NOVEMBER SCAVENGER PHOTO HUNT.

Linking up with Kate for the final hunt of the year.  Once again, I wondered with our words, then found way more than I needed.  The hardest this time was My Own Choice, as I just didn't know where to start looking.  Here we go.......

1.   BLUE.

The Neerim Bower at the entrance to Neerim South, a small town here in West Gippsland.  It represents the male Satin Bowerbirds' chamber/passage he builds from twigs & grass, to attract females & is usually adorned with many "blue" objects, including feathers, berries, glass & plastic.  They are a native bird of Australia & when we lived in Cambewarra, NSW, we actually had one built in our backyard for a season.  It was fascinating, watching him pinch my blue pegs & also bring lots of blue drinking straws from goodness knows where.

2.   ME.

Not much to say on this one.  I took it accidentally one day at the beach.

3.   STARTS WITH W..........

Weeping Willows in the park, where our Car Club rooms are located, this Spring, which I'm sure we haven't had with very cool temperatures into early November & now sweltering in 30+ degree heat for 14 days straight.  Definitely not normal.  Just realised that was 2 Ws.

4.   RAINBOW.

A Rainbow Lorikeet sipping nectar from Banksia flowers.  I know I've shown this before, but some will not have seen it & I'm trying to think outside the box.

5.   ARCH.

A rather lonesome ARCH, in the churchyard at Whitehaven, Cumbria, somewhere we stay when visiting my friend Jayne in the Lakes District.

6.   TOY.

The rocking horses, hubby made our 2 youngest granddaughters' many years ago.  Missy Moo & Little E turned 10 this October & are probably way to old now to use them.  We are very proud of his woodworking skills.

7.   SWIRL.

SWIRLS on the old fencing & lawn roller.  Taken last year at Chiddingstone Castle in Kent, which we didn't get to go into, as we were to early, but the gardens were open & lovely to stroll around.  Oh, & take lots of photos.

8.   BRUSH.

A pink BottleBRUSH (Callistemon) in flower a few weeks ago.

9.   NAIL.

A rusty, crooked NAIL, snapped on our walk at Lang Lang Beach, which I posted about HERE, a few weeks ago.  Hubby noticed it & quickly said "Nail", & I had to work out why he'd pointed it out, but then I remembered too & thought how lucky I was, as it was the day after Kate had posted our words.  I take my list everywhere & had been reading it in the car on our way.The photo above of BRUSH, was also taken on that walk.

10.  MY OWN CHOICE.

Anyone of my AGE group, may remember these hands used for giving signals on trucks, way back when....... No blinkers in them days!!!!!!  A few Sundays ago we visited the Historic Commercial Vehicle Show at Yarra Glen Racecourse & we were delighted with what was on display, although there were no Mercedes Benz 1418's which is what we had in the late 1970s.

My lot is done now.  I'm off to make some lunch & put the cooler on, as my fingers are starting to stick to the keys.  I'll be around again, proabably next Friday, as I will do the Xmas Hunt in weekly parts, due to a busy month coming up.
Take care all, have a great December & silly season.
Susan.

A QUICK CATCHUP!

I'm behind on everything due to an unbelievably busy few months, with more to come until the New Year. It's just been silly sort of stuff......car club bits (outings, a meal, tidy clubrooms ready for Xmas), gardening (weeding, watering due to severe heat, building structures, pruning, hedge cutting), mending cars (both), medical (due to ageing😖), but we are both OK & reasonably fit for our age.
Over the next few weeks we have child minding to do, carpet to be laid in lounge room..ugh, along with more car club things, Xmas card writing, and making ready the house for visitors from the UK.
Think I'll need a holiday come New Year.
Just a few odd photos from the last month, though I'll not say too much.  Extremely warm today & just at the moment it is 36.8° & the study hasn't an outlet from the cooler, so I'm quite hot & sticky.

The veg garden looking a bit droopy at about 2pm this afternoon and we had 3mm of rain last night.
Top pic has 3 tomatoes, a zucchini and 2 rows of bush beans.  The lower pic has a self-seeded wayward pumpkin, a row of carrots sown from seed and some silver beet, which we've already started harvesting.

I've done very little sewing recently, but have tried to grab a half hour now & then to work on a mystery quilt I decided to do.  I've caught up to the last installment & played with the 32 blocks on my design wall.  Poor Bubs hasn't been started since before we went to Canberra.  Oh dear!

 One day whilst out, we noticed the sign to Narracan Falls & decided to "finally" take a look.  We found these beautiful falls, that then went into another smaller lot.  We intend going again with a picnic, as it was lovely.

 A little walk the other side of the road, led to this, which we are sure was an old railway line, with the remains of a bridge in the foreground & a cutting in the distance.  It is on private property, so couldn't explore.

A lovely colourful sight on our travels one day, were these stacked silage bales.  Pretty!

A couple of odd photos to follow.

 Hawthorn blossom during Spring.

A cloud formation I just had to capture, so poor hubby pulled over when he could, and I snapped away.  It sort of reminded me of one those soft serve ice creams.
I'm not going to bore you much more, but we did go to 2 Motor Vehicle Shows over the last couple of weekends.  A quick peek at some of the Moggies on display at the Morris Minor Nationals held here in Melbourne, though I didn't get ours into any of my photos.  Silly me!!

This one is amazing and has featured in several magazines over the years.

Some of the sedans on display.  I found it very hard to take photos because of the positioning of the parking.  Ours was in the commercial section.  Anyway, it was a good day & being able to catch up with people from our past, especially friends we knew from our very first Morris Minor Club in Tasmania, which we joined in 1987.  Yes, we realised we've known them for 30 years.  Wow!
That's about all folks and I'll join in the Photo Scavenger Hunt next Friday after another hectic week.
Take care and hope everyone has a good weekend.
Susan.

LAGGING BEHIND.

Oh dear, I'm really needing to catch up on some posts, with days out, crafting & gardening.
Also, a big thank you for the last few comments on my Scavenger Hunt post.  So sorry not to have replied, but been both busy &  a few computer problems, which seem to be sorted now.
We'll start with a few days out and then some crafting & garden.

ORGAN PIPES NATIONAL PARK.
I was a little disappointed with this, though we did enjoy.  There was an information centre, but it was unmanned & the signage in places was very vague.  Anyway, it is situated the western side of Melbourne on highway to Bendigo, so made a nice day out.  Packed the all important picnic lunch & thermos and off we went.

    The tessellated pavement.  Not nearly as extensive as Malham Cove, but interesting all the same.

     Jackson's Creek which runs through the park & in which we could here both frogs & a platypus                                                                             splashing about.

                                  The "organ pipes" formation on the far side of above creek.

                 Two information boards telling of the flora and fauna to be found in the park.

LANG LANG BEACH.
We've visited this beach now twice in the last few weeks, as I need a dose of sea air every now & then.  I found this by accident one day as we looked at our local area map.  I'd never heard of it, although we drive through the small town of Lang Lang quite often when out.  The beach is actually the other side of the main highway running to both Phillip Island and the area of South Gippsland.
It is a small narrow stretch of sand along the eastern shore of Western Port Bay, & down a side road leading to farms & a holiday park.  It is so lovely and quiet, well, at the moment.  High summer may see it busier.

Looking to the right from the car park.  We then proceeded to walk in the other direction, up through the caravan park & onto the track at the top of the cliffs to Jam Jerrup Point.  On the way back, I took some photos. (actually lots!!).

                                            Looking out over the bay towards French Island.

                                                                   Interesting sign.

You can now see why the sign is there, as that is the cliff face that is exposed to the weather &                                                                                 crumbling away.

                                                   Farmland on the other side of the track.
Now we travel back along the beach to the carpark.

                           The narrow strip of sand, as we approached the beach once again.

Walking along the beach you can see some of the holiday shacks, above the sand, stones & retaining walls.

              This was like a still life, with its rusty ephemera sitting outside in the weather.
                                                                           Loved it!!

                                                           Nearly back at the car park.

 I spotted these along the topside of the beach and do you see the gathering of seagulls in the photo                                                                                    below.

                                                  Click on this and all will be revealed.

CRAFTING.
Although this has been a bit on the quiet side, I've done a few finishes in between all that is happening in our lives at the moment. 

                                                                    Dotty Custard.
                              This is now bound & photographed hanging on the shed door.

                                                                    Dilly Dally Deco.
Named because I dilly-dallied over finding more grey fabric, having run out of the second one part the way through.  It was supposed to resemble something art deco, as well as using more of the above jelly roll.

                                                                        Dripsicle.
And what the heck is that word, I hear you say.  Just me feeling drippy, as that is what the grey fabric reminds me of.  The above two aren't quilted yet.

                                                                  Tipsy Bon Bons.
This is me trying to be arty with photos at the moment.  Above is one of my so-called "book" quilts, which may happen some day.  I do intend to have a page on this blog for them one day.

I must have shown a photo of these crochet squares at the beginning  of last year.  Finally sewn together and bordered.  It does happen eventually.

GARDEN.
Just a very quick roundup of some happenings in the garden.  I'll do a better post later this month.

                                                          My beautiful Ixia viridiflora.

 Port Wine Magnolia (Michelia), which fills the whole garden with its heady perfume on a warm day.

 My first open flower on the climbing rose Pierre de Ronsard.  It now has masses of them.  A photo                                                       of it later, as it is now dark as I type this.

The two raised veg beds, hubby has built for me.   Again another photo will come as the silver beet has grown quite a bit, a pumpkin self seeded from goodness knows where, carrot seeds up, 3 tomatoes planted, along with some butter beans & zucchini.  All doing well so far.

Now this is one for my UK friends, who I know have "BIG" slugs.  How do I know?  I've seen them & also squished them under my feet in the dark, when in my nephews garden.  Oh, so yuck & gooey!!!!!  This is an Ozzie slug and that bit of wood is about 2" long & 1/2" thick, so you can get a feel for the size of my little beastie.
OK, all for now and I'll bet your glad, but I do have another few posts up my sleeve before the end of the month.  We've two car shows on the calendar, a coffee & cake run and just maybe for me, AQM, which is a quilting trade show here in Melbourne. 
Good night my blogpals, take care and huggles.
Susan.