Hidden Gems Close to Home...

For a few years now, I have been receiving emails from a site called Weekend Notes. This site publishes articles by members of the public who have submitted articles about local places to visit and events and things to do. Originally I thought that it was only for Brisbane/SE Queensland, but I soon discovered that there are local versions in many parts of the world.
DH and I have visited a few cafes based on articles and enjoyed excellent coffee in some very quaint places; and often with beautiful views.

Late last year I told DH about a couple of picnic spots in the north of Brisbane, that I'd read about in Weekend Notes. Places within half an hour's drive of our place, yet I'd never heard of them!
One was a spot named Deep Water Bend on the Pine River ( adjacent to  the Tinchi Tamba wetlands, another place I had never heard of! 🤔)   and the other place was Harold Kielly Park on Bald Hills Creek.

We decided to venture to these spots on a Thursday because as retirees we do try to avoid possible weekend crowds...
Deep Water Bend on the beautiful Pine River.

As we wandered along the walkway I regaled DH with tales from my childhood. You see we had had an elderly neighbour who loved to go fishing at the Pine River...in those days the surrounding area was bush, bush and more bush! Mr Robson would show his catch to us...catfish and mud crabs. He would boil the crabs in the old copper and usually give neighbours one or two crabs.

People still fish in this river and I wonder if the catfish are still there?

Upstream from where we strolled we could see the freeway bridge...that wasn't there when I was a child! 😉

Then we headed for Harold Kielly Park where we were going to have the picnic lunch that I'd packed.  The first thing I noticed about this park was the abundant birdlife!

There was a huge area of ibis...

And I walked around taking photos of the geese and ducks...gorgeous! (and those ibis!)

A very pretty suburban creek...

And there was also a wonderful children's playground.

The shed on the right where we sat at a picnic table to eat our lunch...

The aerial in the next photo is for Radio 4BH...it's been a landmark in the Bald Hills area for as long as I can remember. You could see it from the old road going north and of course the freeway goes past it too. This was the first time I'd seen it from the eastern side.

It had been a great day out...inexpensive too! Lol
If you would like to check out Weekend Notes here is a link. Many Australian and UK cities have articles but the US appears to just have NY articles. But if you click on the 'show all towns and cities' link on the bottom left-hand screen, lots of countries and cities come up. Have fun!!

Revisiting how soon is soon ?

On March 5 last year I wrote a post about a redevelopment of a local shopping centre. The original shopping centre had been built in the late 60s early 70s.
 A friend sent me an old photo that she had found...the old shopping centre was down in a hollow in the centre of the site with the building surrounded by a rather large carpark. The centre contained a supermarket and quite a number of small shops. There was also a reception lounge.

In last year's post I showed photos of the earthworks on the site and pondered the use of the words , 'Opening soon' on the hoardings around the site. Just how 'soon' is 'soon'?

A month or so on from March 2016...

Then in August I was in the suburb checking out the op shops for items for the 60s night that DH and I were going to. So out came the phone and I took some progress photos...

 By the beginning of this year, the huge site appeared to be covered by the building with car park spaces on the roof  and underneath the building. And 'badging' had been done...Coles and Liquorland were the only signs we could see. Cafes? Pharmacy? Newsagency ? No signs any way...

On February 18, the store opened. And perhaps we shouldn't have been surprised to find that the site was completely given over to a Coles supermarket and their subsidiary bottleshop  Liquorland...no small businesses at all.

 

 

It is a huge supermarket! But I'll stick with my smaller local Coles.

Now this shopping centre is near Alderley railway station and parking around Brisbane  stations can be quite challenging as the station carparks fill up very early in the morning Mon-Fri. So there are signs in this new centre informing customers that there is 2 hours free parking. If you stay longer, it is $77. But I think you can stay the whole day for that price! Management claims it is to stop rail commuters from parking there and then travelling to the city.

So in conclusion to answer the question, 'how soon is soon' ? In this case it is a few days short of 12 months! lol 

A bit of a saga...

In one of my Wool on Sunday posts last year, I wrote about a knitting project ( a ripple stitch throw) that had been misplaced for a few years, and how I'd found it in a ziplock bag of yarns...😕
I had only knitted a few inches when I had put that project away and forgot about it.

Well I re-started the throw and when it was about 60cm long, I put it aside while I worked on other things.
Then, about 3 weeks ago I found out that my cousin Lucy, who already is battling Lymphoma had been diagnosed with thyroid cancer and was facing a fairly large operation. I wanted to do something for her and after a 'lightbulb moment', I decided that that something would be to finish that chevron/ripple stitch throw and send that to Lucy. So began some feverish knitting and because of the  hot weather, quite a bit of cranking up the air con!

But I must digress slightly...
One night there was a big boxing match here in Australia ( in Adelaide) and DH organized the 'pay for view' of this match and invited 2 of his golf cronies over to watch with him. My plan to spend the evening in another room was scuttled when one of the cronies brought his wife along...so I sat in the lounge with everyone. It wasn't long before I just had to pick up my knitting...the chevron throw project, and I started knitting.

After a while I sensed that one of the golf cronies ( not the one who brought his wife along) was looking in my direction. Eventually I looked up and smiled at him. He had a really nostalgic look on his face and he said quite wistfully...'My mum and my late wife used to knit...' How sweet...obviously some lovely memories for him.

Anyway back to my story...I finished the throw for Lucy last Saturday.

After the photo shoot the throw was folded and tied with ribbon...

This photo actually shows the colours more accurately than the previous collage of pics

Then posted on Monday. And Australia Post won through...yep the parcel was safely delivered to the Sydney address this morning, and I received this photo...the rug with its beautiful new owner.

Please keep Lucy in your thoughts as she fights her way to better health. 💕💕

Kookaburras...

Kookaburras, cockatoos, parrots and emus are some of the well known Australian birds. The first 3 can be seen in suburban areas and in the last few months we've noticed that there seem to be more kookaburras around. These iconic birds are sometimes called 'laughing jackasses' as that is what the early white settlers thought their call was like. Here is a You Tube video of a kookaburra laughing.

In the last week or so we've had kookaburras sitting on our veranda railing...

Sitting on the side fence...

They have been sitting on the clothes line...completely ignoring the noisy miner bird ( a pesky bird that likes to swoop on other birds) and the magpies at ground level.

This photo was taken last week and the hot weather we've had and are still having is rather evident. We've had some rain since then so the brown patch has greened up somewhat.

And today we had a kooka sitting on the BBQ which is at one end of our side veranda...no photo of him/her there but then the kookaburra flew to the clothesline which is a favourite spot of many birds that visit the garden...but today was special! The wind was blowing so the rotary clothes line started turning...so the bird was having a ride on the clothes line just like heaps of Aussie children have done over the years! 😆

And DH filmed it!
After a lot of mucking around I think I've finally got a link to that video that might actually work! The link will go to my Box account where I store a lot of documents. Often when people ask me for a knitting pattern, I send them a link to my Box account as I have a few knitting files in it. So here is the link to the cute video of a kookaburra having a ride on our clothesline! lol
https://app.box.com/s/5bomkokkoiw8mp8usatkcj0nwosi2en0
Because it is a mp4 file it does need to download...hope it works!!
 

A fun packed weekend!

Last weekend was spent with friends; most of them I have met over the years through blogging. On Saturday we had arranged to all meet up at Browns Plain for a lunch with a very special visitor from New South Wales...it was Donna, aka Chookyblue!

But there is a patchwork shop at Browns Plain so most of us left home early so we could visit the shop before lunch...😉

I was quite restrained in my shopping...

Then it was time to head off to the Browns Plains Tavern...

It was a lovely catch up with blogging friends and our lovely guest of honour...

My lunch was a pumpkin salad with grilled chicken...delicious!

We staying chatting for quite a few hours, enjoying catching up and also enjoying the air conditioning  in the Tavern.

Most of these friends are also Sunday Stitchers too! And of course the next day was our February Sunday Stitchers meet up at Orneau.
So on Sunday there were comments about 'how it was ages since we'd seen each other' wink wink! Lol

We had some delightful Show and Tell on Sunday...
From Michelle...

From Marilyn...

From Helen...

At Sunday Stitchers we all work on our own projects. I worked on some EPP using some of my Liberty stash...

It was a great weekend!

Playing Tourist in our home town!

Our granddaughter's New Zealand grandmother came over for the first birthday celebrations last week. Our son in law and DsD2 of course had to work most of the week that she was here, so DH and I offered to 'take her around' on the Wednesday. It's always fun showing visitors around our city.

 

First stop was at the lookout at Mt Coot-tha. Val had been here before, but only at night to see the city lights. In the daytime it certainly looks different and you can see out to the islands in the bay. DH is fabulous at pointing out landmarks...

After a coffee in the Kuta Café on Mt Coot-tha we headed off to our next destination, Redcliffe, which is just north of Brisbane. We travelled north on the Gateway Motorway. Near Bald Hills the motorway was swathed in smoke from a scrub and grass fire in the area...bit of excitement!

 

Once at Redcliffe we headed to the Bee Gees Walk. When they were children, this group lived at Redcliffe and a few years ago the council there decided that something honouring these famous former residents should be built. DH and I first visited this in 2013, not long after it first opened. I wrote about it here...and I had taken lots of photos on that day which I included in that post.

Over the years we have taken visitors from interstate and overseas there as it's something so different to the norm...and very well done.

And Val loved it!

 

DH and I enjoyed seeing what had been added in Stage 2, including a large screen with a number of videos of the Bee Gees running continuously.

Lunch was at the Belvedere Hotel at Woody Point which is also on the Redcliffe Peninsula...lovely food and views out over the sea...perfect!

 After lunch we had one more stop before heading back to home. We took Val to Shorncliffe; a beach suburb of Brisbane. We regaled her with both our childhood memories of travelling to this beach by train...always a favourite outing. The old Shorncliffe Pier was demolished a few years ago and has been rebuilt. The locals had won their fight to have their beloved pier rebuilt. It was very quiet the day we were there; it's normally crowded with people fishing and walking.