Life in Colour

Well March is almost over so next Sunday Jude over at Travel Words here will select a new feature colour for her Life in Colour series. And I ended up finding lots of photos for the Green Theme so this post will be like the last hurrah for green. 😀

Greens on Lantau Island, Hong Kong.

Next up are some greens I spied in Brighton, UK. During our stay in London in 2019, we took a train to this seaside town...a lovely day and some wonderful memories. 

Next is a lovely tranquil spot in the Sun Yet-San Gardens in Vancouver...a delightful garden in that city’s Chinatown area. 

A ride at Santa Monica Pier...we just watched! 

In 2014 DH and I toured the old set of Coronation St, his favourite TV show...this is part of the outdoors set. 

Filming of the interior of the pub was in a set inside the main building at these now demolished studios. 

The next photo is in the Cotswold village of Bibury...I was fascinated by that plant that looked like it belonged in the tropics! 

Next photo is some green in Singapore...

Only a tiny bit of green in this next photo taken in Bunbury, Western Australia. Driving down this suburban street in this town, we just had to stop and check out this front yard. Marge Simpson of course is resplendent in a green frock. Not your average front yard I think! 



Next photo shows the different greens in this sunken garden in Mt Gambier, South Australia. 


The next photo is closer to home...I spied this at our local ( but smallish) shopping Centre. How times have changed since my childhood and even the childhood of my children! 

Looks fun! And the grownups don’t even need to rummage for coins! 

Yep! Just tap the credit card! 


Last Sunday was Palm Sunday which means palm leaves and palm crosses! 

We have a granddaughter who lost a leg due to sepsis. Here she is in a green dress having fun on a green slippery slide. 

My friends in the Sunday Stitchers group found out that there is an Amputee Awareness Month so in November 2019 they honored  Carrie at our monthly meeting by presenting me with 2 bags of story books for her. How special are these lovely ladies. 

The last photo is a meme attributed to John F Kennedy that I shared on my FB page a few years ago. For many years DsD1 and her husband lived on a grazing property and I naturally started to take an interest in the farming/grazing sector so I could be more informed of what the lifestyle entailed. 

How true this is! 

Lots of ‘firsts’...

I’m gradually recording the life changes and adaptations that have occurred in my life throughout the lockdown, social isolation and social distancing measures caused by the Pandemic. Pondering has become quite a big thing in my life and one conclusion I’ve come to is that life in recent months has been a whole series of ‘firsts’. In this post I’ll write about one of the first ‘firsts’ that occurred...worship in a pandemic. 

Like many parishes, we went online. Firstly we tried out a free version of the Zoom app but that is limited to 40 mins per session, but it was good to get a feel for the technology. A lot of us were familiar with FaceTime and Skype but many parishioners weren’t. But even our 90 year olds started to embrace the system. Very soon, the parish moved to a paid version of the app (paid for by the Diocese so we were no longer restricted to 40 min meetings) and not only was it used for services, but also parish meetings and training sessions for our trainee priest placement. 

Palm Sunday was a ‘first’. I wanted DH and I to have the little palm crosses so I had looked around the garden for leaves I could use as we don’t have a Queen’s palm tree that is traditionally used. I thought, dianella, liriope or lomandra leaves could be used but thought I might try strips of the leaves of the pony tail palm which apparently isn’t a palm tree after all. 

It worked perfectly! I used what I had available and it had worked. But I’d been prepared to try those other leaves if it hadn’t worked out. You know that old saying about ‘necessity’ and the ‘mother of invention’. 


And I cut a frond off another palm-like tree which was self-sown  years ago in our backyard to place behind our chairs in lieu of the normal Palm Sunday procession. 

We used an iPad for the Zoom meeting which only has room on the screen for 9 participants. You have to scroll sideways to see everybody. But some people used their PCs and this friend with a large monitor sent us all this photo. 



And through the wonders of Zoom, we had Bishop Jeremy as a guest preacher. We were all in different places but could be ‘together’ in another sense. 

Soon I’m going to write a post about Easter 2020 and there will be ‘firsts’ in that too! 

It's nearly Easter...

For a couple of weeks each year, Green Hills parish gets into entrepreneurial mode as thousands of palm crosses are made and sold to (church) schools and other parishes throughout Australia ready for Palm Sunday Services. We raise a few thousand dollars this way; all very nice.
Working bees to strip the fronds from the palm branches and then cut the strips into lengths are always social occasions...


Then most parishioners take bags of cut strips home and then start folding...

One of my bundles...

And Easter approaching means a change of display in the hutch here at our place...
Blue Willow, out! ( for a while it's back in the cupboard not literally 'out'! 😉)


The boxes of stored Easter items...

And now already for Easter...the little wooden Easter banner is still to be put up, but I need DH's help with that.

Many of the items were from Easter Swaps I joined in previous years...and a win a few years ago in an Easter Raffle at Sunday Stitchers...all lovely memories and loved items. Children who visit love it! ( so do I! Lol) 

That time of year again...

Last year I wrote a post about a fund raising venture of our parish. For a few years now, we have been making palm crosses and sellling them to other parishes and also to some schools. The crosses are a traditional addition to Palm Sunday services ; the Sunday before Easter.
The crosses can't be made too far ahead so we have a short busy time for turning palm branches into strips and then the strips are folded into the little crosses. There are always working bees to get the strips ready but most of us collect strips from the fridge in the church hall and take them home and fold throughout the week.
This is a few hundred that I folded at home...

One Saturday 'Palm working bee' I couldn't make it but last Saturday I was there.

Some of the men had been out early collecting some branches...we use the fronds from the Queens Palm....

Stripping? 😉

The number of helpers swelled as the morning went on...

For the first time I asked how much the parish charges for the crosses...we sell them in bundles of 100 for $45 plus postage and many local customers do come and pick up their order. At the beginning of Lent we had orders for 6000 crosses but after more orders came in it was just over 7000! It has become our best fundraiser 😊.

This year I couldn't Palm this off...

For a few years now, our parish has raised funds by making and selling Palm crosses ready to be handed out on Palm Sunday. ( the last Sunday before Easter) Our 'customers' are churches and church schools and it's a 'nice little earner' for the parish. I have never made a Palm cross previously as there had always been lots of others volunteering to do that.

But this year we had orders for just over 6500 crosses, so more volunteers were required. About 3 weeks before Easter there is a working bee to cut and tear Palm leaves into strips...this is some of the bundle of strips that I received.

Two strips are used to make the traditional cross...

Last Monday after work I sat down with the bag of strips and the directions saved on my iPad.

Well I was hopeless I'm afraid to say and put the strips of palm leaves aside (in the fridge) until the next night. I managed to just make 2 on Tuesday night but they looked a bit bodgy...what was happening? I couldn't follow a simple diagram for goodness sake!!!

It wasn't until my day off on Friday that I finally 'got it'...

So by this morning I had a bundle of crosses to hand in...phew! I was a bit worried there that I would be 'letting down the side' for a while!!! Lol

The organiser has said we now have enough crosses for our customers and our parish, so the job is done.