Another Snowy Mountain

Actually this is the same mountain range, but a diferent picture. I think Peter and I need to visit the mountains in the next couple of weeks.

Happy Birthday Nicola's Daisies

One whole year of blogging complete.

Baking and Cold Winter Days

Not sure why, but for some reason I need to bake when it is cold outside. Today it was chocolate cake and inside out carrot cake (carrot cake biscuits sandwiched with cream cheese frosting).

As usual I stuck my finger on the chocolate cake to see if it was ready and it wasn't. All my chocolate cakes have at least one finger dent in the top.

Susan Hill

My very good friend Keriann has given me a copy of her favourite book to read, the Magic Apple Tree. I have seen this book mentioned on a number of blog sites I read. Last night on a freezing cold winters evening tucked up in bed I started to read it, perfect. The first section of the book is about Winter in an English counrty village. As I grew up in a country village it filled me with homesickness. Not for the reality of living through winter in the Scottish Borders, but for that romantic view of winter. That silence you find when you wake up on a snowy morning. The crunch of new dry snow under your feet. And last but not least, sitting quilting in front of the fire listening to a spooky christmas story on Radio 4 while it is snowing heavily outside. Would I swap living in sunny Hawkes Bay for living through winter in the UK. No chance. But it would be nice to have one snowy day each year.

Getting back to the Magic Apple Tree. I looked up the author today and found her blog, then wasted a few lovely hours linking through to some really interesting other blogs and found a few books I would like to read.

Sorry about the blurry winter snap taken from my bedroom window in our old house in the Scottish Borders. It was the only one I could find on my lap top.

Midwinter

Some red berries to celebrate mid winters day.

Wintery Morning

Wintery morning view over Hastings, taken while I was out on my mornings walk. Yesterday's taste of spring is gone and winter is back.

Today's Daisy

Today's daisy is an anniversary card that one of my friends sent to me, thanks Pam. Peter and I have been married for a whole two years today.

Spring

The sun was shining again today, the birds were singing and for a short time gentle breezes were blowing. Spring is just around the corner. Ok, two months around the corner. But I can dream.

This Week's Bargain

Desk number two, cost $6.50. Or should I say desk number three. Desk number 1 was grabbed by my eldest. I bought this one to use the top for last week's desk, but after getting it home I think I prefer this one. I love the feet. Watch this space.

Today's Daisy

A sunny Napier daisy to celebrate having passed the shortest day, nights will start to get longer from now on and the sun has started to move back to the southern hemisphere.

Some Pebbles and Rocks

Some rocks and pebbles at Perfume Point. I loved the rock with the holes in it. Looks a bit neolithic to me.

Perfume Point

The view from Perfume Point, Napier. I have heard two reasons for why Perfume Point is called Perfume Point.

The first is, the Napier sewage outlet entered the sea there. Resulting in a lovely smell.

The second dates back from when Napier was a whaling city. The whales were landed at the port and stripped down for their constituants. One of which was an ingrediant of perfume. And again the smell was really pleasent, not.

Please leave a comment if you know which is the real version.

Some Sea Birds

Some seabirds at Perfume Point, Napier.

Some more Sea Birds

Some seabirds sitting on wooden pilings. Peter stayed in the car and laughed that they would fly away before I got the pic. He was so right.

And it was soooo cold. Well cold for Hawkes Bay.

Container Cottage

Found this on Container Cottage on Trade Me (kiwi version of EBay ). Need a house and don't want to have a mortgage. All you need is a tiny section. I can guess what the neighbours would say in Havelock. Or if your kids won't leave home you could drop them a hint by getting them one for christmas.

Container Cottage
Location: City CentreNapier CityHawkes Bay
Rooms: 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom
Property type: Unit
Price: Asking price $46,000

Brand new built 20 ft container that has not been accupied with one bedroom, shower, kitchen, it requires an outside porter loo because of size and pleasantries, has external lights for this reason at the back by the gas bottle mount.Gas calufont hot water, new engineered stone bench top,new gas cooking hob, new fridge and outside banit for barbeque.new Solar, wind, or can be powered by a 230 generator, 12 volt system with ceiling lights/fans that circulate air into ceiling space to vents to outside for collecting roof condensation.Full battened and isulated walls and ceilings, full steel doors which inables it to be left in isolation accompanied with its internal electrical dumping system that activates when power is not been consumed from the sealed battery bank, it dumps to drive a heater and fan stopping any mildew problems. this unit can be helicopter air lifted into isolation, trucked, or shipped.

I love the idea of the heater and fan coming on to deal with mildew.

Today's Disaster

I think this picture gives you an idea of what today's disaster is. Yes you are correct the dishwasher has given up, the door seal came loose and it was leaking a little. After an unsuccessful attempt to stick the seal back down Peter in his wisdom decided just to cut the offending part off. Surprisingly the dishwasher now leaks a lot, the water pours out of the door handle and a few other places. We have had to revert to hand washing until we can fix the door seal.

Today's Daisy

Today's daisies are on a top I wore to go out last weekend. The firm I work for had a mid-winter celebration. We started at The Filter Room for tasting and cheese platters. The food was great and I enjoyed the Cider with ginger the most. Then on to Ormlie Lodge for the main course and a tour of the hotel (one of my collegues used to work there so he showed us around). To reach our final destination we were picked up by a strech hummer, an interesing experience. I am not going to say much about the final destination the Speights Ale House, it is not getting a link. I was meant to have mud pie, instead I got a large plate of beer ice cream, which was very nice but not mud pie.
Basically the whole evening was just a posh pub crawl and very enjoyable.

Free Spirit

Found this really cool quilt web site today, Free Spirit . With some amazing free quilt patterns and some brill fabrics.

Pumpkin Curry

Remember Pumpkin Watch. The largest of the pumkins has been stored in the garage since April. I decided to start using it today in a chicken curry. Did not manage to get a snap of the finished curry as it was gobbled up far to fast. And there is still tons of pumpkin to go. I think it might just last out the rest of the winter.

Frosty Pansy

No Picture

This morning the view over to the ranges was stunning. The snow caps were glistening pink in the dawn light. The mist(actually smog) covered Hastings in a lovely fluffy quilt. And to cap it all there where hot air ballons floating in front of the pink snowy peaks. Wow I thought the perfect snap. Reached for my camera and attempted to capture it all. But I had left my data card in my computer at home and the camera could not take the pic. By the time I got home, grabbed the card and headed back it had all gone. You will just have to take my word for how good it looked. Typical.

Snowy Mountains

After a what felt like weeks and weeks of rain (one week in reality), the clouds have cleared, the sun has come out and the mountains surrounding Hawkes Bay have snow on them again. Winter is here at last.

Yea, I have found the titles again.

Lost my titles about 10 months ago. At last I have found them again. Hooray! You would think as a computer professional I would have figured it out earlier! Hmmm now to go back and add them to all my old posts. Perhaps not.

Sewing room #3

The current version of my sewing room. After being kicked out of my original room by my youngest wanting to swap.

I have taken over the spare room. It really needs a new paint job that has got to be one of the yukkiest greens I have seen in ages.

Looks quite good from the first angle. Not quite so good from this angle.

Wet rose and wet leaves.

I know you have seen these trees before, but they looked so cool against the wet sky.

This weekend's bargins. Quilters Cabin is having a half price closing down sale. Here are some of the bargins I came home with.

Another of last weekend's bargins. I bought this for a whole $5 from Trade Me. Unfortunatly the top turned out to be formica (yuk). Now all it needs a new top (maybe I could buy another desk with a nice top and rubbish legs), a good clean up, perhaps a paint job and some new handles. Then it is destined to be a new sewing and cutting table for me.

Wish you could have heard the song this Thrush was singing.

For the first time for what seems like a very long time we have had some rain. In the last 24 hours more rain has fallen than has fallen here in Februrary, March, April and May put together. Had to take some pics of the sea, it was so grey and wild not like the usual view of the Pacific off Napier.

Another quilter's weekend project. All done in green batiks, really stunning. Did not get a chance to take photos of the other projects. They were all brill. I got some really good ideas and I am looking forward to the next quilting weekend in September.

The project I was working on at the weekend. I think the colours look good. I wanted a light coloured summery quilt and I think I have achieved this or will have once I finish it. I only managed to get a couple of these blocks done, spent to much time talking and looking at other peoples quilts. Another UFO to add to the pile.

Found some cool bargins this weekend. This is the first one. I bought a large quantity of this fabric for only $10, at the quilting class I attended this weekend.

Will post some pics of my other bargin in the next couple of days.

My new toy, no it is not a sewing machine, it is a sewing computer according to the manual (perhaps I should read that some time). It does amazing things like thread needles, fill a bobbin without the reel flying off and has loads of cool stiches. I should be able to get the label for Katherine's quilt done now. Just need to sort out my sewing room (Mum's bedroom last week) and do up my new bargin to put my sewing computer on. More about my bargain at a later date.

Trees from the bottom of the garden.

As promised another pic of some friends at Port O' Call. This was my first ever visit last year. It was a freezing cold winters day.

You know there must be 100's of photos of groups of women having tea at Port O' Call. Can you imagine a group of guys down the pub taking pics of their friends. I don't think so.

We had a brilliant day trailing around the shops at Ahuriri and a visit to the Art Deco Rothmans Building.





How's this for a front door.

As my treat for being left behind when Peter went on his travels, I am going to spend the whole weekend quitling. My local group is having a workshop weekend.

You can do a Boston Common quilt, a Jacobs Ladder quilt or just finish off some UFOs (Un Finished Objects for the non-quilter). Before coming to NZ I had no UFOs, I now have a ton of them. Which I will complete this winter (Yeh right).

I am going to do a Jacob's Ladder quilt as seen in the pic below, which will add yet another UFO to the list. I will also get a chance to play with my new toy (more about that later). I am going to use daisy fabrics from my stash and just a plain calico as the background. Will post some pics of the end result next week.

Mum left to go home today, at the end of her month long visit. We are really going to miss her and are looking forward to her next visit. Here are some of the highlights.
There are no pictures of her arriving as we were about 10 mins late picking her up, oopps.

Tea and tinnies at
Port O' Call.

Paddling in the Pacific.

The little car Mum has been driving around Hawkes Bay in.













At the airport waiting for her flight home.

The last wave before she boarded the plane for Auckland.

Her plane taking off.