Not Before Time

As mentioned previously, last week I went in to the Australasian Quilt Convention which was held in the beautiful Royal Exhibition Buildings and I had a great day wandering around checking out all the quilts and gadgets and of course fabrics. I was really good though, didn’t buy too much stuff. Living in a van is very good for curbing spending!

For all my craft friends, here a few photos. The AQC had a quilt challenge with the theme being Fantasy. There were so many quilts entered, all of them really gorgeous. I’m only showing the first prize and runner up winners but there were so many lovely quilts. It must have been a really difficult decision. There are very talented artists out there.

For those not interested in crafts or quilting, you might want to look away now!

This is the 1st Prize winner – unfortunately my photos don’t do justice to how beautiful this quilt is. (I forgot to take my camera so had to use my phone camera). The quilt, called “When the sun goes down” is in the form of a fairytale book and is by quilt artist Denise Sargo of NSW.

The Runner Up is Jocelyn Leath also from NSW and again my photo’s don’t do justice to the quilt.

Japan’s Brother Design Studio also had some quilts on display, made using a combination of hand and machine embroidery. Here are a couple of food themed ones:

However, the best of the Brother quilts (in my opinion anyway) is this one :

And here’s a random selection of some of other the quilts on display

And of course, because I love cows, here a photo of a quilt I just loved. It’s called The Girls of Tyrone Farm and was made by Beth Miller

Next week I’m of to the Stitches and Craft Show

Well, how about that – it’s now March and this is my first update since November last year! Now, rather than beat myself up over my very slack blogging practice, I’ll just bring you up to date with what we’ve been up to – however, feel free to chastise me yourself if you feel it necessary, and I’ll be suitably embarrassed at my slackness.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, here’s, a brief rundown of what we’ve been doing. Obviously nothing too interesting or I would have told you about it earlier. I went to the Craft and Quilt show before we left Adelaide and I had a great day, spent the whole day there checking out new craft products, going to workshops and talking to lots of craftspeople. Great day.

We left Adelaide mid November and headed to Melbourne – a bit earlier than originally intended, but Ben and Kat were heading off to Sydney for a week and we were dog and house sitting.

It was hot the first couple of days we were back in Melbourne, then the temperature dropped and it was freezing (well, really, really cold) nearly right through to Christmas – I thought we’d arrived in the middle of winter and had to dig out some old cold weather clothes I’d left in the house. David refused to give in and wear long pants, but I reckon he froze a couple of times when we were out. I’ve been so used to wearing shorts and tops for the last couple of years, it was really horrible wearing long pants and long sleeve tops (and jackets a few times when we were out).

Christmas was very quiet and very enjoyable – Matthew and Melissa joined Ben, Kat and us for Christmas lunch which we had outside as it was a gorgeous day (finally!). It was lovely having everyone together enjoying each other’s company, great food and drinks and of course, presents 

We didn’t do anything on New Year’s eve – we did however manage to stay awake until just after midnight, so technically we saw the new year in.

We managed to get some business stuff done, like taxes, talk to our superannuation people (could have done without their news!) and doctor visits etc, which was good, but mainly we caught up with friends and family. It was all good.

We went back to Adelaide for a couple of weeks, but had to come back to Melbourne the first week in February for a couple of 60th birthday parties. The plan then was to go back to South Australia for a few months, but we’re still in Melbourne. Ben and Kat are going to Paris (Ben for work, Kat for play) so we decided that rather than go back to Adelaide then have to come back to Melbourne so we could dog /house sit we would just stay here. We’ll be going back to Adelaide on March 23 I think.

We’re going to the CMCA (Campervan & Motorhome Club of Australia) rally at Whyalla in late March. This will be our first motorhome rally and we’re looking forward to it. A lot of people we’ve met on the road have said how good the rallies are. We’re also going to be catching up with some friends there so it’ll be lots of fun too.

We’re not sure what we’ll be doing after the rally – depends if we can find some work around the Yorke or Eire Peninsulas. We’ll sort it out later.

We haven’t been doing too much since we’ve been back in Melbourne. Again, it’s mainly been catching up with friends and relatives. However there is lots going on in Melbourne right now – the motor show, the Australian Quilt Convention (last week), The Stitches and Craft Show, the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival and Moomba just to name a few things. Lots of stuff to keep us busy over the next week or so.

I went in to the Quilt Convention last week – I’ll do a separate post on that, with some photos of quilts.

When we get back on the road the updates will happen more frequently again, once we’ve got more interesting things to write about.

Well, we have been home for some 7 weeks now and have achieved most of the things we planned to do. We are packing up to leave on Wednesday 11th October. Next main stop is Foster (north of Newcastle) where we will be assisting in a caravan park while the owners are away. This will take us through to early November and we will head further north and plan to stay a couple of weeks at the CMCA park in Casino (near Lismore)

 More updates when we get to Foster.

We arrived back in Melbourne (where does all this traffic come from!) last weekend and will be here for a few weeks.  It’s B’s 30th this Friday and he is having some of his friends and family over for drinks and nibbles on Saturday, so the next couple of days will be spent preparing food and tidying up the garden in preparation.  I know I’ve said this before, but I’m finding it hard to believe my baby is 30. There must be some mistake – we’re not old enough to have a 30 year old!    It’s funny, while my own age doesn’t worry me one bit, it’s the children’s milestones that really bring home how quickly time passes – first days at kindy, school, high school, new job, then all of a sudden they are out on their own and living their lives and the years have gone in a flash.   While the quickly passing time sucks a bit, the great thing is seeing how well they have turned out – happy, confident, nice adults, doing well in their lives.  Not much more you can ask for really.

We will be using the time back in Melbourne to catch up on some personal stuff and also, hopefully, meeting up with friends and family.  While we’ve only been gone for about 10 weeks, it seems as if we haven’t seen any of you for ages – so if you’re reading this we’re open to invitations for dinner, drinks etc.

Well, I’d better get to work, there’s sausage rolls and pasties to be made, and a pile of washing to do!

I can’t believe how quickly the time is going since I finished work – we have been quite busy and the time for us to head off is coming around really fast.  David also finished work this week and he would head off now if we didn’t have stuff to do before we go.

We had a good, productive weekend – our friend T came over and spent all of Saturday with us working in the garden.  We hadn’t done much for a while and everything out the front was overgrown.  The weather was cold, but at least the rain held off during the day and we managed to get heaps done, everything looks great.  David’s sister E also came over for a visit which was lovely, and ended up staying the night.  After a busy day, a great dinner of osso bucco and some wine we were all happily in bed by 11 o’clock.  We’re such party animals.

We had a small gathering on the Sunday – mainly to try and catch up with some of our family and friends before we take off, but also to give them the opportunity of checking out the new mansion.  It was a good day, but again, really cold.  Some of our friends couldn’t make it so I think we’re going to be quite busy socialising over the next couple of weeks trying to catch up with them.

We’re nearly organised with the 5th wheeler and the F-Series has been outfitted with it’s new full length side steps, driving lights and bull bar – it looks great.  Just have to get some more cleaning and decluttering done in the house before we leave.

Our first stop will be to the NSW south coast area to stay with friends who have a caravan park there – we will be working with them for a couple of weeks trying to get some experience under our belt.  Then, who knows where we will head.