Hallo

Hi every-one, I haven't been blogging as my dear Dad(86) is rather ill now and I am taking him to chemotherapy and lots of medical appointments too...in the words of a friend 'I haven't got time to scratch myself!"
It didn't help that I got locked out of here either lol!



I've been knitting more than ever as it does really relax me so I'll just add some photos for my record as much as anything. A Lily dress from Tikki on Ravelry...

A cardi made with King Cole yarn and pattern...

An acrylic lap rug/afghan for a grandson...I am going to make each Aussie grandchild something similar...

Gardening is nice in Spring(we had a record for November 40.4C in Perth yesterday)

BBQ any-one?

Elizabeth and David helped me establish  a raised garden bed over Winter...the tomatoes cover the whole bed these days...

We lost Joe's Mum on August 1st, to 'old age' I suppose you'd call it. Maman(86) made me very welcome in the family although with my lack of French and her lack of English our chats were very brief. Her ashes were taken back to Gaspe where she was born in Quebec Province.

So that's us for now...I miss even reading every-one's blogs so please forgive my lack of comments...things will change once again...swings and roundabouts of our lives, eh?

xxxx

Knitted Hearts

I made a few knitted hearts last month to decorate gifts...they can then be kept as Christmas tree decorations or as I like to do hang them from door handles around the house...they are quick to knit and use minimal wool...

these are gifts for our grand-daughters, musical tins of shortbread from Aldi...one kept tinkling even when it was wrapped up! Can you see that one is wrapped upside down too...never a dull moment around here lol I used wrapping paper this year because I found 3 full rolls at Dad's house that Mum bought years ago...

  The pattern I used is here: it's a ravelry pattern by Amanda Berry. Have you joined ravelry? It's completely free to join and has thousands of free patterns, tutorials and groups for knitting and crochet, I love it.

I did like this Christmas Day photo, Charlie is obviously tall enough for me to lean on now and Bree never stopped laughing, we had all sorts of treats for dinner, oysters, king fish that Bree treated with lime juice and served raw, prawns, ham, turkey, gozleme and our favourite salads of course.

 The top of the china cabinet looks like a museum setting, the clock is from around 1905, the photo from 1955, the robin is by Beswick China and is rather battered these days, the china on the right is from the UK in 2000, Auntie Brenda bought me the watering can. I don't know how old the crystal vase is but it's quite unusual in that it has a crystal base or foot...the card was Joe's anniversary card to me...he excelled him himself this time ;)

I took Dad to see the specialist on Friday about the hernia that was noticed last time he was in hospital in October....it appears that most of his stomach is above his diaphragm now instead of below it! It's not causing any pain and the surgery would be too risky at his age but he will need to get to hospital very quickly if he feels ill or pain. Old age is not for sissies is it?

So on that cheerful note I shall leave you...oh! our new neighbours have planted some roses...these almost match the ones on my china...

Bye bye xxx

Easy, Super Malay Style Curry for the Crockpot

This recipe looked too good to be true when I saw it on Facebook yesterday, I had around 600gms of blade steak in the fridge and an urge for curry. It's rare that we eat such a lot of meat in one meal so it was quite a treat. Here is the link

Slow Cooker Malaysian Beef Curry 

It made 4 large serves and we ate it with turmeric rice, a simple salsa and plain yoghurt and I loved the fact that nothing had to be browned first, saves time and dish-washing.

My adaptation as follows

500 -600 gms stewing beef(I think chicken pieces or just vegies/beans would be great too)

250mls of coconut cream~our tins contain 400 mls so I freeze the remainder

1 large, finely chopped onion and I will add 2t ginger paste next time too

1/2 teaspoon chilli powder

1 teaspoon each of ground cardamon, Chinese 5 spice, cinnamon, cumin, turmeric.

2 teaspoons of ground coriander
4 whole cloves
3-4 medium potatoes
large handful of leafy greens

Simply mix everything except the potatoes and leaves in the crock-pot and turn it on to Auto~ my crock-pot starts on high for 2 hrs and then turns itself down to low.
After an hour I added the potatoes, unpeeled and roughly chopped

This beef was cooked in 5 hours, I used Aldi's blade steak at $10 a kilo, so once the meat is tender stir in your leaves, I had baby spinach and add lots of salt.
Happy eating!

Last Sunday we had this beautiful free range chicken; it fed us several meals...roast, enchiladas and sandwiches and then I made stock from the bones and some lovely sweet potato and red lentil soup with that. There are lots of small/new potatoes in the shops now it's Spring, I love them!

I have knitting and garden photos to post as well as some genealogy so will get on to that shortly.
Have a wonderful week
Love from Sue xx

A Morning Walk

Hallo Every-one, Ihope you had a pleasant Easter holiday. Ours was very quiet and we stayed home reading and pottering.
Last week I met my my 80yr old neighbour coming back from her walk around the block and this pricked my conscience as I have become very inactive over the Summer. The block takes 17 minutes to walk and I started by going every second morning; the benefits of feeling stronger and more alive as well as happier are almost instant. I took some photos this morning, I left at 8am, the temp is about 20C....

are there bears in there...

an Australian post box complete with graffiti...

big bins waiting to be taken back in...

we have 5 pines, Inspector Gamache has only 3...

a variegated oleander seems to shine...

across to the Town Hall, courthouse and police station...

  our main regional shopping centre is through those trees...

I do like this 'tunnel'...

this bottlebrush tree is still flowering, the bees and little birds love it's nectar...

West Australian grass trees...

beautiful creamy roses catch the morning sun...

I really look forward to my walk now and am waiting for the day I can easily do much longer walks.

Yesterday we dined well on left-overs galore...that bean salad was so good with some black quinoa and lots of fresh herbs...there is roast pork in that zip-lock bag, curried lentil soup and some pretty pasta from Aldi...

Today we need milk and fresh vegetables and a library book I ordered is in. I plan to make creamy seafood pie and some potato, cabbage and knockwurst soup that Joe and Dad love...

Wishing you all a wonderful week
Love Sue

Small Table Make-over

I do spend far too time reading design blogs and beautiful home blogs etc but living in this doll's house rental and having little taste limits me lol

Yesterday I went over to the op-shop looking for candles and containers for pot plants and spotted this sad little table for $4...it is sturdy pine but needed work on the top...

I didn't want to paint or varnish it so decided to glue fabric on instead...this print has sweet bunnies on it and was a gift from my friend Claire in Queensland.

I unscrewed the legs..

Drew a large circle with the aid of a ruler, about 10cms larger than the table top...

 I used PVA craft glue to stick the fabric just to the top surface at first, I smoothed it out carefully and left it to dry while I watered the pot plants...

Next I glued the sides down, pulling it evenly around and then I glued the excess fabric to the under-side of the top. While the glue dried I washed the legs thoroughly and then screwed them back on....

Oh...you can see that I work in bare feet, Helen tells me it is called Earthing...

Ta-da!

The last thing I did was to mix 50/50 PVA glue and water and brush it over the fabric to help protect it a little and also to ensure it was completely glued on...

It takes up very little room but will be useful when we have visitors and it looks so cute! Go me!

Also yesterday neighbours spotted a snake in the front gardens so every-one was most excited all afternoon, re-counting the tale and telling of another snake that came out of the drain several years ago. Oh! And the one that was under Jean's bed all night...apparently Jean was a good egg about snakes and was quite un-concerned!

The view from our front door, the snake was in the garden under Nong's paw-paw tree. We all shared a 6 kgs paw-paw this week...what a whopper and so lovely and sweet...home-grown lime juice squeezed on is my favourite way to eat it...

That's all for now, we're looking forward to the Football Grand Finals tomorrow, go Eagles.
Hope you have a lovely weekend too
Sue
xxx

'Tis The Day Before Christmas

and I have a couple of last minute cheat's recipes if you're still cooking. These are definitely not made from scratch but they are quick and easy using the food processor and both are very yummy...

No Bake Cheesecake...I invented a choc-orange version of this oldie from when my children were littlies and this should easily serve 12 ;)

Base
100gms softened butter
almost a full packet of chocolate flavoured(not choc-coated) biscuits

Process the biscuits until fine and then process the butter until you have a moistened crumb that you can press into the bottom of a 10inch springform pan and put in the fridge to firm up.

Filling
Wash the processor and start again by creaming the following until smooth and then pouring onto the biscuit crumb base. Allow 5 hours to set, loosen with a knife around the edge and then release from pan...if you don't have a springform pan then line your favourite baking tin with foil so that you can lift it out when set.

250 gms softened chocolate Philadelphia cheese
500 gms softened regular Philly ^^^
one packet of orange jelly crystals dissolved in just 2/3 cup of boiling water
zest and juice of a large orange

You could decorate it with chocolate curls or candied orange slice perhaps but the best thing for me is that this freezes perfectly and is convenient to have on hand.

I had resolved not to make any mince pies this year...too fattening but my resolve wavered and I thought I'll just get a box of Mr Kipling's mince pies from the UK! Not a single box of any kind was left by Monday so I bought a jar of Robertson's fruit mince...these are the flavours of my childhood really but so strongly evoke Christmas for me.
I washed Mum's 60yr old mince pie tin and then decided to make just one large one on the tray instead...kidding myself less pastry = fewer calories!

Filling
Empty jar of fruit mince into dish and add a tablespoon or two of sherry or your favourite tipple plus a grated apple or 2 extra tablespoons of dried fruit, stir well.

Wash food processor again and make this easy
 Pastry

375gms plain flour
pinch of salt
180 gms cold butter
1 egg(I used a duck egg)

Process until it looks like breadcrumbs then trickle in very cold water until you have a nice dough. Roll it in a little flour and pop in a plastic bag to rest in the fridge until you are ready...30 minutes will do.
Roll out just over half and place it on your baking tray, spread with the fruit mince and top with remaining pastry. Press edges together, brush with beaten egg and make a few slits in the top for the steam to escape then bake it for around 40 minutes at 190C. Bewdy! It made 16 good sized squares of which 12 remain lol

My dear pumpkin is ripe so has been 'harvested'...the vine grew from kitchen scraps I buried to improve the soil...free food is good...we are picking so many beautiful tomatoes too...

In the carport a mother dove sits quietly on her eggs...the symbol of peace indeed...

A Christmas funny

  A Christmas Sweetheart

A Christmas poem

Christmas

I see a twinkle in your eye.
So this shall be my Christmas star
And I will travel to your heart:
The manger where the real things are.

And I will find a mother there
Who holds you gently to her breast;
A father to protect your peace;
And by these things you shall be blessed.

And you will always be reborn;
And I will always see the star
And make the journey to your heart:
The manger where the real things are.

Leunig

and from Joe, Twitch and I love and best wishes for a happy, joyous Christmas and may 2015 be your best year ever

thank you for all your comments and support over the year

Sue

xxxxxx

Rockingham, Western Australia

As well as having beautiful beaches in Rockingham our town council has been establishing a beautiful park on land that was initially a horse racing track and then a large sports field where fairs and circuses were some-times held. I especially love the sculpture in the pond as it shows off our local marine life...the park is situated between Patterson Rd, Flinders Lane and Kent and is still called Rockingham Oval...

It's bright and sunny now as Summer approaches but I took the following photos in Winter around the council offices where there are lots of deciduous trees...I really like the contrast...

There are English church bells in the tower and we can hear them on occasion from home...

 pelicans flying back to Penguin Island in the late afternoon...

these trees are already in full foliage again now but look so awesome in Winter...

Hope you enjoy looking at my photos...all is well here and thanks to all who commented on my last post,
Love from Sue