Weddings in 2012

 To share with my New Zealand family, we had two weddings in November, eight days between them, the first, my gorgeous niece in Melbourne.  Karen is Phillipa and Ians youngest daughter and the two littlest girls are Karens and Craigs and the older two Craigs, so instant family.

 The second wedding was in Perth, my gorgeous granddaughters, I know, all brides are gorgeous.  Jessica here with her two little sisters Kaitlin and Madison, and Joanne who looked gorgeous too.

The senior guests of honour

                      Dont always get an opportunity of getting a photo with my two daughters.
We haven't had a wedding in the family since Kirsty's 12 years ago and then we get two, oh well, one outfit does both haha

Salvage yard finds

I had been told of a great Salvage yard in Fremantle, so Phil and I took a run down there in the van.  It was a virtual treasure trove, above, sorry photo not very clear, is what I bought home.

 I have been looking for one of the mirrored doors for ages, was so excited, and the price was right.

 Out of the timber I got, John made me the star above which I had seen in a magazine and the Christmas tree below.  Pretty clever isn't he.  They look great at night too with the lights on.

 The old cupboard above was a Pinterest Inspiration, love Pinterest.  I plan to get more trailing succulents to put in there.

Mirror dressed up for Christmas.  And on that note, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Jacky

Last night Phillipa and I participated in Illumini night market in Northbridge.  It was so much fun to be in an event that was so well organised and embraced by the public.  There was such a vibe right up until closing time at 10pm.  There where about 50 unique creative stalls, food stalls and entertainment.

Our stall the first one this end was at the Public Library end overlooking this great stepped area, there was a huge screen with some really creative photography played.  This was taken about 5pm and there where these great cushions on the steps that the public could lounge on to enjoy the show.  As you can see it was a very colourful area.  This is the cultural centre next to Perth city.

 The pale building to the right of this photo above is the Art Gallery and between the steps and stage is a thriving wetland area with a big frog inhabitant.  There was live music all night.

 This large snow scene was very popular with very long queue all night and great fun for young and not so young alike throwing the fake snow about.

Was so good to see live artists at work and so much creative talent

a view later in the night of the large crowd that attended.

I have been unable to blog for a while now with downloading photo problems.

Have a great weekend

Jacky

Zigzag Festival

 This little critter was in the wild life exhibition which drew a lot of interest, beautiful markings

                            Hey, how about this cute tent, a vauxwagon, I want one of these.....

and this guy just carried on in the rain, what a trooper, we saw him at Ballingup Medieval Festival.....
have a great weekend I am off to Brisbane to see my sister and then onto Melbourne to my neices wedding
catch you later

to get photo's on to my blog I had to delete a lot, unfortunately you will see black blocks where I have deleted.  Mostly prior to 2010.

My garden

Summer is coming and the sprinklers have been turned on to automatic.  We are only allowed to use our sprinklers twice a week and our days are Friday and Mondays and set to 6 am, so when it gets really hot I am forced to water with the hose, I have done that the last two weeks, at the moment it is not the heat so much but the usual October winds which dry everything out.  Fortunately our gardens are enclosed by a high fence which protects them somewhat.  The gardens do look lovely when the sprinklers are on with everything dripping with moisture, lasts for a few hours.
Have a great weekend
Jacky

Spring In West Australia

John and I have been working our butts off in the garden for the last couple of months.  We started getting the vegetable gardens going.  We installed another raised garden bed, above on right side, with a smaller bed inside which we planted the grapefruit tree and strawberries.  All growing nicely now, white butterfly is a bit of a pest though.  Can you see the potato growing in the zinc bucket next to the rock melon in the green pot.  I am very proud of this, I have had no luck growing them before, they seemed to cook in the ground.  On the fence at the back I moved a passionfruit vine, which is coming away again now.  Just out of view on the left side is a blueberry bush and a lemon tree in a container.   Below is the shed John assembled in that narrow space, between the garage wall and side fence about a metre and half wide.  We have tiered vege gardens and a screen to separate from the rest of the back garden.

 This beautiful rose flowered the best ever in 15 odd years and the damn wind flattened it down on the rubbish bins.  We managed to stake and pull it up somewhat, but will have to do a better job when it gets pruned.

 If you look real close you will see a wire criss cross trellis we have put on the wall behind the pear tree and planted star jasmine to train up, should look great when it establishes, extra hedging had to be replanted where the other one died due to mealy bugs grhhhh!!!

 A mamoth task was pulling all this plant called Lipia out that had spread all through this area, it was so hard to pull out.

 A beautiful white Hollyhock that re seeds each year, the wind has blown it over and it is resting under the rose, new flower stalks have sprouted upwards from the bent over stem so all is not lost.

 This Oriental Poppy also self seeds and has these beautiful big flower heads about the size of a saucer, I only have the one colour, hope to get some more different colours.

John put up chicken wire on this pergola to hold the rose plant up that has branched right out, the grape should also soon cover it.  We aim to have the whole pergola covered with greenery as it is such a hot area in summer and we don't go out there in the middle of the day.  There is also a wisteria on the far end which is just starting to flower now.  Next to the gazebo is a large pink wisteria tree, which is very pretty at present but the wind is blowing all the blossoms down, just like snow.  I often work out here if I am using the dremel and cutting metal for journals, now I won't get hooked up with the rose thorns.  And that is our gardens this spring, a place we like to spend a lot of time in when its not too hot.  This time of the year it is just a pleasure.  We only have a small block but we now utilise every bit of space.

day at the Royal Show

This weekend we had a public holiday on Monday.  We took the opportunity of going to the Perth Royal Show.  I hadn't been for quite a few years and John had never been.  We figured that a lot of people would be home watching footy finals and the crowd would be lower.  Wrong.  It was a beautiful day 34 degrees, but after weeks around the 20 degrees mark and a lot of rain this week, it was a bit much, people sat in every bit of available shade.  This is the part of the show that we enjoyed most.  The horse events in the main arena.

 The animals in the children's baby animals shed, lots of children enjoying this area.

 We always enjoy the woodchopping arena, behind that is showride alley's

 These big beauties John enjoyed, I liked how thin the chrome made me look, can you see me

 there where animals all around the show ground, it must have been bewildering for them

 there was a wonderful area devoted to an earlier era, above they where demonstrating sending morse code, this gentleman's hands are tapping out the message, to the gentleman below who was about 5 metres away typing out the message on a wonderful old typewriter.  Its sad to think that these skills will be lost in a generations.  Morse code is something I could never fathom, how from all these little beeps they got a message over many miles away

 a lot of the old machinery was in working condition and displaying the way it was done a hundred years ago, hard physical labour

 in our little scrap of shade, John enjoyed a hot dog and chips

part of the huge crowd enjoying the show.  As you can see we avoided the showride area and the show bag alleys where the biggest concentration of the young ones where making most of the event.  Some of those rides we could see from a distance seemed pretty hard on the internal organs, being hung upside down and shaken around, but was well patronised, so, kids must like them.  that will be us for another few years.  Next time we will take the train, where you can get off right in the grounds and we will chose a cooler day and perhaps a day when it is not quite so crowded.  Being a country girl crowds are overwhelming for me and the shuffling along, very tiring.

Workshop this weekend

Last month at the workshop Little book of matchbox's was a full on two days and the girls did really well to complete these gorgeous little books to take home with them.  I really enjoy teaching these workshops as it is a chance to complete bigger projects that are not achievable in a 2 hour class.  It is challenging to see the varied and insightful work that comes out in the workshop.  There is another workshop this weekend which will be totally different to the other workshops, it will be full on as each page of the journal has many layers of paint.  I think the girls will enjoy the challenge.  Following photo's of the girls with their little book of matchbox's.

 Linda

 Mandy

 Karen with a good view of her cover

Janet

Well done girls, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did

Medieval Carnivale Part 2

 colourful tents abound to create the right mood

 the fighting of the medieval knights was fierce, lots of bruises at the end of the day

 with the gorgeous ladies in their medieval finery keeping a close eye on the proceedings

 this monk had good shade from the sun

 back to the melee that is real chain mail, a lot of effort in making it realistic

 this happy fraulein enjoyed mixing in the crowd

 and she had a ball, look at that smile

 there where saxons, friars, crusaders

 oh, and a cute Japanese in modern dress

 mixing and mingling

 and a camel ride into the sunset

hope you enjoyed our foray into the past, we had so much fun