The Rally for Allison...

In my last post I mentioned that I had attended a rally in the city yesterday. The idea behind the rally was that the public could register their disapproval regarding the outcome of an Appeal by a convicted murderer Gerard Baden-Clay. 

(Now I must mention here that I have no qualifications in law...just an ordinary citizen. I was the child in Sunday School who, when told the parable of the Prodigal Son, thought it was all most unfair for the son who stayed behind and worked so diligently for the father unlike his wastrel brother. To me, a fair deal has always been important) So this rally seemed like a good place to point out to our Attorney General that what had happened wasn't fair or just, in our opinion. 

 Last year a jury deliberated after a 5 week trial, and returned a verdict of guilty of the murder of his wife. But in the last week, the Appeals Court found that verdict should be overruled and be downgraded to manslaughter which carries a lesser sentence. What an insult to that jury, the judge at the trial and the many,many investigators who put together a case against this man. 

'Legal eagles' have spoken and written about how this action by the Appeals Court is correct; that Baden Clay was entitled to this right of appeal. Some of these articles did intimate/indicate that even liars, cheats and generally despicable people have the same rights as the rest of us...well I have to admit I did paraphrase that a bit.

If you Google this case, you will find that Gerard Baden Clay (GBC) and his wife had 3 little girls...and that is the main impetus for the public to seek what they consider to be justice for Allison, her children and her parents, siblings and friends. Yellow was her favourite colour so attendees at the rally were asked to wear yellow if possible.

I don't wear yellow ( yellow tops make me look as though I'm ill) so I wore 'touches' of yellow...

I arrived early and there were all the media doing interviews with guest speakers...

Collage shows Bruce Morcombe (Daniel) being interviewed, and Senator Lazarus was interviewed as well. The lady with the white cane talking to Senator Lazarus caught the same bus to the city as I did. Margaret knew the Senator from another protest rally about 'fracking' in some Qld towns which both of them had attended.

Lots of people carried placards but I only got a photo of this one...

There was one placard near the stage that said 'Strewth Baden Clay, Tell the Truth!!!' I liked that one. Lots of the posters alluded to the scourge of Domestic Violence. 

King George Square where the rally was held is surrounded by city buildings...including our lovely old City  Hall and the city Christmas tree, which is a bit ugly...

As the starting time got closer, the crowd swelled...

Being short, I couldn't see much after a while...luckily there were big screens showing the guest speakers...and some videos of Allison....

Police seemed to in pairs and spread around the square and up on the raised walkway on the eastern side of the square...

It was very hot and some people moved to under the roof of the City Hall entry, to get out of the hot sun...

My back started to ache but I was determined to 'last the distance', clapping and occasionally booing...as you do at a protest. Only time will tell whether our protest will achieve anything. A lady behind me had said, 'Hopefully we'll get justice today,' I replied that ' We might not get justice today, but maybe the process can start'. 

Now I didn't bother to turn on the wifi on my phone as the screen was so hard to read in the bright sunlight but also I was talking to people so checking the phone would be rude. I met DD2 who works in town after the rally and we lingered over coffee, so I didn't check emails and Facebook until I was on the bus home. But my goodness what a shock I got! 

3 people had sent messages to me regarding a photo on the Channel 9 website and their FB page. And DsD2 had sent an email to her dad with the link as well...two of those posts...

So the moral is 'Always be well behaved in public as you never know when a photo may turn up on Facebook' ! Lol. 

Friday Night Sew In...

The last one for 2015!!! And it didn't turn out the way I had anticipated...

After dinner I sat down with DH in our lounge room; we both had our coffees with us. The plan was that after the coffee he would watch some TV and I would do some hexie stitching. Except...after my coffee, I stretched out on the sofa...and you know what comes next don't you?

Yep! I fell fast asleep...until much later. But then I did do some stitching...just one hexie flower.

So why was I so tired?

Well I went to a rally in the city and standing in King George Square in the midday sun was a bit taxing in the hot, humid weather. But I would not have missed the chance for this experience...

I went because I thought it was the right thing to do but there are others in the community who disagree vehemently...but that's what life is like in a Democracy isn't it? More about the rally in another post. 

Fast Back.....!

Our Brisbane City Council Libraries have displays set up with popular titles which are available for loan. But there is a catch if you do choose to borrow these books...instead of the customary month for a loan, these books must be back in 7 days. Too easy I thought, after all I'm retired, so on Saturday I borrowed a big bundle  of books for Christmas reading and one was a FastBack. By Tuesday evening it became obvious that I hadn't got much reading done...

Yesterday I went to a Knit and Natter in the morning and then out to lunch with DH and some friends...no time to read. So late in the afternoon into the evening I was busy reading, reading,reading!!! 

This morning DH and I were out yet again...so no reading! 

But I was back reading this afternoon...and I'm almost at the end of the book...I'll be able to return the book to the library tomorrow, one day early. Phew...lol

So soon I'll be able to go back to some stitching, some tidying, some more decorating for Christmas, wrapping gifts and some folding/hanging up of clean laundry which is sitting in full baskets at the moment. 

In other words 'normal transmission' will resume! Lol

Peter James was an author recommended to me and this series features DS Roy Grace and this is the first one I've read...it was 'edge of seat' stuff but I did pick the 'bad guy'! I will certainly look for more of this series in the library...but maybe not a Fast Back :-)

All this talk of Naughty vs Nice...it's all subjective surely?

When I get together with friends who stitch, do patchwork etc we often describe how we keep buying fabric even though we don't necessarily need it...but we want it! And we joke that we've been naughty and bought new fabric/kits/ expensive threads etc. 

Remember a few months ago I was 'naughty' and instead of just buying a few fat quarters from Jodie Carleton's fabric range, Backyard Circus, I bought a bundle of fat quarters of the whole range...very indulgent...but I loved the brightly coloured, quite whimsical range of fabrics?

Such fun fabrics...I've fussy cut elephants to make I Spy hexie flowers and plan to cut some squares to have a 'play' as well.

Now Jodie had a stand in the 2015 Houston Quilt Show, and at that show she released her new fabric range...2 ranges in one year no less!!! For quite a few months she had 'teased' readers of her blog, Vintage RicRac and followers of her Instagram account, with photos of items made with this new range. She said that the range wouldn't be released in Australia until early 2016. 

But no...Jodie and the rest of us got a big surprise because the range, Cat's Pyjamas, was released last month. And I was 'naughty' again. Yep! Bought the bundle again! :-)

I love these cat faces!

This latest bundle didn't include the doll panel...so I'm thinking about that!

There's something about that little kitty dressing gown! Lol.

So there you have it...fabric buying naughtiness personified! :-)

And I have!!!!

Possibly the most useful Christmas gift I've ever received...

I'm short...there's no denying it! I can dress it up with phrases like 'vertically challenged' and 'good things come in small packages' but when it comes down to it, I'm still short. And I'm fine with that. 

When we were in London last year, I stood outside Ripley's, beside a statue of reportedly the world's tallest man...boy did I feel tiny! Lol

But these next photos are with real people in my life...yep! I'm still shorter than them.

Photos show, former student, family and lastly work colleagues...

The only real problem I have with being short is that all my life I've stretched and strained, stood on tippy-toe to reach things on shelves etc. in my classroom I even had a little stool that I used to stand on to reach the top of the blackboard/whiteboard. And as the years went by it was obvious that I needed something similar at home as the cupboards in the kitchen went right to the ceiling...I couldn't even see what was stored on those high shelves! Lol

One year I walked out to the kitchen on Christmas Eve and there was a gift for me from my 3 stepdaughters...it had a big red ribbon tied to it...

And it was a small ladder...

It gets used every day...

All those high shelves...in the kitchen...

In the sewing room...

And every other room if truth be told! 

My little stepladder has meant I can be independant when I need something from the higher shelves. It's also used in the garden...and when I wash my car. And even though he's pretty tall DH uses my ladder too! 

Just the other afternoon he used the ladder while he put up the coloured festoon lights on the side verandah. 

I'll finish with some memes about being short...

And now you know why I think the girls gave me one of the best presents ever :-)

The Christmas Tree...

Apparently Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert, introduced the concept of the Christmas tree to the UK during his wife's reign and from there it possibly reached to all corners of the old British Commonwealth.  The tree had been a tradition in his German homeland for many years. As a child I always wanted a Christmas tree but I had to grow up and go to work before I achieved that dream. I've had a few trees since then, admittedly all artificial. But the tree is such a symbol of Christmas isn't it? 

Earlier in the month I went to some craft markets at a local Baptist Church, and sure enough there were some trees just inside the front door...

And yesterday I took a photo of the Christmas tree in one of the churches in our parish...

During Advent parishioners are bringing in donations of non perishable food and these are put under the tree. There are cardboard baubles which are placed on the tree when people donate cash too. The stuffed animal toys are leftover from the Nativity service for the Mainly Music children last week.

Now that brings me to my place and my tree. DH set the tree up last week but it stood undecorated...very sad! Lol. 

Then DD1 and her boyfriend came to lunch yesterday and after lunch the two of them helped me get the Christmas 'stuff' out of the various cupboards where they are stored...

And once they got all the boxes down from the high cupboards, it took the two of them about 20 minutes to get that tree decorated...

All done! And I think they had fun doing it too...always a bonus! 

An old photo...or three actually.

Once again this year, I'm posting a photo per day on Facebook under the heading of 25 Days of Christmas ie Dec 1-25. Photos cover a wide range of items/events including some old photos of Christmases past...like this one from 1975.

As the caption says...two mothers opening gifts on Christmas Day; my mother on the left and my mother in law on the right. The setting is the teeny tiny lounge room of the little two bedroom house that my first husband and I bought in December 1971. (We paid $9600 for that house!...haven't prices changed? Lol) 

The colours have faded in the photo but the sofa the mums are sitting on was part of a lounge suite we had bought on hire purchase in 1974 to replace our first lounge which was an old secondhand 'converter lounge/sofa bed we had bought for a few dollars before we moved in in January 1972. Our new lounge was peacock blue and black vinyl; the 2 chairs were swivel based and we just thought the suite was the 'ants pants'! Lol. The crocheted rug draped over the back of the sofa had been a gift to me in 1970 or 71 from my future mother in law who had crocheted it from oddments/scraps of wool. 

We couldn't afford to replace the threadbare carpet square in the lounge room so we had bought a circular shag pile rug in peacock blue to sort of disguise the carpet's  bare patches, but it doesn't really show up in the photo because the colours in the pic have faded over the years. 

In the photo in the left foreground you can see our 'evaporative cooler'...very trendy then and like a 'poor man's aircon. It worked by filling a tank with water and then the fans in the unit blew through this tank of water and this was supposed to blow out cool air...wasn't that great but again, we thought we were pretty 'flash' having one! Lol

Now I have no memory of what my mum had unwrapped that morning but we had given my mother in law a blender...you might think that wasn't much of a gift, but Elsie loved it. She and my mother had been army cooks in the war, but unlike my mum, Elsie loved to cook. She was staying with us for the 6 weeks of my school holidays and I can remember she cooked just about everything that was in the little recipe booklet that came in the blender's packaging! 

So there you are, some memories of Christmas 1975 BC...Before Children ! :-)

Now earlier in this post I wrote about an old sofa bed lounge that my first husband and I had when we were first married. I realised I had a photo of that old lounge...well 2 photos actually...these were taken a lifetime ago...well so it seems! Lol

(The crocheted rug on this old sofa was made by me; my mother in law had taught me to crochet when I was her son's fiancé)