If you happen wander down Newport way...

If you happen wander down Newport way, you will notice a flurry of activity. Excitement is in the air. We're all madly putting the finishing touches on our various contributions to the Newport Folk Festival. We've rehearsed everything that is rehearsable, venues are tidied up, workshops are prepared, equipment is borrowed and tested. We've stocked up on berocca...
Now we can all breathe a deep breath, before we march off like troopers to put on the best festival ever!

P.S. Don't miss the Choirs Festival on Sunday.

Home Again, Home Again............

Ahh...... A day off. Time to take a breath.
Well I can't complain that life is ever dull. Last week's adventure was a trek to Sydney. I worked at the Quilt and Craft Convention, helping my sister, Nikki on her stall.
In the days leading up, it appeared that the planets were misaligned, and the forces that be just didn't want us to go. They even sent a volcanic ash cloud to stop us flying up there. What they didn't reckon on was our genetic pre-disposition to sheer bloody-mindedness and blind optimism.
We trained and bused it up there. Amongst our hiccups were lost credit cards, and all means of communication being cut off. Poor Nikki had to set up the whole thing by herself. Back in Melbourne I waded through queues at the airport, railway station and eventually bus depot, working through every possible way of getting to Sydney.
All's well that ends well, and end well it did. When you are selling a fabulous product, you don't have to work too hard at it. It was such a joy to be able to introduce Nicole Mallalieu Designs to a whole new audience. The stock sold like crazy, we had to courier more up, and call on the help of some fantastic Sydney girls, Cass and Peta.


They jumped straight in and worked like troopers.
By Friday, when I left them, the ash cloud had cleared, (phew). It was a nice smooth flight home.
The kids coped admirably well without me. The house is still standing, the pets are all alive...
And look what popped up while I was gone, brand new baby broad beans, awwwwwwww.

Sweet Bird Of Youth.

While a nice snappy modern novel is fabulous, revisiting the classics something I love to do. And what could be better than catching up with Tennessee Williams now and again.
Sweet Bird Of Youth is the tragic tale of Chance Wayne, a talented, good looking young man, with his eye on stardom. He finds work as a gigilo to aging starlets, hoping to kick start his own career. His taste for flamboyance and excess soon take their toll.
With his latest employer, the wealthy Princess Kosmonopolis, he secretly returns to St Cloud, his home town in the south. Here we uncover the scandal and heartbreak and that sent Chance on the path to self destruction.
Desperate to win back his youth and his first love, Heavenly Finley, he realises that it is all too late. Just like the aging princess, he is past his prime.
A short, sharp play that skewers so much, in just 111 pages.

Awwww........ baby turnips, delicious as they are cute.

My back yard is a turnip farm.

In the excitement of Autumn plantings, I put in two packets of turnip seeds, early purple and swedes. That resulted in about 600 seedlings in the two seed trays.

It surprized me to find that not everyone shares my enthusiasm for turnips. I managed to find homes for about seventeen of them.

Being of a frugal nature, I just couldn't throw them away. As there are so many of them, we have made an early start on eating them. Fabulous, roasted, in stir fries, mashed in with the potatoes......
These are the early purples, the swedes are not quite ready yet.

Blogging again.

It seems like forever since I last wrote on this blog. Struggling with a very slow and unco-operative computer has made it quite difficult.
The garden has undergone a complete make-over. The front yard is looking very bad-haircut at the moment, but will soon be a spectacular mass of flowers.

In the maddness of it all, I forgot to take photos. Fortunately, I have an old photo of another such venture. The wee girl in the background is now a leggy nineteen year old.

The back yard is now a turnip farm. Yes I planted two packets of seeds, and got about 600 seedlings! I managed to find homes for about 17 of them. Being of a frugal nature I had to plow up the back yard and plant them all. There are also broccoli, cabbage, boc-choy, and some left overs from other plantings, silverbeet, rhubarb, rocket, parsley. Even some of my hardy eggplants are hanging in there.

The pumkins are all gone now, when I pulled the last of them out, there were nineteen of these babies left. We've eaten our way through a lot, and given heaps away. We are down to the last three.
We've also eaten our way through several large buckets of artichokes, carrots, eggplants, tomatoes, capsicum, chilli............
So that's the end of the summer stuff, and its onward and upward to the winter fare.