Exercising...

Now if you have been a  reader of this blog  for a while you may remember my mentioning that one of my goals since my retirement was to get more exercise and raise my fitness level at least a bit :-) One Friday I wrote about my efforts with my exercise bike.

When I started in earnest last December to get fit, I struggled even with the setting at the lowest tension. Now I'm at level 4 and do 31 minutes at least once a day and sometimes twice. To make the time go quickly my iPod is loaded with quite a selection of  music and especially the 60s and 70s; nothing too slow and with a good solid beat!  Sometimes I've read while I rode and I've toyed with uploading a talking book from the library on to my iPod as another way of passing the time.  
However, (she says with tongue firmly in cheek) would my stamina have improved more quickly if I had one of these bikes  here ? I believe the video is French and is an ad for bottled water...sacre bleu!... what will they think of next? lol
WARNING: I wouldn't suggest looking at all the other videos in the series as some are quite 'tasteless' and could offend. I believe they are all ads in various parts of the world.

On my mind...a new project on the needles

Today I'm joining in the regular Friday feature at Rhonda's Down to Earth blog , On my Mind...a new knitting project.

Most of the yarns I'm using have been odd balls purchased on Ebay at very reasonable prices

On my mind today is a new knitting project that I finally got started on last week. There were a couple of reasons for my tardiness in starting; one major reason was that I was still collecting yarns as I had decided that I wanted to use 40 different colours of mohair. I'm not going to explain the 'whys' just yet but all will be revealed in a month or so :-) . Another reason for dithering about starting was that the colours had to 'run' in a certain way and there was a mental block for a while. The photos show how I sorted and numbered balls of yarn, then bagged them up. The captions on the photos explain that the yarns come from a number of sources; I've used yarns bought on a NZ holiday, a Tassie holiday, a craft show or two and of course Ebay.

When DH and I travel I often buy beautiful yarns from markets and shops. This beauty came from Salamanca Markets in Hobart

Progress after 3 days

Progress at the end of week 1

It's a throw if you haven't already guessed and it's a gift for a friend who doesn't follow my blog. It is approximately 2 years late as the significant event it celebrates was 2 years ago this month....but you know...it doesn't pay to rush things!!!

A night out at the theatre...

Recently I received an email from La Boite theatre offering 40% off tickets to the previews of the show about to start there. We decided to book and we went last Tuesday night. La Boite is now part of the Creative Industries precinct at 'my old uni', QUT. The actual theatre is an example of  'theatre in the round'. The play was called 'Ruben Guthrie' and starred Gyton Grantley. Grantley has made quite a name for himself especially for roles such as 'Underbelly' a TV series.

Inside the theatre

In the first part of the play I wondered what we'd let ourselves in for. The language was pretty bad and came in rushing torrents. The play is about a 'high flyer' (Grantley) who works in the advertising world and has  problems with drink and drugs as he lives his 'fast lifestyle'. The play examines relationships etc and also the implications of when he tries to give up these addictions. As the play went on the audience became more and more engrossed in the action onstage...there were times when you could hear a 'pin drop' as 'we' almost held our communal breath waiting to see what Ruben would say or do next. Grantley deserves all the accolades he's received for his work and I include this play. He was brilliant. It was a play with everything...humour, pathos, disappointments, love, inter-generational addictions and was thoughtful as well as thought-provoking. There were so many layers to this story...
DH and I had quite a discussion on the way home...you know it was almost like being back at uni after a great 'tute'!

Internet unavailable...shock horror!!

I haven't been around lately since our main computer decided to 'disconnect itself?' from the modem. My brother who has computer tech quals just happened to drop around the day it happened. He checked everything out (he knows about 'Bios' and systems and stuff like that. He checked everything out twice and concluded that the computer itself was fine so it was possibly the wireless adapter. He left us, muttering things about 'back-ups' and reinstalling Windows if buying a new adapter didn't work. To me...scary stuff lol!

DH didn't get the nickname 'Scrooge Mc Goodwin' without a reason. I don't think he believed that such an item could wear out so quickly. He organised to borrow an adapter from his DD2's partner to test whether that was the problem. However that couple were away for the weekend and this all happened on the Friday. When we did get the item on Sunday night courtesy of DH's DD3 (who had done the family taxi run to the airport to pick up the holidaying couple), we found that it wasn't an adapter but the USB for internet access to some carrier or other. We didn't need that as we have a D-link box in the family room and we just needed the little 'doover thing' which picks up the wireless signal from the  bedroom we use as an office.

Any way DH bought a new adapter on Monday...brought it home, connected its cable to the computer and voila! we were again on the internet. I know that I love being able to access the net, but I just didn't realise how much I use it until it wasn't available. I'm always 'looking things up for information', I use Google maps and Sensis to find places, white pages for phone numbers, historical indexes for family history information, I use FBook and Blogger, I look up Timezones, I use translators and currency converters, I buy things or check things out/compare  online before I buy in shops . I use online dictionaries, we book theatre tickets, airline tickets and accomodation online, I place holds on library books and extend loans, I send emails, pay bills and transfer money via the internet. I used to access online resources for teaching especially for using the IWB. In my working life in recent years, report cards were also completed online. Just as I was leaving the job, staff were training to put all their planning documents and assessment tasks online as well.

In my crafts, I get free patterns online or detailed instructions and tutorials. When I couldn't remember how to put the walking foot on my sewing machine, I found a video on the net and then I remembered all the steps. DH and I use Skype too. I reckon I've not mentioned all the ways that I use the internet...I still know people who proudly claim that yes, they do have a computer at home, but they haven't bothered to connect to the internet. So what do they do? Play games, create documents and spreadsheets perhaps?

I must admit I did get more knitting done on the weekend and much more reading (books and magazines) than usual...without the distraction of going online. I'll finish this post with some photos taken last week in the veggie patch. I'm also still harvesting bed #1 of potatoes and keeping a tally; so far I've dug up 3.675kg with still 4 plants to harvest. My brother made the comment that potatoes are incredibly cheap at the moment, averaging $2-$3 per kg but I know that mine have been grown without chemicals and that they are freshly dug not stored somewhere for months as the supermarkets are accused of doing. I noticed that he was happy to accept a paper bag filled with freshly dug up potatoes last time he was over! lol I read on the Brisbane Organic Gardeners site the recommendation that here we should plant potatoes starting in May, so that's something else for my 2012 calendar as well as divide hippeastrums in Autumn...I didn't know that before!

By this week, the plants were covered with little peapods

A volunteer tomato plant

We've had a few meals from the silverbeet so far

hmmm who didn't thin the carrots out properly? I'll know better next time.

Magpies...

It's spring here in Australia and that's 'Magpie season'. That means that in nests around the nation there are baby magpies making their little gaspy type  'I'm hungry' screeching noises. Unfortunately 'Magpie season' can also mean that people  run the risk of being 'swooped on' by protective magpie parent birds if it's felt that the humans are too close to the nests. Where I used to live, it was best not to walk in the park during September and at one school where I taught, there was a swooping magpie near one of the demountable blocks at the back of the campus. During breaks, students would have to wear hats and walk quickly to the playground. If they needed to go to the toilet in school time we sent them in pairs with an umbrella raised.

There is a theory as to why only some magpies swoop.  Some magpies do make contact which hurts and in some cases where an eye is involved, people can lose the sight in that eye. It's believed that if a magpie has been ill-treated/teased it remembers and attacks similar looking people in the years to come. Boys on bikes are often attacked. Where I live now I haven't heard any complaints about swooping magpies.

I have been swooped by a magpie but I still love them. They are intelligent, they are good parents and their singing is so joyous. An Australian poet, Judith Wright, wrote a poem dedicated to Magpies. It is no surprise then that it's a favourite of mine. I introduced it to hundreds of my students over the years. (I've put the poem at the end of the post)
We have magpies living around ours and our neighbours' yards and each year we watch them raise the babies. The babies are brown and gradually they become black and white in their second year. When I dig over a garden bed, the magpies come and pick out tasty morsels, especially those wretched curl grubs. The babies in the nest at the moment are being fed grubs from our grass clippings' heap and the parent bird lets me walk past without flying away. I'm looking forward to when the little ones will come down and forage with their parents but that won't be for a while.

The magpies, the scrub turkey and the ibis all like to pick through this heap!

 Magpies by Judith Wright

Along the road the magpies walk
with hands in pockets, left and right.
They tilt their heads, and stroll and talk.
In their well-fitted black and white.

They look like certain gentlemen
who seem most nonchalant and wise
until their meal is served — and then
what clashing beaks, what greedy eyes!

But not one man that I have heard
throws back his head in such a song
of grace and praise — no man nor bird.
Their greed is brief; their joy is long.
For each is born with such a throat
as thanks his God with every note.





Knitting...

Yesterday I posted the squares that I knitted for the monthly challenge. I ended up completing 14 and used 2 balls of Carnival variegated 8 ply. I've been checking the forum page to see what the latest tally of squares made is. No new figures today so far, but yesterday a total of 656 had been recorded. I think there will be more as many members have indicated that they will continue to make squares until the end of the week :-). At the moment there are enough squares to make 6 full sized blankets, which is great news!

I'm working on some other projects so no more square knitting for me at the moment. Some are 'secret projects' but I'm also still sewing squares (other ones donated) into blankets as well as my 'quadrilateral' blues, mauves,pinks project. (the shape is 4 sided and looks like a kite shape)

The builder arrived Monday to start work on repairing the verandah. First day was digging holes in rock hard ground and yesterday he put in the metal stirrups encased in concrete. He's a hard worker and we've been so lucky to find him. For small jobs, many don't even turn up to give a quote. Tomorrow he will be removing some of the floorboards and getting it all level as it was built previously in a manner that could be described as 'undulating'!

The weekend...

The weekend has just flown! Firstly yesterday, the builder who is going to do the repairs on our side verandah came around with the contract to be signed. Then in the afternoon, DH and I went to a matinee performance of the 'Mikado' which was presented by an amateur theatre group called  The Savoyards. The director turned out to be an actor, Eric Hauff,  who had worked with DH in the 1999 production of 'Tarantara' in which  DH played the role of Sir Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert and Sullivan fame). And that's how Eric greeted DH yesterday as 'Sir Arthur'. Eric is now 81 years old and shows no sign of slowing down. the show was wonderful; I enjoyed every minute of it!  The amateur theatre groups here represent good value for money and are much more affordable than the ones in the performing Arts Centre.

DH as Sir Arthur Sullivan

Today DH and his brother D trimmed some branches of 2 trees that are near the side veranda. There is now a clear go for the builder who plans to start work tomorrow. My SIL rang at one stage to check whether D was not climbing up the ladder as he is still experiencing discomfort in the leg in which he broke a small bone earlier this year. I passed the phone to him to explain... Let me add that it was very windy today and later I was looking from the kitchen towards the veranda and saw my BIL on the ladder which was propped against the tree which was swaying. He was trying to hang on to the ladder AND the chainsaw!! DH was down the front and couldn't see this. I called out for him to come quickly, which he did...and the big bro' rescued his little brother.phew!

BIL in the neighbour's yard setting up

To the rescue

eddie didn't like the noise of the chainsaw

This afternoon was the NRL grand final between Manly and the NZ team the Warriors.  It's a bit of a tradition that my brother comes over for grand finals and this year was no exception. My nephews didn't come this year so the tray of snacks I prepared was just for DH and my brother. Manly won but I didn't take much notice as I was still knitting squares for the K4BN weekend challenge.