Another coffee shop...

I've written posts before about the monthly coffee morning I have with a group of friends. We call ourselves the 'Newmarket Mums' and our friendships began when our children went to Newmarket State School (primary). We bonded during tuckshop duty, P&C meetings, fetes, street stalls, sewing bees etc. Our children went to many different high schools but our friendships continued. Then about 10 years ago a few of us started meeting monthly and gradually our group grew. We've met in a number of cafes in the Newmarket/Alderley area and for quite a while we've been meeting at Gloria Jeans at Newmarket. We get seniors' discount there and on request the coffee/tea is served in a china cup rather than the ubiquitous paper/polystyrene cups.   

But last Sunday we went somewhere different...

I don't live in Newmarket any more but a number of the ladies do, and they have been 'singing the praises' of a little coffee shop that has been there for a few years now. So for our September coffee meet, we went there...I parked my car in the street parallel to the street where I grew up, so as soon as I got out of the car, the sweet memories started flooding back... 

I walked up the hill from where I parked and turned right and walked along Enoggera Rd until I got to this building...when I was a girl this was Bell's Furniture factory, an intriguing place to peep into as I walked past.

Now it is the home to Newmarket Hardware. That business used to be in the building next door but quite a few years ago, a local bought that building (and the business) and refurbished it and rented it out. He obviously also owned the old factory so moved the hardware store into there. Many of the older locals thought he was 'mad' but he's had the last laugh I think. Oh...you're probably wondering why I'm going on about this hardware store? 

Well the story goes that the owner's wife opened a gallery and tiny coffee shop at the back of the hardware store...and here it is...

My friend Sandra really liked this piece but as she is downsizing to a unit thought it best not to buy it :-)

The building is high off the ground at the back as the ground slopes sharply down towards Enoggera Creek

Here is the lovely owner of the Gallery B...

Coffees/teas are served in lovely china ,mugs , cups with matching plate/saucers...

It was so relaxing sitting on the back deck area...

There was art work everywhere...

Some of the other examples of china

 My friend Maddy had only recently returned from her Canada /Alaska tour

I took photos of the view from the deck...

Looking over the creek towards the suburb of Ashgrove...

Looking west; when I was a little girl, this area was market gardens...

The creek is quite dry at the moment with lots of gravel banks visible. The area of mowed grass on mid right is the back of the Newmarket Bowls Club

 I used the zoom for this photo...this photo shows the water tower in the suburb of Bardon. When I was a little girl I was fascinated by this structure that I could see from the tram stop on Enoggera Rd. My mum told me what it was and somehow I imagined that it was just magical. Didn't get to go and see it close up until I got my drivers' licence in my early 20s. Mind you, it didn't disappoint! lol

And in the Gallery there were the most beautiful items for sale...

My friends browsing

And as we were leaving my friend Robyn was even able to buy some fertiliser from the hardware part of the building! lol

Before I drove home I just had to take a photo of the little church in the street where I had parked. I went to Sunday school here in the late 50s through to the mid 60s. My friends had told me that it was no longer a church, it had been sold...

This church was built in 1958 and was quite a radical/avant garde  design. But I will write about its role in my life in another post. 

One of my friends has told me about a new coffee shop in Newmarket which is in a converted shipping container in the old Brickworks' site...so DH and I might have to check that one out too :-)

Friday Night with Friends...

Thank you to Cheryll for hosting FNwF.

I did lots of cutting...

For secret sewing projects...

I did some stitching over 'papers'...

I was planning on some machine sewing but found I had an almost empty reel of red thread...how could that be? I was so sure I had a 1000m reel of red. I looked in the places where my cottons should be stored but no red...

So I didn't stress and I didn't ponder about my problem and come up with another colour I could use for stitching which would be on show...I didn't do any of these things...I just got my knitting out! lol
I have been showing photos of this project for a few weeks now (3 weeks I think), but I'm on the 'home stretch' now; I think one more repeat of the 6 colours should see this project finished. That's approximately 30cm/ 12 inches of knitting.

The colours are so different in 'real life'...the one that looks grey in the photo is actually a lovely warm caramel colour...and the orange looks quite washed out...but these 'things' can and do happen with photography.

There were 50 of us who signed up for FNwF this month, so why not head over to Cheryll's blog and have a look at some of the lovely crafty things people were doing...

Some lovely items that came in the post last month...

I realised that I hadn't written a post about the goodies that Lynne, my swap buddy in the Mrs Martin's Celebrations' Swap, sent me. The theme was a garden stitchery...
I was 'blown away' when I opened the parcel...this is really cute; it is so beautiful! Don't you just love that little dog chasing the butterfly...

But that's not all! Lynne really spoiled me in this swap!
A beautiful kit...

And these divine fragrance sachets which have inbuilt hooks so they hang very easily in the wardrobe! And the fragrance is so nice! :-)

 And some very useful quilt labels...very stylish and a lovely surprise.

Dear Lynne, thank you for all these lovely gifts; I love them!

Coathangers...

This is Eduardo our cat...

The photo below was 'doing the rounds' on Facebook.
This is not Eduardo but instead it's another cat who looks a bit like him...so cheeky and naughty! Even though Eduardo has some unusual sleeping spots, he hasn't tried this! :-)

Now while I'm on the subject of coathangers, this is an idea that I saw a little while back on the internet and decided to try for myself.

It's an idea for storing scarves. Take one plastic coathanger and slip some shower curtain hooks on it. Then thread through some scarves. This now hangs in my wardrobe and has worked really well at keeping scarves neat and not crumpled or creased.
And here's one more photo of Eduardo. As you can see from my new blog banner, I've been 'playing around' with Instagram Frames and this photo of Eduardo was the first effect I created using the App.

Lots of fun and possibilities I can see!

A short visit...

Last week was the first week of the mid semester school holiday's break and DsD1 and her partner Dan, drove down to Brisbane for a few days.

Here they are at the family wedding last May

This time they stayed with us which was lovely as we don't see much of them normally.

So the disaster zone of crafting resources which is bedroom #2 went from this...
I had been sorting yarns into colour groups and not only the floor was littered but also the bed was covered with bags of yarns and fabric purchases...

So our guests had somewhere to sleep, I had to do quite a tidy up...
I amazed myself actually; floor and bed cleared and the bed made up with clean linen :-)

That's DH's spare set of golf clubs on the right...so it's not all my craft 'stuff' :-)

Those cubes are hiding a lot of yarn you know and I've actually labelled two of them! 

 DsD1 spent the time catching up with her mum and sisters and  her best friend, getting her car serviced (which took a day and a half!) and on the Thursday night she had planned to go to see a performance of 'Grease' with one of her friends. I 'tortured' Dan with the smell of a beef casserole in the slow cooker for most of the day and he was looking forward to having some for dinner that night while DsD1 went to the theatre. But both of them ended up not doing what they had expected to be doing.

They got a phonecall from home saying that a fire was raging on the property next to Dan's parents' place. The RFS volunteers had managed to save the neighbour's house. The young couple decided to immediately return home...a 6 hour drive. The next morning DsD1 rang me to say that they had got home safely about 1am. They then went out to help with fighting the fire until 4am. She told me that the neighbour had had hundreds of hectares burnt out and had suffered cattle losses.  Dan had gone out again after a short break.
By Monday DsD let me know that the fire was 'safe and controlled' but would smoulder in trees and logs for a few weeks to come.
Unfortunately I guess the fire scenario will replay many times over the coming summer here in Australia. 

Weekly update on the building work...

Well my neighbour reckoned the roof would be going on the 7 little townhouses next, but he was wrong... 

Instead insulation sheets were stapled to the framework of the walls...

 And you would remember my little altercation with that rapscallion scaffolder...

Luckily the only damage was a piece of geranium got broken off...

 This must be the backdoor the house near the front of our property...

 Here I'm looking through the gap between those houses at the front and the one house built adjacent to our backyard...

 
Then coming along behind the insulation tradies were the builders putting on the cladding sheets...this appears to be a long laborious task...

Now I've walked down the front of our property and am looking across the front of the complex. You can see the framework for the roof on their front balconies...

 The photo below was taken looking out the window of the little bedroom that we use as an office...as you can see, they have started putting the insulation on the top (3rd) level of the townhouse...

Very ordinary aluminium sliding windows...

 Lots of reflections, but you can see how high the scaffolding has 'grown'...

Another view from the front of our place ...we can see the sliding door on to their balcony...

 I took the photos below to show just how high the scaffolding has got...it's a front view taken from the footpath...

Looking along the street...

And even further along the street...

All of the houses have the front doors hung now...all identical...

This photo is looking into the black hole that is the ground level garage...

So there we are...progress up to last Sunday...well Friday actually but I took most of the photos about lunchtime Sunday.