I'm still doing my photos but I always forget to post them. So to the week that was whenever it was.

This is a little bottlebrush that grows in our front yard. Its a pretty little thing. The flowers just curl out of the buds over a day or two.

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Lol. This is something that I think Kimba made for me about 12 years ago. I sent them to pottery classes over one lot of school holidays and now I have all these strange pottery creations about the house. This one sits in the kitchen. Always gives me a smile.

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One day I woke up, turned my calender and found this. It really wasn't enough information to know what I was meant to be doing. I can't remember what it turned out to be.

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Bacon is always good.

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Betty having a nanna nap

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The cook at the old peoples home I volunteer at makes the most beautiful cakes. She has two lucky sons. I think Lloyd would have liked to have grown up in that kitchen.

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And this was yummo. It was a strawberry/kiwi fruit salsa that we had with salmon fillets.

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If you could only drink one beverage for the rest of your life (not including water), which one would you choose?

Well thats easy.

Wine. White. Sem/Sav/Blanc preferably. Wolf Blass is good. With ice.  Although if Jem and I are out we go with the Pinot.

And in fact wine already is just about the one beverage I drink besides water. I have one coffee in the morning. Water through the day, then wine at night. I'm thinking of giving up the coffee though. I don't really enjoy it, I think I just have it out of habit.

I haven't had any wine since last Friday though. Because on Saturday I read that drinking a glass of wine is equivalent to eating a slice of bread. So I figure I ate about a loaf of bread on Friday night. I wish I could go back and never have read that. Because I find it disturbing. I don't even like bread. But I think I've just about put it far enough to the back of my mind that I'll be able to ignore it tonight.

And I wish they'd all stop harping on about how alcohol gives you breast cancer and mouth cancer and dementia and cellulite and wrinkles, because it ruins the whole drinking experience for me. Not enough to stop mind you.

I'm always surprised when people say they don't drink. Its all my parents fault I think. I seem to recall they were drinkers when I was growing up. Now they have drinks at lunch and before dinner. And my father has a wine fridge in his bathroom. He says you never know when you might get caught out.

One of Lloyds friends dropped around the other night and they shared a bottle of wine. Thats another thing. How they say on the label there are 7.bla glasses of wine in a bottle! They are obviously not using my wine glass.

Anyway Lloyd and Lauren were going to a fancy dress party and the theme was red. Laurens was in black with red red lipstick.

I did feel a little stalkerish taking photos of Laurens glass after she was gone. I was still finding lipstick on it a week later.

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I have decided not to delve any further into the tinnitus situation for now. Even though it really can make some days bloody awful.

Main reason being that I'm fed up, and not in the mood, to get on that expensive, time wasting road of tests and specialists that seems to lead nowhere.

It all started a couple of years ago when I found a small lump in my breast one day. I went to the doctor, which lead to a mammogram, that lead to an ultrasound, that lead to them telling me it was just a cyst.

Then, my doctor decided that since I was over 40, I should have a full set of blood tests done. The one that they use to test for ovarian cancer came back at a high level. This led to a trip to the ultrasound place for an internal unltrasound, which is possible one of the most embarrassing yet humourous things I have ever had to go through. This led to a trip to the hospital for a laproscopy. This all led to nothing. Turns out there was no problem, some women just have elevated levels of whatever it is.

And then there was the Weird Undiagnosed Throat Thing. That remains undiagnosed. It started with a trip to the doctor, that led to an ultrasound, then on to the ENT guy who stuck a camera up my nose and down my throat, and finished with a barium swallow. All of this led to nowhere. Apparently I'm just making it up in my mind.

So. The tinnitus. I have been for a hearing test and I have some slight hearing loss so far. I was given a referral to another ENT doctor, but at the moment I just can't be bothered driving for an hour and a half, to sit in his waiting room for another hour and a half, then pay him a small fortune for him to tell me there's no cure anyway. I said to my doctor, well what will he tell me anyway that you haven't. And he said - he'll advise you.

Thats one problem with small town life. You have to drive to the big smoke to see any sort of specialist.

Maybe I'll look into it next year.

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Will you be giving out candy to trick or treaters this year? If so, what goodies can the ghosts and goblins expect to bring home?

LOL - This is Australia man

if any little bastard comes to my door looking for tricks or treats I shall say to them

WTF - This isn't America baby, we don't do that shit here

all I'll be able to offer them is a Sao with vegemite on it

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There's a chill in the air. Show us your favorite coat.
Submitted by jacolily.

Well I only have one coat. And its definitely my favourite.

I love it.

But where I live, I rarely get a chance to wear it. Only on the coldest darkest days of winter do I get to wear it. Here you rarely need more than a t shirt and a cardigan.  So I wear it every cahnce I get. And I just realised that I've been wearing it for years. I used to wear it on friday nights to football when Lloyd played in the under 14's, and I wore it this year when he played in the reserve grade, aged 19. I must say I was the best dressed mother at the football.

I wear it when we go to the pub, or when we go for an early morning walk, or to a school assembly and  I've run hom from the club in the pouring rain in it.

And I don't think I've ever washed it.

So here is my favourite (and only) coat, with me in it, with one of my favourite young ladies, a friend of Lizzies .

 

Favourite-coat

 

 

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And what a day it was.

A friend of mine has a mulberry tree.

Daz went and picked mulberries because I said I'd make him a pie.

I googled a recipe and set to work. I even made my own pastry. It seemed pretty simple. Mix your berries, sugar and flour together and toss them in the pastry, whack a lid on top and cook it.

And when it came out of the oven, it looked magnificent.

Looks-good

So I thought, (luckily),  that I'd cut a piece out and take a photo of it looking warm and delicious. But it didn't look warm and delicious at all. It looked dry and more like a spotted dick.  I guess the berries didn't have enough juice in them, because it hadn't come out and mixed about with the sugar and flour. Everything was still sitting in its place. A bunch of berries amongst big lumps of flour and clumps of sugar.

So. I cut the top off the pie, scooped out the filling, put it in a saucepan and cooked it up with some alcohol I found in the pantry. Kirsh I think. Anyway it was looking good then and I spooned it back into the case. But when I tried to put the lid back on I could see it was never going to work.

So, I decided to turn it into a pastry crumble top.

Fixed-up

Nice save me.

And in the end it turned out well. And it was warm and delicious.

Still-lookin'-good

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I'm not sure why my fly spray needs an energy ball. I guess it must be exhausting tracking down those bugs.

Energy-ball

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So, here are some new tiles I made using Papa's slides.

Not sure if I've posted this one before but I'll post it again anyway because it's one of my favourites.

Golden Gate Bridge 1957

Golden-gate-bridge

Chief Yellow Horse. Now I think this is along Route 66, but not sure exactly where. I did know, but I've forgotten. I did a bit of research but I think this has gone and there is a new building in its place. This is one of my favourites as well. It must have been 1957 as well. Because I'm sure they only went to America once. Although that car looks more '65.

Chief-yellow-horse-best-I-think

This one was taken in Avoca, Ireland, in 1965

Astor-garage

And this was 1965 as well. Cairo.

Cairo-venders

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You've gotta love Centrelink.

No, really. Once you get past all the anger and frustration.

For those of you not in Australia, Centrelink is a government run agency that hands out money to the unemployed, single mothers, struggling university students, that sort of thing.

That is if you pass all the eligibilty tests. And can provide every pay slip and receipt and in general any piece of paper you've ever received since you turned 16. And if you have a few days to trudge though the endless paperwork.

But I thought they might throw some money my way for Lizzie and Lloyd for education expenses.

So I logged on and the first thing I noticed was a message telling me that from now on I was going to be able to handle all my secret questions and answers. Which I thought was big of them. Considering they are my secret questions.

You always have to be careful with those secret questions. You can't make them so secret that you can't remember the answer. Because I did that once.

So I start the application and one of the first things they want to know is how long I've been in a relationship with my partner. And they want day/month/year.

What can I say. Um, well it was sometime late in 1984. It wasn't too long after a toga party we went to with another friend and my then boyfriend. He got totally trashed and the last we saw of him he was running off down the street into the darkness in his underwear.

So probably a Saturday. I had to guess that one. I wonder if they check it against a previous application I've done.

Then I click on the - how many dependents do you have - arrow, and it goes as far as 29. It went further but I didn't want to know how far it went. I had visions of the old woman who lived in a shoe trying to claim child support.

And my favourite part. Where you had to pick your title. I must say I felt very ordinary picking Mrs when these were some of the options I had.

Most Revered
Able Seaman
Air Chief Marshall
Swami
Baroness
Bombardier
Countess
Dame
Madam
Air Commodore

Thats as far as I got yesterday. I haven't even reached the serious parts yet. Where I have to disclose every tiny detail of my life and beg for the money.

At the moment I don't even know if I can be bothered.

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I'm sorry if this becomes addictive for you.

I'm only as good as a bobbing bobcat

so far - I'm going to have a coffee and see if it makes a difference

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sleep/sheep/reaction_version5.swf

how come the link thing never works here anymore

anyway theres lots of other interesting stuff over there at the bbc science page

check it out some time

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/

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