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! 

A Small World?

On our recent trip to Melbourne, I saw some yarnbombing as we walked up Swanston St right there in the CBD. The trunks of the trees on the footpath were wrapped up in Christmas colours. So I walked up the street taking photos of each tree. I thought that the photos would be perfect for one of my 25 Days of Christmas posts that I do each December on Facebook. So I made a collage...

Then one of my fellow members from Knitting for Brisbane’s Needy wrote a comment on my post thanking me for posting the photos. Janine went on to explain that the tree in the top left hand corner of my collage was wrapped in her corner to corner crocheted piece! 

Apparently she joined a Facebook group earlier this year and it was this group that called for volunteers to make pieces for yarnbombing. And because I’d taken the photos, Janine was able to see her work in situ so to speak!

 Here’s a closer look at that tree trunk...and I’m also including another tree trunk photo as it shows one of Melbourne’s iconic trams.

Bendigo...

My birthday was last month and my gift from DH was a trip to Bendigo to visit the Art Gallery there which has been showing a Marilyn Monroe Exhibition. It closes in July, so with no time to waste, we headed off from Brisbane on Thursday morning...

In Melbourne, we picked up our hire car and headed for Bendigo...the car had NSW plates this time! 😉

And today was the day for seeing the exhibition but I had to wait patiently till 11.30 am as that's when our tickets were for. So plenty of time to take photos of the giant statue of Marilyn in a lovely park just down the road from the gallery. 

There is a statue of Queen Victoria is in that park; some how I don't think she would 'be amused' by this more recent (but temporary) statue...

Here's a closer look at Marilyn...quite a big statue isn't it??

While we were waiting for our 11.30 session at the gallery, DH took the opportunity to take some photos of the historic trams doing tours of the city...

But soon it was time...

And the last opportunity to take pictures before we went in...

To be honest I never really was a great fan of Marilyn Monroe as she had died long before I became a movie goer, but I did see some of her movies in my teens when they were shown on TV's midday movies during school holidays. But I love costumes so that's enough for me to want to see the exhibition. 

Well I wasn't disappointed! The costumes were magnificent! Many of her costumes are in private collections now and have been loaned by these owners for this Exhibition. 

But there were also clothes and accessories on show from her private life and they were beautifully made and were very classical in style; not showy or revealing in any way. On show was a loose 

shirtmaker frock that she wore during her pregnancy in 1958; she later miscarried. We saw makeup that she used in her off screen life, her books, records and some jewellery. I learned that she was quite an astute businesswoman, who renegotiated contracts with the studios who had been 'ripping her off' financially. She set up her own production company; the first woman to do this in Hollywood. There were lots of snippets of her movies showing in various places in the exhibition...a huge variety of roles...not just blonde bombshell type roles. I was quite impressed in fact.

What a great birthday gift!