I've been occupied elsewhere lately.

I had lunch with Sharon today, and she mentioned my lack of posts on my blogs this week. So I thought I'd better put in a scribble in case someone thinks I've fallen off my perch. First off, thanks to those of you who expressed your disgust about the graffiti on our property. My letter wasn't published in the Herald Sun (at least, I don't think so - we don't get any newspapers, so I was relying on somebody else telling me if they saw it published). So I've sent it to our local paper, and if it isn't published in that, I'll just keep sending it everywhere until it is!! I'm nothing if persistent when I'm this cross.

Other than that, there hasn't been much to write about. I've been keeping myself busy on Stitchin Fingers website, where I am the moderator for a Cross Stitch Group, and we have a couple of exchanges going at the moment, so that takes up a fair bit of my time with emails to and from the participants. Fun though.

NOT the most liveable town...

When people ask me where I live and I tell them Nillumbik Shire, the response is usually "Oh you're lucky, that is such a lovely place". All I can say is "You don't live here". On Wednesday, the media here announced that the shire of Nillumbik has been selected as Victoria's most liveable municipality. On Thursday morning, as I headed off to work in the morning, I glanced at the timber retaining wall in front of our property, and nearly drove off the road in horror. This is what I saw:

And this was across the road:

Charming, isn't it. And what makes me even madder, is the kid next door told me she knows who did it, but won't tell me. I told her I'm reporting it to the police, and they will probably be knocking on her door for more information. She disappeared inside in a great hurry.

So I've written to one of the daily papers, and this is my letter. It will be interesting to see if it is published. I was going to send it to our local paper, but I doubt if it would see the light of day there...

22nd August 2008.
The Editor,
Herald Sun
Melbourne, Vic.

Dear Sir,

With reference to the article on Page 21 on Wednesday August 20th, where it states Nillumbik Shire has been selected Victoria's most liveable municipality.
Most liveable? What a joke. The people who made that decision obviously don't live here.

We've lived here for 30 years and in that time have spent much of our life participating in numerous community volunteer activities. What do we get in return? Our street has been a racetrack for hoons for years. Our letterbox has been ripped out and smashed to pieces, garden lights also ripped out and thrown on the road, my car broken into via a smashed windscreen. And on the night of this announcement about our Prestigious suburb? Our front fence was vandalised.

Our council concentrates on sporting complexes and clean air, while they abandon the elderly citizens to the cheapest tender for Home Community Care, and a year later, the Home Care system is still in chaos.

If this is liveable, God help those in the CBD and City of Yarra with a low ranking. We can't wait to move out of Nillumbik.

N. & G. Wilson

How was your weekend?

Ken and I have been laid low this past week by the cold virus that is doing the rounds. We both had time off work, and spent most of it in front of the fire watching the Olympics (when we felt well enough to get out of bed, that is). So this weekend was spent fairly quietly too, although Ken got up all enthusiastic this morning, deciding that as it wasn't raining, he felt well enough to do all the odd jobs that needed doing around the house. He added some waterproofing materials to the aviaries, fixed a problem with the side gate, and fiddled around with his bikes in the garage. But by 4 pm this afternoon...
..he was stuffed!!

By comparison, I had a nice restful day. I did some stitching (which can be seen here) and I made some Lemon Butter/Curd. Thanks to our four hens, we have a glut of lovely fresh eggs; they are laying two or three eggs every day! And we've had several bags of lemons given to us in recent weeks, so I decided to put them to good use. I've been meaning to make this for ages, ever since I saw it in my favourite monthly food mag. Mind you, I've got the recipe a hundred times elsewhere, but you cooks know how it is - if you see the same old recipe in a new magazine, it suddenly looks delicious!!

We had some spread on English muffins for an afternoon snack, and I'm planning to make a Lemon Slice in the next few days. Anyone want to drop by for a cuppa this week?

Congratulations, China!

It is nearly 2 am here in Melbourne. Ken and I both have head colds, with noses and eyes streaming, but we didn't want to miss a minute of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. It was worth every minute and every tissue! Absolutely sensational, every part of it. And didn't our Aussies look smart in those blue shirts!

Well done, Beijing!!

Happier times.

Is it a song or a cliche which goes something like 'into each life some rain must fall'...? We had our rain on Saturday, but Monday is a new day, and look what I found in the aviary where the bantams are:
Such a nice start to the day!
These little girls have been busy; we've had about 20 eggs since they started laying a few weeks ago!

Vale Elsie.

If you are extremely observant, you may have noticed a change in my Profile description above. "We have no children, but we have a cat and aviaries, etc." I have deleted the "elderly dog". Two weeks ago, we took Elsie to the vet, who gave her medication for arthritis and dementia (seriously - apparently there is such a thing as doggy dementia), and he said if there is no improvement in two weeks, we should re-assess the situation. We returned to the vet yesterday and it was agreed that there was nothing more we could do for her, so...guess I don't need to go into detail.

Ken had to carry her from the car into the waiting room, and kept her on his lap for the half hour we were waiting. Other people came and went with their pets, and one jovial man with his pup was commenting on everyone else's pets. He turned to us and looking at Elsie said "She doesn't look too happy", to which I replied "You probably won't either, when you are 140 years old". He didn't have an answer to that, but it wasn't until a few minutes later when the vet called us in and made some comment about Elsie being 18 years old, that the penny dropped with the other bloke and he gasped "Eighteen???" When we came out of the surgery without Elsie, the other people in the waiting room went very quiet. Earlier, a lady had gone in with her dog, and come out alone in floods of tears. I said to the receptionist "Two in a row must be pretty hard for Dr.S" and she said "It's been a real bad morning actually". I hate to think what she meant by that....