Moving House

I've been away from blogland for a little while...

I would like to say life is cruising along very nicely at the moment. That things are chugging at a walking pace and lots of interesting things are happening. 

What is actually happening is that life is currently the 8am express to Flinders Street Station. Jam packed and hurtling down the tracks with occasional jerky stops, and while you have a million things on your mind about the destination ahead, all you want is a comfy seat and cup of coffee!

We have just about finished our house move.

My little house near-ish the beach and lake is now empty.

This morning we said goodbye to the Eternally Fruiting Lemon Tree.



And picked as many of the ripe ones that were left.

I've managed to cram an entire house full of crap into another slightly bigger house which already is full of stuff.
At least Sonofagun No.1 has settled in to his new cave...

Please excuse the mess....

The result is like one of those hoarder houses on BBC documentaries about people who crawl through tunnels of newspapers to the toaster in a space that was the laundry but is currently a makeshift kitchen because the kitchen has 37 years worth of TV guides, 15 slowcookers still in their boxes, a large undefined blob which may have been your childhood chewing gum collection or earwax, all of which hides the corpse of a long lost family pet who everyone thought ran away in the mid 1990s.

But everyday we pack more boxes and reclaim living space to make this place liveable for our blended family.

My lovely man The Bear was already living here so I was able to plant sweet peas in April which are coming along nicely.

Our fluffy black moggy Bijoux has been confined indoors until she becomes more comfortable, but spends most of her time hiding in the Sonofaguns bedroom.

My gorgeous Bear bought this place about 2 years ago. He's been using it as a home base but has mostly been at my place or on the road. So it is pretty much a blank canvas.

I'm very much looking forward to landscaping, and decorating and making it our home.

I was super excited to find this little patch of violets in the 'garden' (I use that term loosely). Bear has been instructed not to dig it up!

And my potted daphne has flower buds. A few little things that make me happy and content in our new home.

I took cuttings of a dark pinky purple ivy geranium and from the fig tree in the old backyard. And my lovely neighbor Nana Bev gave me some cuttings from her begonia.  I've popped them in jars of water to strike.

Nanas wall unit has become buried in all my nic-nacks until I can curate the collection properly and find special places for everything. I haven't got anywhere to unpack my yarn yet!

And look what we've got!  This beauty is warming our whole house this winter!

I've had hardly any time for crochet design but have been chugging along with a few WIPs.
Something that has snuck up on me is the need for reading glasses.

I didn't realise I needed them until the Bear got a pair. I tried them on for fun but was amazed that suddenly I could see properly! So off to the optometrist went I.

I had to wait a week for my prescription glasses so in the meantime I bought a cheap pair of magnifying glasses from the supermarket and crocheted a little bag for them.

Then I got my 'real' ones. What do you think?

You can tell it's winter here! Chunky scarf time...

I've been slowly working on my Shells on the half Shell blanket by Teresa Kasner. So easy to zip through the rows.

One morning on the train, I started making a little flower which I found on the Little Woollie blog. Julie is a super clever designer.

I then crocheted some leaves, stitched them onto a boring grey knit vest, embroidered a chain stitch and voila!  I'm just going to crochet a couple of little flower buds to finish it off.

As I mentioned in my last post, as well as moving, I'm planning a super exciting trip in September with my godfather Gary (aka Gazza because in Australia everyone's names are altered to end in 'ZA' or 'O'. EG John = Jonno, Barry = Bazza).

My cousin and his partner of nearly 30 years are getting married. And we are super thrilled for them!

The plane tickets are already taken care of and finally after weeks of unsuccessful searching on airbnb, we've booked accommodation for the first part of our trip. And even though we have to go to this one specific city for my cousins wedding, we are trying to plan sightseeing as well. We also decided to visit another big city thats only a short trip away. 

Many people would have a long list of big touristy places they want to see when they travel. 
For the first city my bucket list is simple:

1. See a real live squirrel. We don't have squirrels in Oz! I've always been fascinated by squirrels and chipmunks.

2. Find a copy of Desolation Boulevard on vinyl by The Sweet. This is available here, but in the place where I'm going, there's something extra special about their releases of this album. Do you know what that might be? It will give you a big hint of my destination!

I'm not really the type of tourist who wants to go to all the tourist sites and see all of the tourist things.  I kind of like to go and dwell and soak up atmosphere. 

I'm also quite lazy and am not overly excited about hiking up mountains or walking to the far side of town to party all night at the hottest discotech, snorting blow off Bob Segers' ass with Stevie Nicks. Maybe if I was 20 years younger...

We will still go and see the amazing big things because how dumb would it be to go somewhere like London and not see Buckingham Palace? Or visit Egypt and not see the pyramids?

The 2nd city has a much longer list of special buildings and monuments which we want to see! Perhaps because Gazza and I are politic-geeks. And this city has some rather impressive museum type places that push our nerdy buttons.

So that's what I've been up to. Thanks for visiting!

xox

Louise

The Red Haired Amazona