update and thank you

Not much happening here in crafting land.

I am still sewing in all the ends of my "in the ditch" quilting. I like them all tied off and buried in the layers;  I don't mind doing it but it is taking a lot longer than I expected!

We gave my 77yo mum a Nikon Coolpix as a Christmas present last night (she arrived for a week's stay yesterday evening) - she is currently reading the manual!

WM has gone to pick up DD and the Grandboys as a surprise for Nanna/Gran-Nan.

Thanks for all your suggestions: WM and I are still sorting through all the options regarding the Kindle. The files from my local library (ePDF or ePUB) have "digital rights management" (as do the ebooks from the Book Depository) so they cannot be converted to Kindle readable files. We can't return it because I have used it and it is not faulty; I don't want to sell it because that would be insulting to WM after I specifically asked for a Kindle and I don't want it to become a paperweight! At the moment, we are leaning towards taking out an Amazon "Prime" subscription (currently $79US per year); I get a one month free trial to see if that's the path I want to take.

eta: I've just discovered that the Lending Library included in this subscription is limited to one book a month - hmm, more thinking required!

Because the next week will be full of  family activities, I may not have time to post to my blog but I will be back early next year!

quilt wrangling

Last night, I finished quilting my Hunter's Cabin quilt and spent the later part of the night watching television and sewing in about half of those ends that come from "in the ditch" quilting.

I'm very pleased with the quilting pattern on the back - I just wished I hadn't been so careful in matching the thread colour to the fabric - a darker colour would have showed off that "log cabin effect".

I really want a dark binding for this quilt but it's almost impossible to get flannelette (except that designed for babies) in the middle of summer!

Lessons I've learnt while quilting this project:

• gloves are remarkably effective in getting a grip on the quilt; without them my hands just slide over the flannelette; with them, that quilt is only going where I tell it! I use Ansell Hyflex which I bought for about $6 at my local supermarket.
• my hands are for holding the quilt flat and gently guiding the seam in the right direction not for pushing the quilt through the machine - that is the job of the feed dogs and the integrated feed system!
• don't try to put the bulk of the quilt through the throat of the machine - the flannelette stubbornly refuses to move through the throat making smooth quilting very difficult.
• I should make sure that the excess backing fabric is not folded under the quilt when beginning a line of quilting - otherwise I'll have to unpick it and re-sew it!
• consciously relaxing my shoulders is absolutely necessary!

reality check

It's my own fault really. Not understanding the technology, I shouldn't have assumed; I should have checked the list of devices that I could use to read ebooks from my local library.

Kindle, my Christmas gift from my husband, is not one of them!

The Book Depository, my favourite online bookstore (because it has free shipping to Australia), also does not sell ebooks that can be read on Kindle.

I rarely buy books - the exceptions to this are gifts and craft books: I prefer those in printed versions so I can look at them over and over, in colour. Yes, I got one craft ebook for Christmas - I read that on my PC because the screen is larger so I could see the images in full colour but I would have preferred a "real" edition! (BTW, I'm not being ungrateful - I chose all four of those Christmas gifts myself and the ebook was the only format I could get of that particular book)

I had pictured being able to carry several books when I travel without the bulk of actual books. But I never planned on buying them: that's what my library membership is for, especially now I can download both audio books and ebooks (without leaving home).


So, what will I do with my Kindle?

a very happy Christmas

Both grandsons got so many presents that it was all a bit too much for Older Grandson even if we did take it slowly and give him time to play with each new toy. Trouble was he wanted to play with all Younger Grandson's toys too!

I also had a very happy Christmas.

From my motherfrom my sister

from DD and family from Santa

and from WM

I think I see some reading and sewing in my future!

Merry Christmas to you and yours

May the peace that passes all understanding fill your hearts and minds at this holy season.

another family emergency

Yesterday, was my first day out if the house in nearly a week after having a respiratory tract infection. At around 9:30am, DD called me to say that SIL had fallen over in their local shopping centre. That's all the information I got before the ambulance arrived and SIL was taken off to hospital with what the paramedics believed was a broken ankle.

DD called me again about 10:00 to say she was home; a kind stranger had offered her and the Grandsons a lift. SIL drives a manual car but DD can only drive an automatic so the purpose of her call was not only to update me, but to ask me to pick up SIL's car from the shopping centre.

So, I drove the 15km (10 miles) to DD's house, put her and the Grandsons in my car and drove to the shopping centre. Upon arrival, DD jumped into the driver's seat and drove my car home while I collected SIL's car.

DD then hung a load of washing on the line and packed some things to come to my house for the day. We were no sooner all back in my car than SIL rang to say he had been released. I now had to drive the 25 km (15 miles) to the hospital to collect him. I took Older Grandson with me hoping he would fall asleep in the car but no such luck!

Fortunately, SIL was waiting outside the hospital entrance with crutches. I took him home and then brought DD and the Grandsons back here so that SIL could get some rest.

The good news is that the ankle is not broken but is badly sprained. The bad news is that it's his right ankle so he won't be able to drive for a few days and therefore won't be going back to work until after Christmas.

We pray that his employer decides that SIL is eligible for sick leave for this episode!

thank you

Thank you all for your kind wishes for my speedy recovery. I am over the worst of it but my head is still fuzzy, my right ear drum feels like it's several millimetres in my ear from where it should be, and my sinuses - well, let's not go there!

I have been very remiss. While I was away in Moree with my mother, a package arrived for me. When I got home I decided to wait for DD to visit before I opened it because I knew what was in the package.

And then I forgot to post about it here.

A couple of months ago, I won this from Debbie's give-away. (I borrowed the photo from Debbie's blog as the weather here is not conducive to photos being taken outside and an inside photo wouldn't do it justice).

I have to say, it is more beautiful in real life than this photo shows. Debbie does the most amazing colourful work, whether in watercolour quilts or bargello - I just love what she does. She is also the instigator of "get your Mrs Claus on". She didn't come up with the title but she did get it started - she needed to make thirty doll quilts in a hurry and asked for help and, well, you know what crafting bloggers are - she was soon receiving quilts from all over! And she is a lovely correspondent as well.

Thank you Debbie. WM starts his holidays on Christmas Day so while he is at home, I will ask him to hang this over my computer desk so I can see it all the time.

the dreaded lurgy

I have come down with a respiratory tract infection (not surprisingly) with a terrible headache. Any bright light, including a computer monitor, hurts my eyes so I'll be back in a few days!

What's the buzz (tell me what's happening)?

Random updates from our household:

weather:
It's still about 6°-10°C (10°-18°F) cooler here than it should be at this time of year so it certainly doesn't feel like Christmas is a week away.
Moree has been flooded again and the roads I took to get mum home two weeks ago are closed again.
The eastern side of Australia is under the influence of La Nina - rain and floods are more likely. When we are under the influence of an Il Nino weather system we have high temperatures and droughts!

Christmas
The presents are bought and wrapped.
Most of the food is bought and stored - I still have to buy lollies (candy) and chocolates. I will leave the salad vegetables until Christmas Eve.
Puddings made yesterday and boiling as I write this.Older Grandson loved throwing the threepenny pieces into the mixture - he was having so much fun no one thought to take any photos!
Cards to be written and posted today.
Christmas lights up on the outside of the house.
Curtains and windows in lounge (living) room and dining room need to be washed before decorations can go up - if only it would stop raining!
A "live" tree will be purchased next week and decorated on Christmas Eve. It will stay up until 6th January - the twelfth day of Christmas.

Family health
Younger Grandson has had lots of tests - they have all come back normal so no cause for his febrile convulsion has been found. He had an EEG on Monday - we don't have the results of that yet.
Son-in-law was off work last week for three days with a respiratory tract infection.
DD rang on Friday morning saying that she couldn't visit because she had caught it.
SIL dropped Older Grandson at our place then went to work. By lunch time OG had a runny nose and a cough and was feeling miserable.
DD and OG are now on antibiotics. YG is sniffling but not on antibiotics.
Yesterday, WM stayed home from work. He saw a doctor in the afternoon and has today off too. He has - you guessed it - a respiratory tract infection.

Stitching
I am working on "in-the-ditch" quilting my Hunters' Cabin quilt. I'm about halfway.
DD and I still need to piece backs for the two quilt tops I showed you earlier this week so that we can get them on the frame and quilt them.
I am about twelve rows from finishing Blanket for William - then I will need some warmer weather to get the 10ply (Aran) cotton blocked.
I have reached the cast off the first Merlot toe-up sock (Ravelry link); I need to check the instructions for Jeny's surprisingly stretchy bind off. I won't hurry because then I'll have to cast on the second sock and, although I love the look, I find Judy's Magic Cast On very fiddly on dpns and my circular needles are otherwise occupied!

And we have no hot water! The element was replaced about two months ago so they think it might be the thermostat this time! Someone will be out to have a look this afternoon!

another quilt top done

Some months ago I mentioned (in this post) that I had been given a pile of disappearing nine patch blocks and asked to "do something with them".

The history of these blocks is that someone gave them to my sewing teacher who gave them to Margaret (the founder of Caring Hearts Community Quilting Group) who gave them to me when I joined the group.

I didn't know what to do with them so they languished in my sewing room, being shifted from one place to another (they were always in the way),  including a short stint on the design wall, before finally being put away "somewhere safe" (you know that place, don't you? LOL).

Last week when I wanted them I couldn't find them. When I came home and started looking again, they were staring me right in the face. I took them out of that "safe place" and put them in another - and promptly forgot again where that was!

Anyway, to cut a long story short, when I found them late last night I put them in my sewing bag and today they went up on the design wall in the classroom.

A couple of hours later, I had this:The reason I didn't know what to do with them was there is such a mixture of fabrics: florals (both large and small), novelties, geometrics, paisleys, and text. Here is a sample in what is now the top right of the quilt.

Now to measure it and make a back including the five left over blocks.

I think DD and I might quilt this one first - it has less seams than the other so less places to break a needle!

Any tips?

second top finished in five days

I must be on a roll!

For your viewing pleasure I present the completed top I have called "Scrappy Strings " because it's made of string blocks made from scraps of fabric. (poetic I'm not)

We chose a very dark brown sashing because, of all the colour choices available at the Big Box Store, it worked best with our blocks. I had anticipated using a crimson-red because most of the fabrics had some kind of red in them and most of those were more crimson than orange, but the red we needed wasn't available.

Brown is a relative of red (if mixed with yellow and black) and this brown had a slight tendency to green which is also in quite a few of the blocks.

We will quilt this one on the quilting frame. Apparently DD spends "idle moments" (like when she's feeding the baby) practising quilting doodles for this quilt so it's time to hand it over to her (first I have to piece a back!)

I'm not too sure that I like the look of this kind of scrap quilt - I think I like a more controlled look.

So our next quilt, which I have already started cutting, is in shades of blue, blue-green and purple: many different fabrics but a more-controlled palette.

I wonder if I'll like this one better?

Do you like scrappy quilts? It's okay to say you don't - I genuinely want to know!

it's beginning to look like Christmas

The cool temperatures we have been experiencing over the last two weeks challenge the fact that Christmas is two weeks away. It doesn't feel like Christmas when temperates are hovering around 25°C (77°F) instead of the more normal 32°C (90°F).

Because I was away for longer than expected and because Younger Grandson was hospitalised, the Christmas puddings have not been made.

Because it has been raining and raining and raining, the curtains and windows have not been washed so the decorations have not been put up inside the house. But that's okay, school term doesn't finish for another week and traditionally we put the decorations up after school ended for the year.

I plan to finish my Christmas shopping on Tuesday; I have an appointment at the hairdressers at 9am but the department store is open 24 hours so I will go shopping in the early morning then have my hair cut and be home before 10:30am when the crowds really take over!

However, it has started to look like Christmas around here. WM spent much of yesterday sorting through the lights, checking that they worked and then working on and in the roof to get our Christmas display done. It looks better in reality that these videos show. Older Grandson was fascinated when the lights were turned on for the first time at 9 o'clock last night.

Above our bedroom is this train (I still wonder what trains have to do with Christmas) - Older Grandson looked at it and said "toot-toot"! (All forms of transport say that apparently!)

Over the garage, unimpeded by things growing in the garden, is the display that says what we truly believe about Christmas.


Usually we also put lights around the three large front windows but last night we realised that not one of the windows can be seen from the street because of the growth of the garden!

Do you have an outdoor display for Christmas?

my place

Inspired by Janet of Caribou Crossing Chronicles, I started thinking about this place where I live.

If I say "I live in Australia", you may get a very different picture to what I see every day.

Even if I say "I live in Sydney", you may think of this:

image copied from http://web.hcsps.sa.edu.au/projects/cities/allyn/sydney.htm

 It may surprise you to know that Sydney is a sprawling metropolis stretching 41 kilometres to the north, 51 kilometres to the south west, and 50 kilometres to the west. That line of hills - we call them the Blue Mountains for obvious reasons - in the background of the photo is about 50 kilometres away and the suburban sprawl goes all the way to the foothills.

Metropolitan Sydney is made up of more than 600 suburbs in more than 40 local government areas; many of them cities in their own right because they have populations in excess of 150,000.

We live in the furthest west of those local government areas, close to the foothills of the Blue Mountains and the beautiful Nepean River. But, though they are only a few kilometres from my home, I cannot see anything but suburbia!

So this is the view I look at most often:

The sky changes, the colours in the plants and trees change, the cat comes and goes, but the view remains the same.

For the fact is, like most Sydneysiders, we live in suburbia. We have a neighbour to our right, a neighbour to our left, and two neighbours behind us because we have a short, wide block of about 720 square metres (7750 square feet).

WM and I live in low density housing; for us that means a single house on a single lot of land. Other parts of Sydney have medium density housing (townhouses, villas and small blocks of apartments) and other areas have high density housing -- DD and SIL used to live in a block of that had over 100 units (apartments) and there are many bigger blocks than that around commercial centres and transport hubs.

The view I showed you before is the view I see if I sit in my usual spot in the family room. If I turn my head now and look out the window, I will see some tree begonias (about 3m - 10 feet - high) leaning against the window because of the wind and heavy rain we've had over the past few weeks. (The photo shows you what they looked like before the rain and what a colourbond fence looks like.)1.2 metres (4 feet) from my window is a 1.8m (6 feet) colourbond fence and perhaps 0.6 metres (2 feet) on the other side of that is a colourbond garage. Because the street in which we live is on the side of a hill, their land is higher than ours, so from where I sit (halfway across the room) I can only see about 30cm (12 inches) of sky the width of the window on account of that garage; sometimes I need the light on in here all day to get enough light to cut fabric accurately! My sewing table is under the window but the only place for my cutting table is as far from the window as it's possible to get and still be in the room (which used to be DD's bedroom to give you some idea of size).

I can't say I love living in suburbia, but it is "normal"; I have done so all my life! But I love the fact that if I travel for five minutes in a northerly direction I am out in the rural area yet I can be "in the centre of town" in ten minutes!

Perhaps I've inspired your to write a post about your place. I hope so, I look forward to reading them!

comments and word verification

On Wednesday, Jennifer at Ellison Lane Quilts posted this discussion starter about how to make commenting easier.

 

Basically, she posed a question about the number of blogs that have word verification and how life would be easier for readers if they didn't have to go through that process.

 

As many of you know, I read and comment on lots of blogs every day (there are 165 on my reading list) and, as I commented to Jennifer, I am so used to word verification I hardly give it a thought. It is easier on some blogs than others; some are so difficult to read it takes me two or three attempts to get it right! And sometimes it's Blogger that makes things difficult! My on-again-off-again internet connection doesn't help either!

 

It would, of course, be faster for me to leave comments if I didn't have to go through the word verification process then wait to see that my comment has gone through.

 

Jennifer's post gave me cause to think. I use word verification on my blog. In what I now think may be overkill, I also use comment moderation. I think I have always used word verification to keep out spamming and when that didn't work (I had spam a few days in a row), I added the moderation.

 

So, how do I choose to respond to Jennifer's thought provoking post?

 

It seems I have four choices:

~ Do nothing.
~ Remove word verification.
~ Remove moderation.
~ Remove word verification and moderation.

I have chosen to take up the challenge and remove verification from my posts! I can always put it back if spam becomes an issue. I am still thinking about the moderating; one step at a time please!

If you are using Blogger, and want to remove word verification from your comments, Jennifer has the technical know-how on her post so there is no point in me repeating it here.

So, do you use word verification? What do you think about not using it?

slowly moving forward

I have not heard from DD since Younger Grandson came home from hospital so I can only assume that "no news is good news". I half-expected them to turn up on my doorstep on Tuesday morning but they didn't. DD obviously felt capable of coping on her own, which is a good thing.

You may wonder why I haven't called DD myself but there is a good reason: with two little ones in the house there is a good chance that one of them will be asleep and I don't want the phone to wake them.

They are usually here on Fridays so I can only assume they will be here tomorrow as usual.

I have made good use of the "alone" time over the past two days although, for all the hours I have spent in my sewing room, there doesn't appear to be much to show. However, I have been so engrossed in what I have been doing that I have not taken any photos!

Because it doesn't look like much after hours in the sewing room, I am keeping a "craft diary" to show me what I actually achieve each day!

I have started to tidy things up by putting things away and moving some stuff out of here -- a quick glance might show that not much has changed but progress has been made and if I do a little bit each day, rather than trying to tackle it all at once, I will get there in the end.

I have put all the sashing strips between each of the blocks for the Scrappy Strings II quilt to make seven rows and today I plan to cut the rest of the sashing and attach it. I will then need to piece a backing for the quilt: it is just a little too big for the two metres of fabric we bought to fit! *sigh*

But the most progress that has been made around here in the past couple of days is to the Hunter's Cabin quilt. (This is how it looked the last time you saw it on the design wall).

I have been avoiding it because it is flannel and has been giving me a lot of grief. On Tuesday, having finished making the rows for Scrappy Strings II, I decided, on the spur of the moment, to just "suck it up" and get on with it. Finishing that quilt was not on my "to do" list at all but you know what they say about the best laid plans ...

Anyway, I finished piecing those blocks, then joined the first four blocks into pairs, then a group of four. It quickly became obvious to me that I needed a pressing plan - otherwise all those joining seams would get tricky!

So I drew up a pressing plan, taped it to the bookshelf next to the ironing board and marked off each block, pair, four-patch and section as I did them! I finished piecing that quilt yesterday morning and, while I am not particularly feeling the love, I am pleased to see a completed top!

So why stop there? I set up my cutting board on the lounge (living) room floor, covered it in a plastic cloth (which I always do for blocking to keep the moisture out of the cardboard) and proceeded to pin baste! All well and good until I tried to pick up the sandwich - I had pinned to the plastic cloth! I had to start all over again!

I also learnt that masking tape is no good for me - it is better to closely pin the backing fabric to the cutting board (without the plastic cloth); masking tape doesn't hold things taut enough and frays the edges of the fabric when it's ripped off!

Anyway, after a couple of hours crawling around on a carpeted concrete floor, I arose stiff and sore, with a completed sandwich which is now rolled ready to be quilted. All I have to do is change the foot on the sewing machine, decide what colour thread to use, wind a few bobbins and I'm good to go!

After all that, I spent a few hours in front of the television with my knitting. I have only one ball of yarn left to finish the Baby Blanket for William, so that should be done by the weekend. Now if only Sydney's weather would "summer up" so I can block it!

the story of a house

In November 1990, WM and I sold our scuba diving business for much less than we had paid for it in 1987. When we sold, we were in the "recession we had to have". We then owed the bank most of the money we had borrowed to buy the business and our family home was mortgaged to that loan. If we couldn't make the repayments we would lose our house as well as the business that we had already lost.

I went back to teaching and WM took a temporary (four to six week job) with the railways. In May 1991, he was made a permanent member of staff and still works for CityRail.

In July 1991, I saw an advertisement from Agency C for an "open house". In those days, open house was not a common way to sell real estate (at least not in our area); it was mostly "inspections by appointment". I wanted to go to the open house so talked to WM but he wanted to look for a new car.

Needless to say, we bought a "new" second-hand car in July 1991.

Mitsubishi Sigma station wagon

I didn't think any more about the house I had seen in the advertisement.

In October 1991, we put our first house up for sale and began to search for a new home.

We found an agent called Michael we were comfortable with - it just so happened that he worked for Agency C. We looked at eighteen houses on three consecutive Sundays (WM worked six days a week) - one of those was the house I had seen in the advertisement in July.

We decided (in frustration) to take the advertised house because we were sick of looking and, more importantly, the house we had on the market sold in five weeks (during a recession).

our first home - purchase in 1977

The house I had first seen in July met almost all of our criteria but one - the second living room was smaller than we would have liked.

WM rang Michael, the real estate agent (from Agency C), on Monday to tell him of our decision. But, somewhere between Sunday when Michael had showed us some houses and Monday when WM called, Michael had left the agency. The receptionist told WM that the house we wanted "had gone".

We were talked into viewing yet more houses with another agent (from the same agency) the following weekend and ended up putting a deposit on one of them - a five bedroom, two bathroom house in the suburb in which we now live.

But, I didn't feel right about our proposed purchase.

The following day, WM phoned Agency S. He knew a couple of the agents that worked there because they had handled our tenancy when we owned our business. While WM was talking to this agent, Michael entered the agency, looking for a job. WM was given a chance to speak to Michael who told WM that Agency C was in turmoil because the owners, a couple, had decided to divorce. She had taken over the agency and pushed out all the people he had employed. In the meantime, her husband had gone to work at Agency R, taking with him all the stock that he had brought to the business. This included the house we wanted to buy!

Unfortunately, the owner had decided to put the house up for auction because it had already been on the market for eight months. We made an offer but the owner was committed to going to auction. So we attended the auction.

We had never been to a real estate auction before and had no idea what to expect. But the agent who had handled our offer knew how much we were willing to pay so he told us not to enter the bidding at the beginning but to wait. Eventually the bidding was down to two couples and we hadn't even placed a bid. My parents attended the auction with us and my mother was praying like crazy! The agent acting on our behalf put in a bid and one couple fell out straight away. The other couple kept bidding, then suddenly she burst into tears. We offered another two hundred and fifty dollars and it was all over - we had got the house for nearly eighteen thousand less than we had offered for it six weeks earlier!

I don't believe in coincidences - I just believe this house was meant to be ours. On 7th December 1991, we moved in.

Happy 20th anniversary house and spouse!

update on Younger Grandson

More tests were carried out today, including one for epilepsy. All tests were normal s no cause has been found for Younger Grandson's episode on Saturday.

DD and Younger Grandson are now at home.

More tests are to be conducted in the near future and Younger Grandson has to revisit the local hospital in February for a follow.

And to cap off a dreadful ten days, yesterday, Older Grandson (aged 21 months) fell flat on his face on the neighbours' steep driveway and broke a tooth!

I've had enough!

family news

WM and I celebrated out 34th anniversary yesterday. He gave me these (which I pre-bought in the book sale I mentioned in a previous post):

I gave him a clock movement (the clock I bought him many years ago had stopped working) and a book (bought in the same sale):

In not so happy news, Younger Grandson was rushed to the Emergency Room yesterday afternoon and was admitted to hospital for observation and tests late last night. It appears he had a "fit" (febrile convulsion) the cause of which may never be known. The most common reason is infection but all the blood tests show that he has none! 

We are hoping he will be released tomorrow. DD is, of course, staying at the hospital; at the moment we have Older Grandson - his daddy will collect him some time this evening so Grandad can get some sleep before starting work at 6am tomorrow!

If you are the praying kind, we would very much appreciate your prayers. The doctor says that one possibility is "epilepsy" so we are standing united against this prognosis.

I will keep you informed as we get further news.

Moree in flood

As promised, some of the more than 100 photos I took while in Moree last weekend.

Firstly, the consequences of flooding, lines of trucks waiting outside town - they weren't going anywhere.
This is the park on the south side of the river. As far as I can tell, this was not the result of the river flooding so much but all the water that flowed from the storm water drains; it is deliberately built to catch water and stop it flowing back into homes on the south side of town.
This is the path we walked along the previous day.

And this is the purposely built Geoffrey Hunter bridge: it is a few metres higher than the worst flood on record. This photo was taken just a few steps back from the previous photo.
The whole area had a surprisingly carnival atmosphere about it as locals and tourists alike came out to see the river.

You can get some idea of the speed of the water from this photo.

I mentioned yesterday that the road to the north of the bridge had water flowing over it on Sunday morning and was closed on Sunday afternoon. Early in the afternoon it was closed to traffic but pedestrians could walk across. On the other side of the river from where we were staying, the town side, there was a gauge to measure the water depth. That's not 0.0 metres I've photographed: it's 10.0 metres (30 feet). The river peaked at 10.20 metres, just six centimetres short of the highest flood ever recorded.

Later in the afternoon the bridge was closed to pedestrian traffic too - the water flowing over the road by then was deep and fast!
Yesterday I showed you a picture of the Edward Street bridge, a low lying bridge about one kilometre west of the much higher Geoffrey Hunter bridge. That photo, seen again here, was taken on Saturday afternoon.

And here is the same view on Sunday afternoon - that red and yellow temporary barricade in the middle distance is the same one as the foreground of the previous picture!
I chose not to take photos of peoples' homes inundated with flood waters - who am I to intrude on their grief?

But this sight saddened me too: Moree Family Services is just at the foot of the Geoffrey Hunter bridge. Anyone for basketball?
This fence is the only thing saving their children's play equipment from floating away.
I'm not very competent with the video function on my point-and-shoot camera but I thought it was the best way to show this scene of the play equipment; it was together in one piece when I first saw it on Thursday morning - now look at it!

the saga of the floods in Moree

warning: very long post!

The optometrist that mum has been seeing in her local town (Bingara) visits about once every couple of months but is based in Moree, which is a smallish town in north-western NSW. It seems that Ross is the only optometrist in the area!

A specialist eye surgeon from Queensland's Gold Coast visits Moree two or three times a year to do cataract (and other eye) surgery at the small hospital for patients who would otherwise have to travel 1000 kilometres (625 miles) or more to get the appropriate treatment.

Mum had to see the specialist on Thursday morning before her scheduled surgery on Friday. She had to see him again on Saturday morning to have the bandages removed and to get the prescriptions and instructions for the various eye drops that she would have to use for the next four weeks!

I travelled to Bingara on Wednesday. Due to track maintenance, the train wasn't running, so I had to go to Tamworth by coach, then change to another coach to Bingara. Due to the torrential rain that fell non-stop on Wednesday, we were more than an hour late getting into Tamworth and, of course, more than an hour late getting into Bingara, finally arriving at 7:35pm! I had left home at 7:55am so it was a very long day!

Thursday morning was warm and overcast.

taken from mum's front yard looking towards Moree

We drove the 119 kilometres (75 miles) to Moree in dry conditions but this photo shows that the rain was on its way!

Behold! The rain comes! Notice how flat the Moree Plains are.

We arrived in Moree, had morning tea, and then saw the specialist as required. We booked into our motel, visited the tourist information centre (across the road) and had some lunch at the indigenous art gallery in town. By then it had started to rain.

The rain got steadily worse; so much that, on Friday, I had to drive mum to the hospital which was only 200metres from our motel! Mum's surgery was scheduled for 9am and they assured me she would be ready in less than an hour. I didn't see her until after 11am by which time it was bucketing down! We spent the afternoon quietly in the motel room. Unfortunately for mum, she had left her hearing aids at home so she was unable to follow the audio book I had specifically organised for her for this occasion! She tried to knit but ended up just watching television for most of the afternoon.

That evening we got a phone call from the hospital telling us we could go back to Bingara if we wanted to avoid being flooded in, and speak to the specialist by phone the next morning! But mum wouldn't budge! She didn't want me to drive in the rain and the dusk (that hour before dark is always a difficult time for driving, particularly in the country where native animals, usually kangaroos, are likely to appear in the middle of the road quite unexpectedly!)

And so we stayed -- probably not one of my greatest decisions (but my mother had spoken so what could I do?)!

It continued to rain heavily; during the night it got worse. At 3am on Saturday, the rain woke mum up (no hearing aids remember) - the water was literally coming down in sheets. I have never seen anything like it except during brief thunderstorms; but this wasn't a thunderstorm and it wasn't brief!

The next morning we drove into town to see the specialist as scheduled and heard the news that the road to Bingara had been cut off during the night! Nothing we could do now but wait (and go for short walks between showers). At first we were told that we'd probably get out on Monday. But the river continued to rise and a major flood was declared.

The showers eased on Saturday and by mid-afternoon the sun was out. But flooding has nothing to do with current weather conditions!

Water in the hospital grounds - from rainfall not flooding!

Edward Street bridge; Saturday afternoon

We tried to go to church on Sunday morning but the street was partially flooded and I couldn't find anywhere to park the car. Even if I had, how we were supposed to get from the road to the church?

the street outside the Catholic church - doesn't look like much, does it?

now see it in context - it's too wide to jump across - about 3 metres (10 feet)

I turned left 90° to take this photo; the church is now on my right; the cars give you an idea of the extent of the flooding;
this is not from the river, this is stormwater that can't get away!

I was glad we didn't attend church; there was water over the road leading into town when we went towards the church; later the road was closed and we may have been trapped on the wrong side of the river from our motel!

Drivers and pedestrians come into town over a bridge which joins Balo Street (the main street)  here;
this is what the foot of the bridge looked like and the reason why the bridge was closed!

The river peaked on Sunday at 10.20 metres: just six centimetres (4 1/2 inches) less than the highest flood on record! The bridge separating us from the main part of town was closed due to flooding on the other side.

The police woman I spoke to later on Sunday (a hot, bright, cloudless day) told me it would be unlikely if we got out by the Gwydir Highway (the shortest route to Bingara) by Thursday and if the predicted rain returned on Tuesday, it would be at least a week!

We were paying normal rates for our motel room (about $100 per night) -- no discount for surgery or for being stranded! We had to eat take-away food or in a restaurant for dinner. (We had bought cereal, milk, plastic bowls, paper plates, bread and fillings form the supermarket after we arrived). We had to buy clothes because mum had arrived in Moree with only the clothes she was wearing plus some clean underwear, so she wore one of my lightweight skirts. I had planned to be away from home for a minimum of five days and had two lightweight skirts, three short sleeved tee shirts, plus a long denim skirt, two long sleeved tee-shirts, a tracksuit and jeans in case the weather was cool.

By Monday I'd had enough. So I made a decision (which mum didn't like but I had the car keys!!) We were leaving via the Narrabri Road. I was told I could get through to Tamworth that way! By the time I reached Narrabri, I found out that one of the roads I had planned to use had been closed since we had left Moree and we would have to go an even longer way via Coonabarabran! That story is all in a previous post so I wont bore you with it again except to say, praise the Lord, the road from Narrabri to Bingara reopened within half an hour of us leaving town!

And so, we arrived in Bingara at 4:20pm on Monday (instead of the estimated 9:30pm if I had been forced to take the longer route). Mum got to her other specialist appointment in Tamworth on Tuesday (this specialist came up from Sydney and she had had the appointment for nine months so there was no way I was letting her miss it!).

I got the coach to Tamworth and the train to Strathfield (inner west Sydney) on Wednesday, arriving only twenty minutes late! WM picked me up and drive home in the horrendous peak hour traffic with light rain falling. I closed my eyes and thought about something else entirely!!

Next year, when mum has the other eye done, we will take changes of clothes, hearing aids, a picnic set and I will make the urgent decisions!! And, because I don't think it will flood again, I will take photos of what the river should look like!

More flood photos tomorrow (I think this post is long enough!)

home again; first of summer

Hurrah! There's truly no place like home!

I have spent about twelve hours over the last three days catching up on blog reading and commenting plus answering comments and replies to comments -- I'm finally caught up but now I need to get away from the computer as my neck and shoulders are stiff and sore!

The promised saga of being stranded in the floods will be posted tomorrow - sorry; I just can't sit here and type (or edit photos anymore).

Today is the first of summer but with a maximum temperature of 20*C (68*F) you'd never know it! I'm still wearing track pants and it's after 1pm!

So I will leave you with another photo from WM's garden: this time from the backyard. Can you guess what these are?