that there are now toilets (no photo, but they were nice). A garden is planned, which will be good to see next time I visit in perhaps another 2 years. I liked this view through a skylight in the reception area:

We have had a bit of wild weather this week, and the wind created a view through the roof of my shade house:

The shadecloth ripped right across and left half the roof uncovered. I was a bit worried about my orchids being unprotected from potential frost, so I moved as many as I could to the greenhouse, especially this one which has a few flower spikes developing:

 I hope it will be happy in there!

Last week at work I was quite disturbed as large machinery was working across the road, demolishing what has been a pedestrian mall:

I was particularly upset at trees being smashed down:

 

It was shocking. 

When I got home I did some searching to find out what was happening. It turns out they are not completely demolishing the mall. There will be one lane of traffic through here, but there will still be a playground, and seating areas. But I couldn't see why they needed to just smash up what was there, particularly the trees! However this week when I went to work I found that lots of the trees are still standing:

It was still noisy, as the digger was pulling up the paving and dumping it into the big skip. I wonder what I will find next week?

I have not managed to do any sewing this week, so here is a tiny fairywren that hopped almost up to me as I stood very still one morning:

And for contrast, a pelican I saw when I popped out of a meeting for some fresh air a couple of days ago: