Who wants to be famous?

Philip snapped Cate Blanchett when she, husband and kids were in his shopping centre (Crows Nest) yesterday.  The price one pays for fame is pretty high...

Have been in Sydney a bit lately myself, visiting the family and looking at houses.  Yes, still looking at houses.

I agree with you Winifed, computers are the dizzy limit.  They are the greatest time waster for the very reason you mention (as well as many others) and drive me to utter distraction.  I am extremely frazzled lately and yesterday stayed in bed all day because I just couldn't face the world.

Oh dear, life is funny...

I haven't blogged for ages because I'm all of a-twitter, what with the new baby and house-hunting.  Baby is doing fine and gaining weight as he should be.  Can't concentrate for more than one second at a time.  Will keep you posted re the house as an offer is being considered.

I took this photo years ago when Philip gave me my first digital camera, and entered it in a competition and it was posted online somewhere.  A few weeks back I found it on some Italian guy's blog!!!!!!!  Am very flattered and should write to him in Italian - I will one day...

From one mess to another...

I knocked this little number up for Emma in about 27 hours yesterday!  (I hope you understand this Australian idiom - it means I made this dress.)  As you can see, it involved converting the kitchen to a sewing room and dragging out from under my bed a huge plastic bag filled with thousands of things to do with sewing.  Hopeless!!!!!  But while the place looks like this I might as well keep going...

Don't bother telling me there are not 27 hours in a day as it felt like it to me!!!!  I am not naturally talented at sewing.  Some poor woman in a sweat shop in Asia would have done it in about 10 minutes.

Winfix, you are very clever to be able to twitter!  I can't cope with any of those social networking things I'm afraid, the main reason being I can never remember how to get into them.  Yes, Kipfler potatoes do look just like sweet potatoes, but taste like ordinary ones.  I had never heard of them before this latest recipe.

I did it! And gave myself a reward!



What a huge relief to be finished with that dreaded tax stuff!  After all my searching for missing statements, and in the process spreading copious amounts of miscellaneous paperwork over every horizontal surface in the study, I decided it was easier to simply refer to the online ones.  Could have saved myself all that bother and mess (though, to be honest, searching for my username, password, magic number, etc to get into my online bank account was almost as traumatic).

I dropped a big envelope off at the accountant's office yesterday, on my way to a wonderful French restaurant called 'Le Chat Noir', about an hour and a half's drive from here at Terrigal, a seaside village.  Friend and I had one of the best meals ever - I had roast pork, apple strudel and a glass of wine for a mere $35.  I'll be back!!!  What a fantastic deal.

On the way to the restaurant we popped into a gorgeous gift shop, where I bought several sundresses for Emma and - wait for it - a pair of earrings for myself!!!!!!  I don't have pierced ears (well I did have them pierced when I was 40 but the holes nearly made me sick so I had to let them grow over) and there was only a very brief period in my life, about 18 years ago, where I ever bothered about clip-ons, as I think I look silly in them.  They still make me look silly but when you're old that's an eccentricity you're allowed!

Now, in answer to your question Winfix - wow, what a cool name!!!!! - here is a pic of Kipfler potatoes:

If you google Kipfler, you'll find everything you never wanted to know about them.  Was a time when a potato was just a potato...Remember the good old days?



For heaven's sake, JUST DO IT!!!!!!!

Oh woe is me!  These papers have been lying about in my study for weeks while I've been in Sydney becoming a grandmother for the second time, then back home playing the piano, swimming, gardening, reading books and even cooking.  (Unbelievable but true, I actually did a pork roast with Kipfler potatoes on Sunday, from a new cook book I bought to add to the 756 that I already have.)  My latest desire is to make some sundresses for Emma, but I won't allow myself to do it until I've cleared this mess and got things ready for the accountant to do my tax.

Pleased to see your comments, everybody.  I can just imagine you, Winifred, dodging the cyclists in Bristol - do you have trouble with oldies scooting round, too?  Michael, I didn't think Soehnle was a German name - seemed like Swedish to me.  My scales are working again with their new batteries, but I think I'm having your trouble, Lina, as they are telling fibs.  Reminds me of the joke where a person got onto her new scales which said, 'One at a time.'  That's screamingly funny, isn't it!

Sorry I haven't blogged for a while, but it takes me ages to get back into routine after I've been away.

 

Diane the homebody

Washing on the line and another $60 worth of new plants in (and you can't even see them).  Kitchen, toilet and bathroom vacuumed and mopped and my bedroom in the middle of a thorough dust and clean.  (I sacked my cleaning lady recently and the place has never been so clean!!!!!!!)  I actually enjoy housework as I adore my little house and garden and it gives me great pleasure pottering around.

Winifred, you and I have the very same disease and that's why I started this blog again.  I was forgetting everything to do with the computer.  It's good to find your comments again.  Last night 'Escape to the Country' featured a couple from Bristol, so we got some good views of your city.  There are lots of things about Bristol on the telly here.  I keep expecting to see you walking along the street one day, Winifred.  I just adore English houses - they are so cute and quite different from ours.

Had another d'uh experience yesterday.  I am the proud/silly? owner of a very expensive set of bathroom scales made in some foreign country.  A bit like mobile phones, they will almost cook you a casserole, convert dollars to cents and lots of other things you are most unlikely to ever want to do.  I wanted simply to be able to read my weight in kgs.  Well, some months ago - and I blamed the unfortunate cleaning lady - it stopped giving me this information and started saying 'Lo' to me.  I banged it and pressed all the pushbuttons over and over, but to no avail - it still kept registering 'Lo'.  While I was searching for my bank statements yesterday (and I have put that job on hold) I also looked for the user manual - I mean fancy having to have a user manual to weigh yourself in your own bathroom!!!! - and when I couldn't find it, hit on the bright idea of googling the improbable name, Soehnle, and asked for help.  Can you believe my relief when some kind employee emailed me the user manual almost immediately.  And can you imagine my embarrassment when I read that 'Lo' means the battery is running low!!!!!!!!!!!!  I didn't have the remotest clue that there would be batteries in there for some strange reason.

So, this morning I popped off to the local battery shop and now I know I am very fat.

Tax time again...

Actually, all I'm doing is looking for some bank statements and while I'm at it, I'm going through everything and throwing out hundreds of colour brochures and various other bits of rubbish.  I've already made three trips to the recycling bin and have about 100 to go.  I've written on a birthday card for Salome, my World Vision daughter in Malawi and paid for her whole village to be educated and vaccinated for 12 months.  Then I came across a half-filled in form that will entitle a poor pensioner-woman to no Credit Union fees and finished filling that in.  While I'm posting this stuff at the Post Office I might as well pay a couple of bills there, so I've got them ready.  And I need to take a script to the chemist and buy some food.

I still can't find the statements I started out searching for.  If my printers were working I could, as a last resort, print the missing ones from my online account but of course that would be too simple.  The fact is, they are not working.

While I'm struggling away here, Michael, you and your wife are swanning round the world in a VERY GLAMOROUS ocean liner!!!!!  Life is NOT FAIR.  Thanks for the wonderful photos.  And no, Muffy fell asleep before she managed to get into my swimming costume the other day!

Another day

Just had a phone call from a friend, incredulous that I find life difficult.  Mind you, she's in the minority, as most people also find it difficult and the other day I watched Oprah on this very topic.

One small example is the way begging charities drive you mad.  Over the years I've been having direct debits for various charities taken from my account.  This, of course, means they bombard you with colour brochures and magazines that are delivered in plastic sleeves which have to be slit open so you can drop them into the appropriate bins - one for plastic and one for paper.  Needless to say I never read the stuff.  And if you have ever thought you were giving a one-off donation you are dead wrong - they keep at you and at you.  They pester you by phone, email and snailmail, or personal visits to your door.

There's Amnesty International, Salvation Army, Save the Children, Animal Welfare, Bushfires, Cancer, Heart Research, Red Cross, World Vision and so it goes...for years I've been sponsoring a child through World Vision and they regularly bombard you with reminders it's her birthday, or nearly Christmas and would you please pay for a card and a gift and while you're at it, how about buying a goat for the family next door or providing a well for the village?  They are all oblivious of the fact that my main charity is a school in Africa but neither would they care if they knew.  You'd think I was a member of the Rupert Murdoch family with an endless cash flow!

I wrote to Amnesty International the other day, asking them to stop taking direct debits as I am but a poor old woman, and will eventually get round to the others.  You just about need a private secretary to attend to charity-related correspondence alone.  That's not to mention the dozens of colour brochures with pie graphs and useless information that accompany every bill you get.  (I actually have one friend - a former tax lawyer - who not only reads this stuff but actually enjoys it.  I kid you not.)

This morning friend and I set out for the indoor pool as we had done all week.  It was about 5 to 8 when we got there and were asked by the receptionist did we know the pool closed to casual swimmers at 8, when children's lessons began.  I was secretly very happy, as I always have to force myself into the water in an indoor pool (when you think of all the nasties in the water), so we ended up back at my place, having our coffee in the garden.  (Not that I think for one second the water in the ocean baths is any better - worse even, when you consider the fish wee in it) but it is easier to forget in the ocean pool when you get carried away by the beautiful view.

When I took my swimming costume off I dumped it on my bed, much to Muffy's delight.  You can see her in the photo trying to put it on!

Life's a struggle

I ventured into the garden this week, for the first time in ages.  Was really shocked to see how expensive plants are now - the first day I spent about $60 at the nursery, the second about $50 and today about $20 and you can hardly see what I've done.  This is a geraldton wax, quite tricky to grow, so I won't hold my breath.  It's an Australian native and if it does survive will hopefully attract birds.

Use it or lose it is what prompted me to start blogging again.  I'm really struggling to cope - what's new! - and becoming more and more grumpy every day.

No house or second grandbaby yet.  I've gone off the idea of moving to Sydney as I really don't see how I would cope with a move, given that I've got so much stuff.  Anyway, I love my little house and want to see the trees grow.  Am trying to slow down but there is always something to do.

Muffy has just climbed onto my lap and is purring very loudly.  In my next life I'm going to be a cat.

Thank you, Lina, for reminding me who you are!  By the process of elimination, since you're the only person I've told I've started blogging again, I had managed to work it out for myself, anyway. :-)) 

Starting again again...

I've had a very bad week and come to the conclusion that my brain is seizing up, so thought I'd force myself to do some more blogging while I still remember how.

Thanks for this gorgeous pic, Michael.  There's no doubt about it, sleeping cats are so very cute.