Some outings on our Victorian visit.

Just to assure you that I wasn’t stuck in a motel room with 2 little girls all the time we were away recently, I thought I’d write about some of our outings. 

Although I must point out that our ‘grazing plates’ of cheeses and antipasto in our motel room were fun and delicious! 

One particular day I ended up having a most enjoyable outing in the town of Maryborough. My girls, along with their daughters were paying a condolence visit to their dad’s partner who had suggested they lunch with her. So the girls dropped me at the Maryborough library with me clutching a bag which contained my knitting and the library book that I was currently reading at that time. I read a chapter of the book, then thought that a cup of coffee might be nice, the day being quite cold.

So I went for a walk. I came to a bakery but thought the lack of a coffee machine might indicate that the style of coffee I like wasn’t available. Have I ever mentioned that my children describe me as a ‘coffee snob’ 🤨😜. 

Any way I kept walking and saw this imposing brick building on the corner in the next block.

I think the sign might have been the original business because as I got closer I saw a smaller sign on the corner door saying Madame Chi Chi. I went in and received a really warm welcome, both from Madame Chi Chi herself ( Belinda) and also from the beautifully heated interior of the cafe. It was like someone had just wrapped me up in their arms and said ‘There there, no need to worry...’ 💕

Belinda described the items she was offering for lunch.

The view through the servery showing all the delicious panini fillings...

Belinda explained that she used local products...

I chose a vegetarian panini and a cup of coffee. While my lunch was being prepared I sat in the dining room and admired this lovely old building’s interior. 

A poster in the dining room...

My lunch...

After my delicious lunch, I settled down to knit as I expected to need to fill in a lot more time before the girls would be back at the library to pick me up. 

I’d hardly knitted a row when my phone rang. It was DD1 and they were at the library waiting for me...a bit early I thought! So I directed them to the cafe. 

Turns out their stepmother was too upset to make lunch after all so they’d left after a polite interval. So now Madame Chi Chi made them feel very welcome and then took their orders for some lunch and I had another coffee. 

And because there were 3 of us, I felt no guilt whatsoever of buying a very exotic looking slice that was in the glass case in the store part of the cafe. It’s made locally by a Romanian lady and those eclairs on top are filled with berry flavoured cream.

We got it cut into 3

Delicious and almost guilt free at only a third each! Lol 😆 

What a special place to find on a day when I think I needed some TLC. 

My son in law Cam ( DD1’s husband) has an uncle who lives in the town of Avoca, and this Uncle David would be celebrating his birthday on the Friday and mine was the day after. So the girls took us both out to lunch in Maryborough on the Thursday. The venue was the Highland Society Club. Holly was rather taken with the statue out the front...

( My choice from the menu wasn’t great but the rest of our party said theirs were good...don’t you hate it when you make a not so good choice 😏😂🤪)! 

An unexpected trip interstate

Last week I had an unexpected trip interstate to Victoria. Unfortunately my daughters’ father had passed away and I was needed to accompany them to help with their 2 children. 

Here we are at 6am at Brisbane Airport...

Travelling with little children has always been a challenge and in our case we had a 2 hour flight, followed by a 2 1/2 hour drive before reaching our destination. 

The girls had lots of appointments etc so my job was to look after the little ones. Most of the time we stayed in the motel room as outside was quite cold and there was even some rain. 

I had brought some items in my luggage to help occupy a 1 and 2 year old.

Two little cuties ‘reading’ some of the picture books I brought with me 😍

And of course I had a scribble pad plus some coloured pencils...


And who doesn’t love a picnic? Even if the picnic cloth is a towel and the picnic is inside 😜

No photos but one day that I was minding the girls, we went outside to a little grassed area in the motel grounds and had ‘races’. Holly loves playing what she calls, ‘Ready Set Go!’ So with me pushing little Carrie in the stroller, Holly, Carrie and I played races...I got puffed before them! 🥴😂

We also played dressups with items in my suitcase...

And because DD1 and DD2 are modern young mums, they had downloaded children’s shows on their iPads and this Grandma was quite happy to use these to amuse my charges. 

And 2 of the teddies that live at my place also came on our trip as I knew that Miss Holly loves playing with them...

The brown bear is called Billy Bob and he averted a few ‘meltdowns’ as he is a particular favourite of Holly’s. 

The 5 days flew past and we were all relieved when the funeral was over.  It was in Maryborough where the girls’ dad had eventually relocated. I made sure I introduced myself to their dad’s partner as it was ridiculous how we had both pretended we hadn’t noticed each other. 

And so on the Saturday we drove from Avoca where we had stayed, back to Melbourne to catch our flight home. 

It was great to be home! 

Mothers Day

Last week I thought it was time to finally put away all the Easter decorations. It’s a bit early for a Winter display but then I thought...Mothers Day! 

So it was time to get out the mini quilt that I had received in a Mothers Day Mini Swap a few years ago.  And that’s my mum in the photo. 

And then I thought I’d bring out some of the floral patterned china that was packed away in cupboards...most of these items have been gifts over the years.

I love hydrangeas and family and friends have given me lots of lovely items with those flowers on them


Years ago I fell in love with this pattern and saved up to buy this plate...


My daughters have given me 4 Mum mugs over the years 😍


And there is DH’s mum! I usually like to buy a bunch of chrysanthemums around Mothers Day as my mum loved them. Because I was going to be away for 5 days, instead I got a potted flowering plant instead.




Hope all mothers had a lovely day today and received lots of attention and spoiling from their offspring 😍

Wool on Sunday

Joining in with the monthly Wool on Sunday over at Rainbow Hare.

With the cooler weather the knitting charity that I support  has been inundated with requests for warm items, especially blankets, beanies and gloves. 

Over Easter, I set to and joined some bags of donated squares into blankets...

And then there was a bag of smaller squares with a different style of granny square design. It made a lovely knee rug...

The lady who gave them to me normally joins her squares into rugs but she felt like a break from joining after donating quite a few of her rugs to the group. And I certainly didn’t mind helping out. 

I also had been storing some blankets that I’d made up in the warmer months from squares crocheted by a friend. Because so many items that left the K4BN storage shed for distribution , there was now room for more donations. 

These beautiful and warm blankets won’t be in storage for long; they will be distributed very soon. 

A total of 9 blankets made from the bags of donated squares that I’d been given to join. 

And at the moment I’m away interstate for a few days and in spare moments I’m using up some US variegated yarn that a friend brought back as a gift for me years ago, to make a baby blanket; most probably an item for K4BN.

And that’s Wool on Sunday for May 😄

Another Easter; another time

Firstly thank you for all the lovely comments on my previous post on Easter this year.

For some reason this year, my thoughts went back to an Easter long passed. But first a bit of background so I will digress from Easter for a while. 

It was 1971 and in the previous December I had graduated as a teacher. 

I even have a few photos from that graduation night...in my little bedroom getting ready. My long hair has been teased and combed and pinned into curls at the back of my head by the hairdresser in the shop on the main road in our suburb.

Note the cretonne curtains and the vase of daisies on the dressing table...we always had vases of homegrown flowers in my childhood home. 

1971 was the first graduating class ever, where long white dresses weren’t mandatory for the female students...so I made a frock in apricot fabric with a gold braid trim...

This photo shows my mum and I all dressed ready to head off to the Festival Hall...and the cretonne curtains in our lounge room. 😉

After the graduation ceremony, there was the graduation ball at Cloudland...a big night! 

Next day all students gathered in the old Assembly Hall at our Teachers’ College. 

I took this photo before the ceremony started. I’d been looking for this photo for years as the present day university on the site of the old teachers college is always asking for old photos. Amazingly I came across the photo just the other day! 

The occasion was when we were to be given our postings. In those ‘Olden Days’ all of us students were on teaching scholarships and we were guaranteed a job at the end of our course. How lucky were we? 

The next photo is of my friend Linda and I, waiting for the ceremony to begin where we would learn of our first posting.

( I was posted to my local primary school where I had been a student 7 years before and Linda was posted to an Ipswich school where her dad was headmaster.) 

So late in January 1971 I started work as a teacher on probation with a Grade 5 class. 

After a few weeks I decided I didn’t really like the job. By today’s standards, the children were angels but there were 38 of them in my class. If the other Grade 5 teacher was away, ( and this older woman seemed to have a lot of ill health 🤨), I would be expected to open the door between classes and teach both classes, so just under 80 students...unheard of later in my career! 

There were 3 of us graduates appointed to the school that year and as well as our daily program, the headmaster instructed us to write full notes of all lessons in the 5 hours of teaching time. 

So I soon got a bit disillusioned ( and tired) so to keep myself going, I promised myself that if I still hated the job by Easter I would leave even though breaking the bond (2 years service) meant all the scholarship money had to be repaid. Each day as I marked the class roll, I’d count the number of days left before Easter. 

Finally Easter arrived and I was looking forward to that 4 day break. I had bought an Empisal brand sewing machine with one of my first pays as a teacher. 

Here’s an image of that model that I found on the Net.

I spent the weekend cutting out garments and sewing them up...it was so therapeutic. That, plus the fact that mum kept up a supply of toasted hot cross buns and chocolate eggs, my mood lightened. I no longer wanted to walk out on my job and indeed went back with a metaphorical spring in my step. 

And for some reason my thoughts this year turned to that Easter from long ago. 

I didn’t think there were any photos showing that first sewing machine, but when sorting through old photos of their dad for my daughters, I found this one...

There on the right just a glimpse in its plastic case...

I only kept it for 3 years. Its tension problems got to annoy me, so in 1974, Ellie the Elna became my new machine. Still have her and use her despite having  a much newer Janome. 

Easter 2019

Easter has come and gone as has one third of 2019...scary isn’t it? Lol

With the advent of becoming grandparents, so too have new Easter traditions evolved. This year I wrote a letter to Anthea inviting her to help me decorate the shelves of the hutch. Her mum slipped the letter into their letterbox ready for Miss A to find it. She was thrilled 😁. So very soon after she came one morning to help me.

Another newish Easter tradition is an Easter Egg Hunt. 

Two of the grandies were going to be away for Easter, so their egg hunt was a bit early...

Each of the girls received a book in their Easter goodies bag, along with a bunny Easter egg and a little soft bunny.

Miss A went hunting for eggs during the Easter weekend. 

Because Anthea loves ballerinas, her little bunny was dressed in a tutu and ballet shoes and a tiara. 😊

I was a bit self indulgent and went to the Bed Bath and Table 50% off sale and bought some more Easter decorations...

And talking of traditions, this year a group of the Green Hills female parishioners decided we’d wear hats...

So that was Easter 2019