What do you eat for breakfast

Me - well these days its usually porridge oats (oatmeal) but it could also be cold cereal like weetbix along with fruit or toast. Hot toast with vegemite or ginger marmalade Yum.

Sometimes when we are away we will indulge in a full cooked breakfast - but nothing like the Ulster Breakfast my granny in Belfast would put on the table. I wish I could find soda bread and potato bread here that tasted the same as hers did, maybe if we go to Ireland next year I'll see if one of my cousins will do it for me just for a treat. I can't remember the last time I had fried bread either.

Anyway, look at this blog called surprisingly 'The Breakfast Blog' and see the breakfasts this fella in Melbourne comes across. One day I'll look up some of the places when I'm in the city but I'm not sure I'll be on the 7am from Croydon so lets hope they serve brekky till maybe 11am :))

Times they are a changing

The days seem to be getting longer, its still quite light at 6pm now and the past few days have been beautiful - almost Spring like - Sunny and dry and even quite warm. Well warm enough not to have the heating on during the day but we aren't going to fooled as the forecast is for cooler days for the rest of the week.

For the first time in weeks I've been out in the garden tidying up and planning what to do when the ground starts to warm up and DH even managed to cut the grass. I can now restart the compost heap - have lots of leaves from next doors Oak tree and now the grass clippings to mix in with them and some manure.

We don't have a posh lawn in the back just grass and it is so good to see it green again and not a khaki brown it went during the summer. These are some not too good photos taken at Christmas time showing how awful it looked

Some of the grandchildren enjoying a game of Backyard Cricket at our family BBQ and you can see how brown the grass looks.











This is all of the Melbourne grandchildren later that day pleasing me by sitting still long enough to have a photo taken :))




And of course we know things are changing all the time but things certainly changed here in Melbourne today.

Kevin Sheedy and The Bombers (also known as The Essendon Football Club) Aussie Rules that is, will be parting comapny at the end of this season - read all about it here.

They haven't been doing that well this year and after being in the position of coach for 27 years it really did look like his contract wouldn't be renewed so I don't think it came as a shock today when the anouncement was made that he would be finishing up in a few weeks. He has done so much for the club and football in general it will be strange not to have him around and I'm sure he won't be far away from the game he loves.

My eyes are a lot better now, the eye drops worked a treat - one was an antibiotic and the other contained prednisilone for allergy relief. All swelling went down by Sunday morning and the itchyness and stinging by Monday. Dr was pleased, so was I and now we are happy campers again. No idea what caused it tho.

Reading my 'Bird' entry again I realised I hadn't actually provided any information on the birds

SO

If you follow these links you will be able to 'read all about it'

Yellow tailed Black cockatoo

Australian Magpie

Rainbow Lorikeet

Eastern Rosella

Crimson Rosella

Hope all the links work

I woke yesterday with red itchy eyes which got worse and worse as the day went by, they were really painful during the night so had to get an appointment with the GP this morning. As he's just round the corner I took a chance and fronted up as they opened at 9am and was really lucky in that the receptionist addeed my name and slipped me in first. She probably didn't want me sitting in the waiting room looking like death warmed up, with red bloodshot eyes and big dark circles under the eyes.

Anyway I now have 2 sets of eye drops, am not allowed to drive (what a pain thats going to be) and have to see him again on Monday morning. Bang goes my plans for Monday as he made mention of seeing an eye specialist if it hadn't improved. The other cruncher is I have to stay away from the computer - so this will be it for a few days

Going to be -1c here this evening - I think thats about 30f. I may not even get out of bed tomorrow:))

Look below

Below the winter post is another I started then put on hold and finished a day later

Seems Blogger published in the order you start

Winter hits hard

I mentioned the other day taking a granddaughter up to Mt Dandenong which is just a short drive from our place, in fact I took this picture of the view of the Dandenongs from the local footy oval last year.

Those 3 TV transmission masts are a well known landmark and no matter where we are if we see them we know we aren't far from home :)

This was the same place yesterday - yes it has been so cold here it actually snowed.

We get lots of sunshine and hot days in the summer and we have cool winters here but this is really out of the ordinary It really was exceptionally cold and turned out to be the coldest July day in Melbourne for 10 years. It didn't actually snow in my backyard (we had hail and sleet) but lots came down in other parts of the state with roads closed because of black ice and school cancelled today in those parts worst affected.

I didn't go far from home but stayed inside snug and warm, today has been cold with a some rain but I was very good and managed to get a quick walk in between the showers. Thats something I haven't managed to do for days as the rain has been so heavy and constant.

Edit

Found another news story - read here

BIrds in the garden

With the wintery weather and family issues this week I've been a bit down so I thought I'd think about something that makes me smile.

Now for some reason whenever I see or hear a bird preferably in the wild my mood changes.

So I thought you would like to see some of the birds I have seen locally and that have also visited my garden this past week

This is the yellow tailed black cockatoo, one of my DD's who lives close by took this photo in her garden recently and I also saw a couple close to home when I was on a walk the other day. They don't normally come this far down the mountain so we were lucky to see them.

We do get the big white Sulphur (yellow) crested Cockies in great numbers in our area - noisy things that they are they remind me of where I live - Australia

This cocky fella is our Australian magpie, this is the male with a white back, the poor female has to do with a mottled grey coloured back and isn't as big as him either. There must be something about him tho' as he usually has a harem of several females close by and can be very tame even to the point of hanging around and following after me when I am weeding.

They don't seem to have a fear of humans - but can be a problem when the females are nesting. The male swoops down from the trees trying to get you to move on so some parks and gardens put up warning signs at that time of the year.

The next ones are Rainbow Lorikeets and then Eastern Rosellas. We took these a couple of years ago when the LillyPilly was laden with lots of berries. Both these breeds fly around in pairs so if we spot one we usually look for the second one. I definitely perk up when I see these flitting about in the trees and on rare occassions we get the next ones in the trees as well

Unfortunately Blogger seems to think the picture of the Crimson Rosella should go at the the top of the page and each time I try to insert it last it goes right where it is now. Have never managed to get an actual photo but this is a good representation

There just talking about them has made me feel better:)) Now wheres my knitting.

Family feelings

Quiet day yesterday and then had a great evening with all (well nearly all) of the family.

We decided to get together at a local Bistro because it mean't that even tho I would love to I didn't have to 'entertain or cook' and could sit down and enjoy all the company also with all those grandchildren coming (total of 10 ranging from 2yrs to 13yrs), and it being winter and really cold and them not being able to play outside this venue was perfect as they have a kids play room - complete with indoor equipment and computer games plus entertainment (a modern clown) to keep young ones entertained - which meant that all the oldies and wrinklies as the 13yr old one said could chatter and natter in peace.

Bit annoyed with our oldest son who didn't come but his partner drove over with their 2 girls so as not to dissapoint me which I thought was lovely on her part because during the time they were seperated she decided to let her feelings be known about her defacto inlaws.

His reason for not coming was as they had an hours drive over here and the same to get home it meant a late night and he would be tired the next morning and that he had to be at work by 7am which meant getting up at 5.30am to leave home at 6am and the last time he saw the visiting brother there were things said about the football team he follows and he wasn't prepared to put up with that again.

Honestly - hes 45 years old and I still have to put up with the silly behaviour :((

Families - who'd have them.

Are the stars out tonight

Hundreds and thousands of them in fact - not a cloud in the sky - it looks like you see forever if it was possible. Its been the first day for ages with no rain falling in our area and the sun shone most of the day and it was glorious. Cold during the day and going to be colder still overnight.

School holidays and I had babysitting duties for one granddaughter today so Dh and I took her out for lunch at her favourite spot (no, not a fast food outlet) and then later in the day I drove up the mountain and took her into the new maze at a park at the top. It was freezing up there but she was happy and we had a good look at the city from there.

We are so lucky to live close to the Dandenongs - we are in the foothills and its only a ten minute drive from our place to this particular park. Great place to take overseas visitors and good if we want to escape the heat in summer. Can be a good ten degrees C cooler up there on a really hot day.

Another good thing happened today:)))

Our son who lives interstate is in Melbourne on business for a few days with wife and the two little grandsons as well. Hes staying with one of his brothers who lives close to us so Dh and I popped down there late in the afternoon so we would then get to see more of all of the grandchildren together. The 2 whose home we were at, the 2 who are visiting and the 1 we were babysitting.

Those boys are still as happy as before and were not fazed by the plane ride even tho with storms in Sydney this morning they were delayed by over an hour and a half - some of that actually sitting in the aircraft on the tarmac. Granddaughters mother came there to pick her up so I had 3 of my children together at the same time also. With their busy lives thats quite an achievement these days.

Going to bed a happy chappy this evening.

Bubble wrap

I keep bubble wrap to use in parcels but have to hide it from the grandchildren.

The reason being they like lots of other people, me included, think its great fun to pop all the like bubbles of air.

I found this site - and all my worries about losing my cache are over

Try it - its fun

I actually did it

I think I've said here before that I'm a fair weather walker - which is strange because I was raised in England where the weather can be pretty ordinary at times.

I prefer walking out in the open air but with this winter being so wet and me not being enamoured with walking in the rain I have been treading the boards at the gym. When I manage to go to the Leisure Centre I try to do some walking on their treadmills as well as use some of the other equipment.

Last year I had a go at jogging and after the initial shock of realising I was actually moving faster than a quick walk have been trying a little more each time. Some times I get puffed quickly and give it up as a bad job but recently its become easier and easier. Not sure why as I don't seem to have lost any weight, but having said that my clothes are hanging better so maybe theres been a rearranging of the fat and a tightening of the skin :))

Today I jogged for a kilometre - yes thats right - one whole kilometre. One kilometre is equal to 0.621371192 miles approx. and yes that may not seem like a long distance but for me it is huge.

I started off walking and raised the speed to my jog rate and then seemed to find some sort of rhythm where the legs and feet moved in time with each other and I just kept on going. I kept watching the distance figure go higher and higher and I was determined to see just how far I could go so as I said I just kept on moving. When I got to the magic figure I decided to pull it back to walking pace and not get too excited as I feared I'd lose my footing and fall off the treadmill.

I could just see the headline in the local paper next week:-

Newsflash - 64 yr old Granny says - No she hadn't had a drink before signing in for her daily exercise programme.

lol I'd never live it down :))

Where does the time go

This past couple of weeks we've had cold wet days and dry sunny days as well as gales and storms. Parts of the state are flooded which isn't good tho and locally this week looks wintery . We do still need the rain and even tho' the levels are rising there is still talk of tougher water restrictions. Time will tell I suppose so all we can say is 'Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain'

This winter I've tried very hard to stay away from 'sickies' those with coughs and colds but it didn't work and I've spent part of the week feeling like death warmed up, coughing and sneezing and moaning about a headache.

Luckily one of the daughters has a Lemon Tree so I dosed myself with fresh lemon juice, honey, boiling water with a dissolvable aspirin every few hours. Its an old fashioned remedy that I enjoy.

I also have a favourite cough mixture that no one else likes - unfortunately I cant find the one I used for years called Medallion (black and tasting of camphor and methol that took your breath away) but recently discovered a similar one called Irish Moss.

As I say its similar and seems to work as well and when I'm feeling crook thats all I ask.

With those two and Eucalyptus Oil on a tissue to open the stuffed up nose I was set to kill any of those rotten germs. I spent a lot of time resting and finishing off a teddy I'm making for one lucky granddaughter for Christmas.

Before 'the cold' struck I had a trip into the city to go to the theatre with my Red Hat group and we laughed ourselves silly at 'Menopause - the Musical' Fun fun fun and we all had a great time. Lots of questions about our clothing and I feel there will also be lots of searching for chapters near to those questioners.

July 1st is Victoria Day (the day Victoria was granted seperate statehood from New South Wales in 1850) and so this Monday I went to the Victoria Day Award Ceremony in the city. One of our granddaughters sings with the Victorian Girls Choir and they were there to sing the National Anthem so I went along with her mother (one of my daughters) and the other children.
The historical society had their enactmant first outside the Town Hall - complete with old fashioned uniforms and muskets and the reading of the Seperation Proclamation and then we all went inside for the presentions and speeches.

The youngsters sang the Anthem beautifully and gave a good rendition of Happy Birthday Victoria as well. Another fun day as we went on the train so I didn't have to wonder about parking etc and we wandered round some of the big stores and came home with a few bargains as well.

Things happen again - like DH stuffing up the computer.
Never mind he likes tinkering and checking out sites - nothing as bad as 'catching a virus' - its such a shame it takes him ages to get it back to normal again

I am going to have an early night, the cold might be gone but I'm still feeling drained.