High and Dry

Yesterday at lunchtime I came home from work as the flood waters rose in the roads around our office.

It was a surreal afternoon, spent sitting watching the flood coverage on the news. It did give me a good chance to finish the baby owl, and make them a little penguin friend though.

To anyone out there in Queensland, I hope you're high and dry and keeping safe!

Felt Owl

Being inside so much lately (rain, rain, more rain) has forced me back into sewing, which I'd taken a break from during my first trimester while morning sickness and fatigue worked their evil magic.

We started setting up the baby's nursery on the weekend (mainly to move the baby furniture we've been donated out of the flood plain that is our rumpus room and up into the relative safety of a spare bedroom) and decided to go with an owl theme, with a few other birds thrown into the mix to break it up a little.

I decided to make some little felt stuffed toys to kick the theme off and started this little fella a couple of nights ago.

Last night, I finished him off and started working on a baby owl, which should be finished tonight.

He looks like he's being groped by that monkey here. Perhaps that accounts for the startled look he's got.

Monkeys - so cheeky.

After the baby owl is finished, I'm planning to make a penguin and then a cockatoo, then perhaps a galah...

Fingers crossed the baby likes birds.

Christmas Day

This is my mother's block of land, down on Bruny Island - off the coast of Tasmania. We spent a couple of nights here, as well as Christmas Day. She plans to build a cabin here sometime, but in the meantime she just stays in this little caravan when she comes to visit.

Dan, my brothers, and I all stayed nearby in a rented cabin but traveled up to the block for Christmas Day.

The original plan had been to cook a turkey in the fire, but after hearing something on salmonella or e-coli or some other strain of food poisoning that comes from cooking meat too slowly, I requested we use the stove in the rented cabin instead. This turned out to be a good thing, because the fire just didn't want to burn.

That meant it wasn't such a drama when Mum's new dog, Chloe, went and stood in it.

After lunch, we went for a walk down to the lagoon. But, being full of cheese and beer (and, it being Christmas and all), we all opted for a ride home on James's ute instead of walking back up the hill.

The sun came out sporadically through the day. In true Tassie fashion, we went back to our cabin that evening partly frozen, windburned and horribly sunburned.

That, in a nutshell, is a photographic record of my Christmas Day.