Some more goodies unwrapped...

Day 7 of Advent...

 I love these coasters; they are so cleverly made. I investigated one by turning it inside out so I could work out how it was made...and I will definitely make some!

Day 8...
Some lovely scarf yarn in a beautiful purple colour!

Day 9....

A notebook with my initial on; how special is that :-)

I was given a notebook similar to this for my birthday last year, which I keep in my handbag. I have found it so useful for writing down things when I'm out...things which I would probably forget ! lol Now that notebook is almost filled up, so this is perfect timing for a new one!

Day 10...
And another very useful item for my handbag...and it's Christmassy too!!! Thank you Cheryl :-)

I love the way the English label on the back describes the contents as 'hankies' :-)  very swish!

Now the next gifts I got a few weeks ago from my friends in Oregon and it was a lovely surprise. These items were bought in France during Pat and Richard's recent holiday there...voila! The little silk drawstring purse has the loveliest beaded embroidery detail...so lovely. And the kitchen set is made from such beautiful quality fabrics.

And lastly, some more on decorating for Christmas...

I decided last week that I would look at tinsel garlands in our local variety store. I fell in love with these green/gold ones, with gold holly leaves and lots of fat,red, shiny, holly berries. Then and there I decided to 'retire' the red tinsel that has been used on our tree. Originally I bought those red garlands to decorate the yard and veranda for DsD3's 18th birthday. (red was her favourite colour so I used it as a theme) Her last birthday, which was celebrated in October, was her 26th, so those garlands have been well used. :-) 

Friday Night with Friends...crocheting...

On Friday night I joined in with Cheryll's FNWF.  I ended up crocheting; just a square though, nothing fancy lol! It's been a bit hot here and I haven't felt like doing much craft at all, so something simple was called for. Only had to grab the ziplock bag with all the indigenous coloured yarns and a hook and I was ready to go. Each square consists of 15 rounds and on Friday night, I called it quits after 13 rows, so the last 2 were done today. 

Any items  made in these three colours, black, red and golden yellow are always popular when they are handed out to needy people in the community...so one square down, 19 more to make a blanket for someone :-) I love that variegated yarn from Lincraft; it's so much fun to work with.

Some well loved decorations at our place...

In 2008, DH and I travelled to the UK and Europe. At some of the tourist attractions, I noticed some very cute felt figures and I ended up buying a number of these as souvenirs of our trip. In that year, the British Pound was worth $AUD2.50 and I think that I paid about GBP6.50 for each of them and did feel a bit guilty at the time, about how much money I was spending on Christmas tree decorations. I bought some in Edinburgh Castle, the Tower of London, the Museum of Transport in London and St Paul's Cathedral and one of the buildings in Bath that we toured, that I can remember...there may have been more places. 

Group photo! All unwrapped from the tissue paper, ready for the tree...

Each year since 2008, these decorations go on our tree. I have also used them at school to decorate a tree in the staffroom for our Christmas in July celebrations. I may have felt some guilt but I've never regretted buying them...the 'teacher in me' looks to the time when there are grandchildren in our family who will love these figures as much as I do. The other day I actually found online the company which markets these decorations, and they all still available.  

A Scots Guard and the Archbishop of Canterbury

A Roman soldier and a Roman wealthy lady...bought in Bath. Also in the photo are my Beefeaters and  Queens' Guards

Lord nelson and a London Bobby

Henry V111 of course...but I only bought 2 of his wives...

The rather tragic Mary Queen of Scots...

I also have some other felt figures which also decorate the tree and they have been around for a while...namely 2 angels and a Santa made of felt and a dolly peg. My girls made these when they were still at primary school and I love them! It's always been a family joke that the blonde angel looks like Patsy from the TV show AB Fab (Absolutely Fabulous)...well the 'hair' looks like it's in a 'french roll', lol! 

And this is the Santa.

Now it looks like that online store back in the UK has a very reasonable flat rate for postage...I might just think about those other 4 wives of Henry...it does seem a shame that they can't all be 'together'on the tree ! 

:-)

Swaps fun!

One of the swaps that I signed up for was the Advent Swap organised by Cat at Catalina's Cottage.  My swap partner was Cheryl and she has certainly been spoiling me :-) Each day up to Christmas Eve I have a parcel to open and on December 25 there is a special parcel! So without further ado, I'll now show you the goodies I've received so far....

Day 1. I love that ribbon...'no peeking'...

 And this was in that parcel. Isn't it cute? Love the details...a beautiful piece!

Sunday morning, December 2...what could be better? The newspaper, a piece of toast, a cup of tea...and a parcel to open :-)

3 lovely fat quarters...

Day 3...and this time there was a lovely bookmark inside the parcel. All beautifully sewn and certainly very special...

On Day 4 Cheryl had sent me a lovely  table centre which featured hand embroidered eyelet work... very nice!

On day 5, the parcel was very flat... and inside was a beautiful reproduction block showing a very elegant Santa. I googled the web address on the block and saw lots of similar blocks. I had never heard of this site so it was great fun discovering it :-)

Day 6 was today and there lots of 'wows! and how beautiful' when I opened this parcel. It was a Christmas panel in some of my favourite colours...clever Cheryl :-)

So you can see what I mean when I say that I have been spoiled! Thank you so much, Cheryl, it's certainly lots of fun unwrapping these parcels from you. And we still have lots to go! lol

Sunday afternoon in Buderim...

It's interesting to watch the weather reports from around Australia at the moment. For the last few days Queensland has been sweltering (Brisbane was 38 degrees C yesterday) but meanwhile Tasmania has snow and Victoria has turned cold as well.

Yesterday DH headed off to golf, but Eduardo, the cat, and I took it easy. We lay under the fan, windows open for cross ventilation; he snoozed and I read most of a Barbara Vine (aka Ruth Rendell) novel that my Melbourne SIL had given me. Such decadence...I still haven't got used to the fact that I can read during the day...and I've been officially retired for 18 months now! lol

Possibly because of the heat, the laptop is not working that well at the moment. Since the crash of the PC a few months ago followed by the system refusing to allow me to reinstall the 'finepix' photo uploader, I've used the laptop to upload photos to a USB. So this post will be one that can use photos already uploaded instead of a post about swaps and decorating for Christmas etc. So this post will be about what DH, DD1 and I did last Sunday.

 A former student of mine, Robyn, runs BYTE which stands for Buderim Youth Theatre of Excellence. Young people receive theatre training and each year there are a number of productions to showcase the students' work. Earlier this year, DH and I went to see their production of  'Titanic' which we thoroughly enjoyed. Robyn's sister also works for BYTE. Robyn's mum and I have been friends for many years as I used to live next door to her mother. We also worked together for a few years too. Robyn's mum, Pat, has retired to Buderim and also plays her part in supporting her daughters in their work with the theatre. 

The latest production is that wonderful old musical, 'Oklahoma'. And that is why we drove up to Buderim on Sunday. Robyn's daughter was in that performance and we particularly wanted to see her. I was so impressed with Katherine's performance in 'Titanic' and we not to be disappointed this time. She played the role of Laurie, a young woman who is being 'pursued' by Curly and the sullen, sometimes violent, Judd. The character of Laurie plays it cool but you can tell she really likes Curly! lol

The stage ready for the performance; with the little farm house where Laurie lived with her aunt

A musical needs an orchestra, and this one was great!

Katharine was wonderful; a great 'all rounder', with her glorious singing voice, great acting and her dancing too! Oklahoma is full of songs that are catchy and ones that are familiar to people in my age group. DH loved the songs so much, he sang along with the cast at various times :-/ lol

I've received permission to use some of the company's photos of the performance, as naturally, flash photography was not allowed during the performance....

Laurie singing early in the first act...

These 3 performers were really good!

Laurie and Curly finally admit their true feelings...

And they even get married!!

During interval, DH took some photos of Pat, moi, DD1 and Robyn's brother Stuart. Stuart is also a former student of mine and performed in a play I directed when he was in Year 7... he did a great job too!

The decorating has started...

This year I enjoyed reading about how other bloggers make lovely displays in their homes. Tanya over at Suburban Jubilee  sure knows how to make a set of shelves look magnificent and she changes the display with the change of seasons too! Jeanetteann over at Heirloom Treasures is another person whose blog has inspired me to greater efforts. A few months ago I rearranged my rather untidy hutch, and brought out on to display some of my 'good' china which had been languishing in the bottom of a cupboard. The hutch looked so much better...

So with the beginning of December on Saturday, it seemed like a good time to change the hutch display...

The pale blues, pinks and mauves were 'given the flick'.... lol

I decided to put a tea set out on display that my former MIL gave me, piece by piece, for my birthday (it saved her the dilemma of knowing what to buy me for quite a few years, and I ended up with a beautiful teaset! But it has been hidden away in a cupboard for too long as well, although DsD2 used the set for her engagement party this year. 

Interspersed with the 'Old Country roses' teaset, are bits and pieces from my Christmas decorations ' collection

So one of my decorating jobs is finished and tomorrow I really must get the tree out of storage, set it up in the lounge room and hang all those decorations on it. 

Oh how I've changed! Once I would have gone out and bought some china with Christmas patterns on it to decorate that hutch...now I just use what I already have and feel quite content doing that :-) .

'You're a dirty stop out!'

In 2003 and 2004 I completed a post graduate qualification in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) and this raised my awareness of how everyday English is crammed full of phrases and terms which have meanings which bear little resemblance to the original meanings of the individual words.

One of my mother's favourite sayings was , 'You're a dirty stop out!' It's an Australian colloquial expression and must seem so strange to people who have English as their second language. It sounds quite derogatory but it is  used when someone is out (not home)  and for perhaps a bit longer than expected, and they have obviously been having a good time.  :-) It is usually said in jest .

If my mother was still alive, she would be using this saying to me I'm sure! Last Thursday was a perfect example of this...
In the morning I went to my SIL's place for her annual Christmas lunch for her 'craft friends'. Since I've been retired I've been able to go to this event :-) Last year  I wrote about how my SIL and BIL decorate their house in the most amazing way...it is so beautiful! My BIL has been away with work this year, so all the decorating was done by Mary.

The Christmas village ( in the b'ground of the photo) has had some new additions

 All the guests bring something for the meal. We are also expected to bring along some craft work for Show and Tell :-)

This is part of the Show and tell

 I stood to take the photo below, in the archway to the formal dining room, with a view towards the formal lounge room and on the right of the photo is the hallway...all beautifully decorated.

This photo is a bit blurry but shows some of the figures/ St Nicholas / Santas that Mary has collected

The stairs to the next level are always decorated for Christmas...

 Below are some of the wallhangings made by my SIL

Beside our plates was a cello package with these 2 lovely decorations that Mary made for each of us.

After lunching I then headed off to a coffee date with my former colleagues who meet once a month for coffee after school. It's a date I always try to keep. We go to Elixirs which is a coffee roasting business that branched out to have a cafe as well...very nice coffee :-)

I took this photo of my friend's iced coffee...what a big glass it is!  In Australia, iced coffee is made with chilled milk, a scoop of icecream in the bottom of the glass, topped with whipped cream and grated chocolate. (not like the iced coffee I had in NYC made on water and no icecream!)

Three of my former colleagues

This lady was my teaching partner for the last 2 years of my career; she misses me! lol

Desley who had that iced coffee and I pose for a photo...

 We had a lovely time catching up with each others news and travel plans for the long school holidays of some of my friends. Then it was time to head into the peak hour traffic and head home to the next suburb!