Autumn is a blast!

We have a new addition to our menagerie. Meet Baxter.

He's such a cutie! Baxter is my Auntie Horse Whisperers furbaby, but has come to live with us for a while. 

Baxter loves cuddles. Baxter doesn't love thunderstorms. This is a classic unhappy Baxter during a thunderstorm. He was shaking like a leaf!

Baxter and 8Track play jokes on each other. 8Track jumps out of doorways to jumpscare Baxter.

And Baxter jumps out of doorways to jumpscare 8Track. Nutbags!

8Track was driving us all a little batty as Sonofagun No.1 was away for 3 weeks on his 3rd trip to Japan.

 I made the mistake of leaving one of my foam blocking boards out.... Yes, there is pin holes in it, but scratches are something else entirely!

Fortunately Sonofagun No.1 came home safe and sound with his usual interesting collection of souvenirs. 

A bottle of coke for the Bear (who likes coca cola bottles from overseas).  I used Google translate to read the label. Apparently it's classified as a health drink?

And a soft leather plague doctor mask....

which he claims to have bought in a sex toy shop in Akihabara.  As you do...

We've had a busy February/ March, transitioning from Biderap to Iuk Season.

A few weeks ago we made a last minute decision to buy tickets to a concert at Kryall Castle near Ballarat called Maximum 80s.

There were a bunch of Aussie acts from the 80s. Alot of them were the remaining singer of this band, and the only surviving guitarist of another band.

Below were 2 of the Chantoozies Ally Fowler and Eve von Bibra. I wasn't a Chantoozies fan 'back in the day', but these girls were great! They sang about 4 or 5 of their hits including Wanna be up.

We took along a couple of chairs, an esky with crackers, sticks of carrots, dips and a few sneaky hidden Canadian Clubs. It was about 30ish celcius and a bushfire about 60kms away meant we were inhaling about 2 packs of Camels, but up under the grandstand we had a steady breeze.

The concert went from around 1pm until 8ish. A perfect crocheting afternoon.

I'm still plodding along steadily on Attic 24s Sungold blanket. I'm making the 'Harmony' version.  

This was a massive highlight for me. Ross Wilson from Daddy Cool, then later Mondo Rock.  Although for 'Maximum 80s', the brief is clearly.... 80s hits, he started with one of his classic 1970s Daddy Cool songs 'Daddy Cool'. Sang a few of Mondo Rocks' 80s hits such as 'Come said the boy' and 'State of the Heart', but then finished with my absolute favourite 'Eagle Rock'.  I don't know about the rest of the world, but in Australia this song is one of our most iconic tunes. I bloody love it!  I have a dim, distant memory of dancing around with one of my aunties to this when I was so small. Possibly still in nappies.

I wasn't really a 'boy band fan' type person, but clearly all these women were big fans of Scott Carne from Kids in The Kitchen.

It's amazing how crochet is so easy to take and do almost anywhere? You can even use balls of yarn to sort of screen your illicitly snuck in drink from remotely passing and mostly disinterested security.

The Easter weekend usually is the last hurrah of nice weather before Autumn starts to kick in. In Melbourne the original inhabitants, the indigenous Australians of the Kulin nation called this time of year from April to June Waring (or Wombat) season.

The Japanese Wind Flowers wave and nod in the breeze.

We took advantage of a long weekend to jizzy up parts of the house. The manky brown carpet in the study/ guest room/ yarn room, in Sonofagun No.2s room and the back living area was old and revolting.

Similar to a skanky 80s nightclub. 

Bunnings had these floating floorboards on special. Hybrid something something. Therefore waterproof. Which any household with teenagers and lots of pets needs!  The Bear installed them and they look a million bucks.

We decided to swap the guest room/ yarn room/ study with Sonofagun No.2s room as he needed the aircon in there. Teenagers. They smell. Doors are always closed. Stuffy. Blech.

It was the perfect excuse to go through every single craft thingo, technological gadgety bit and piece of stationery I have accumulated and hoarded for the past 6ish years.

I found eleventy billion erasers, 16 thousand highlighters, a million thousand textas and crayons and 5 calculators. I sorted out, chucked away, recycled and gave away. I found 12 usb sticks!?!

I am an unashamed stationery hoarder. I normally can't throw that stuff away. It feels too wasteful. And do you know one of my biggest bugbears? 

SCHOOLS!! They try and make parents buy these 'book packs' every single freaking year with another bloody packet of textas, coloured pencils, highlighters up the WAZOO!

At the end of every single school year (when I had ordered one of those boxes of bullsh*t), my Sonofaguns always come home with a stack of writing books they never used, unopened packets of textas and pencils, and all the extra glue sticks, pencil sharpeners, etc get added to the already bulging drawers of leftovers!

You know what I mean! Every 2nd year, I decide not to order these book packs. But now many school tie up their fees with the packs, so it's difficult to pay without them. Seriously the book pack things don't cost much but they are so wasteful. It's annoying I've only ever lived in zones of schools who do these bookpacks.  Rant over!

So I sorted through all the stationery. I also found a fairly inexpensive desk on Kogan which blissfully can be raised (through the power of magic buttons!) as a standing desk.

So after all the yarn was organised, the stationery sorted, the stand up desk installed all with nice fresh floors, all was right with my world!

And one last bit of excitement.

Eurovision season is almost here. I'm a member of OGAE Australia which is the Aussie branch of the official International Eurovision fan club. So I put my hand up as a member to spend a couple of hours at local Melbourne LGTBQI+ radio station Joy FM on Easter Monday as they did a count down of Australia's top 100 favourite Eurovision songs as a guest host as they counted down Australias' favourite Eurovision songs from #100 to #75 with fellow OGAE member Ethan and DJs Michael, Io and Bryan. I was trying really hard not to interrupt anyone or dominate the mic, so friends and family said I seemed a lot more reserved than my usual chatterbox self. 

If you're so inclined, the whole thing is available to listen to as a podcast on the Joy FM website in 1 hour bursts!  I had a blast! Hopefully they let me come back next year!

It was a fun way to get in the zone for Eurovision in Malmo, Sweden in just 4 short weeks from now! 

Crikey! I better get packing!

Louise

 🍂Red Haired Amazona🍂