And lastly the vegie patch

All be it small we have a good crop of capsicum that are flowering and have fruit on. We also have silverbeet in behind the capsicums and we have been eating it - love silverbeet - yep along the front you can see the row of Basil, this is more Basil, I think I should be selling it as it is so good and Basil is not cheap to buy a miserable little bunch in the supermarket is so expensive. On the other side of the planter I have just planted some more lettuce and silverbeet- coloured (Chard) like the yellow and red. The only real thing that I have not had any success with is Tomatoes, for some reason they grow big and strong flower and fruit then before the fruit ripens they shrivel and die off, I was told by the girl at Bunnings I know that even all their plants were doing the same - in saying that we did get some ripe fruit, so next year I am going to try and grow my own plants from seed, it is not the ground as they were all in pots of their own with compost - so just a pain in the ass me thinks.

Photos above show:
The vegie planter with the Silverbeet at the rear, Capsicums in the middle and Basil along the front.
The Capsicum plants showing the fruit and flowers.
And lastly newly planted Lettuce and Silverbeet

Herb Bed

I managed to twist Brian's arm enough to say we needed our "Herb Planter"
put into the garden somewhere so that it would get some sun and also some rain and we have plenty of that here in Qld - especially at the moment - and as I type this it is raining.We really have a great herb bed this summer and as I said in another post we have the best Basil I have ever grown.We use our herb's all the time and they seem to grow the more you pick them.
One thing that I have not got to grow well is Mint believe it or not, I think it is in the wrong place as is getting too hot and dries out too quick so I am going to move it and see if it does any better in a cooler spot.
In the large planter we have Parsley,Sage,Rosemary & Thyme - sing - a- long time, we also have Chives, Basil, French Taragon the real stuff,Oreganum or Marjorum & Coriander this is fantastic with Thai cooking which we love.

 The photos from the top show:
  Herb Planter Tub, Common Thyme, Sage, Italian Parsley, Rosemary, Oreganum
  French Tarrogon, Struggling Mint plant and Coriander. 

My name is Basil - but not Fawlty

I have a herb garden flourishing in a huge plastic planter, we use the herbs constantly and this summer sees me with the best "Basil" I have ever grown.
We use alot of Basil and this year see's us with a few varieties. We have one called "All Year" - "Thai" - "Lemon" and the normal variety, with tomatoes there is nothing better.

The Pics are as follows: I have dried some of the below so that when they are not growing I still have some on hand - cheaper than buying dried herbs!!!

From the top is your every day Basil variety and it is fantastic this summer.
Then there is "All Year Basil"
Then "Lemon Basil"
Then "Thai Basil"

Yeah it's sold

Officially got the deposit for the big caravan at Sunseeker Village today - it is SOLD that is the best news ever.

Holiday here today

Good Morning all and it is a fantastic day here on the Sunshine Coast currently 0840am and it is very warm at present 25c supossed to get 32 today.

This is a photo of the famous Dunny race that they have each Australis Day at the "Etamogah Pub" this is about 15mins from us. On the main H/Way heading north. They run the race on the service road, this runs alongside the main H/Way north and is in front of the Pub - it is always a huge day and fantastic crowd comes to see.

It is a holiday here Australia Day and it is always a huge event - much like Waitangi Day in NZ ,however have to say the Aussie's do it far better. We are not planning anything we will go up to the caravan at the Village and do some last minute weeding and spraying for weeds and Brian just wants to do some last minute touch up paintiing then on Sunday we will clean the carpets, the guy is coming up from SA - Adelaide in 2wks so we want it to be looking good for him. Other than that we don't intend to do anything else, although I have some craft ATC cards to finish (ATC stands for Artist Trading Cards) these are for a swap at my forum that I belong to Artistic Document so I want to finish these today and get them in the post. Have a great day everyone catch you next time.

Sunshine sees us at the beach again

A trip to Bribie Island - Worrium was on the agenda to check on BIL caravan that he has in storage there, we thought we better make a quick trip south to make sure it had not sunk into the ground with all the rain. We found her in the corner good as gold the old NZ - Zephyr van  other than being crammed in with all sorts of vans,trucks, boats etc she seems fine.
Left there and headed to the beach at Worrium where Terry & Patricia stay when they are here, we found out today they are coming back in May, so we will do a couple of trips down with our van for the weekend.
The beach was crowded and even though the water was chocolate brown it did not seem to deter people from swimming, the colour was coming out of the Brisbane river with all the flood run off.
We headed over to the  Bribie Island surf club for a light lunch by 1.00pm it was crowded, we could not sit on the balconey as there were alot of functions that had booked the balconey out. We had a nice lunch and left around 2.30 for home.

These photos are of the beach at Worrium:

Yes I Had A Birthday

Thursday 20/1/2011 saw me have another birthday, I received some beautiful flowers from Brian,  and Kerry and David from the Fort Knox Office here surprised me with a lovely birthday cake complete with candle - enough for the four of us -  And also "Miss Brown" David's - Jack Russell dog,  gave me a Bingo scratchy and I won $6, thank you Miss Brown.

Heart Cards For The Qld - Flood Fund

I belong to a craft forum - Artistic Document and these girls are like family to me a really great group of girls. As many of you will know we have recently had some devastating floods here is Qld  -fortunately we here up on the Sunshine Coast were not really effected however many other poor souls have lost everything they own.
A plea has been put out for our forum family to make " Heart Cards "  that are going to be packed up into bundles of 10 and distributed to these poor unfortunate souls.
If we are able we have been asked to also add stamped envelopes to go with the cards.

Here are a few photos of the cards I have made as my contribution to this great cause.

This is the web site:
  http://heartcards.blogspot.com/

Coolum Beach

Last weekend saw Brian and get up and decide we really needed to get out for a few hours. We eventually decided that we would head to Coolum Beach which is about 30mins north of us on the coast, it is very close to the Sunshine Coast airport and the lovely Mudjimba Caravan Park where we go and stay sometimes.
Coolum has recently undergone a big revamp of the sidewalk shopping complex, we ambled along the shops taking a look in however not buying, we usually have a great coffee from the Coffee Club so off we went, while I found a nice spot out of the sun and in a bit of a breeze the good lad went and ordered - my word they sure do know how to make a coffee here. After the coffee saw us make our way across the road to the beach and took in some of the sights. By this time it was almost lunch time and Brian decided we would shout ourselves to lunch at the Surf Club - off we went and got a lovely spot on the balconey overlooking Coolum Beach - see the pics.

We had a nice relaxing time and headed back to the car as we had to have the car out of the carpark by 2.30pm or it would be towed. Headed home after a great time.

Big Surprise On New Year's Day

The best New Year's present came for us at 3.30pm, when we moved to our present address we have had to wait until now to have a huge caravan removed from outside our windows, this caravan was taking up space that belonged to our unit, the owner was overseas and we had to wait from June 2010 until 1/1/2011 for his caravan to be removed. It was not an easy task as it was not road worthy (no WOF for those in NZ)
therefore the owner had to arrange for a truck transporter to come and collect the van and transport it back to Victoria, where the owner now was back in the country.
But wait there's more as the van was so large it could not be turned around to allow the transporter into the complex to winch the van up onto the truck therefore another ph call to the owner's father (who is a Scotsman) and advise him of this, we said to him it will need a tow firm to come and tow the van out of the complex and onto the road - Ohhhh said the Scotty that will cost me another $100 - not our problem, tow truck arranged for New Years Day and that was the end of the monster away from our windows - and we now have light and sun coming in so therefore we don't feel like we are living in a dark tunnel any longer.
With the big van gone it gave us the room we needed to go up to the Sunseeker Village Caravan park hook up our little poptop van and bring her back down here with us, we spent the next day cleaning her as she had been under a tarp for so long and needed the awning rolled out so we could clean it down.
We now have our little " Poppy " parked out along side the unit however because she is so small and nowhere as high as the other van it does not block any light out at all.

Our Living Area

For those of you  who may not know, in mid June last year we moved from the Sunseeker Village Caravan Park to a modern 2bedroom unit with large living area and  beautiful outdoor area, this goes with the small caretaker's position that Brian and I have taken on. I am still able to continue my work at the print factory in Warana and Brian has a small job that sees him clean units at the storage facility where we live, when I am not at the print factory I either help Brian and or help in the office.
It is a lovely modern unit very roomy and we are very happy here.
It is classed as Little Mountain (the suburb) and it is very close to Caloundra which has a large shopping centre with everything you need. Caloundra itself is very pretty and has nice beaches and cafes, you can walk along the boardwalk from Caloundra - Bullcock Beach right around to King's Beach where there is another great swimming beach and has a large outdoor salt water pool, there are also great cafes & wine bars. There is also a smaller shopping centre down the road from us  "Stockland Mall", which has numerous shops, cafes, KMart, banks, pharmacies and more - it is a great place to shop when it is wet.

Happy New Year

I know it's a bit late however Happy New Year to all my family and friends.
New Year's eve saw Brian and I off down to King's Beach, one of the best local beaches near us,  infact not even 10mins from home.
It was a truely wonderful evening and we knew there was going to be a fireworks display around 9.15pm so we thought we would head to the beach and have a look see.
We parked out of the main area of Caloundra and walked with the many other hundreds of people armed with torches for a stroll around the boardwalk prom to King's Beach, we found a spot on the bank and sat and waited for the fireworks to start.
Around 9.20pm they started a fantastic show which went on for around 15mins, there was a pretty strong wind blowing so they unfortunately did not get to the height that they possibly were meant to.
After watching these we made the slow stroll amongst the many folks back to the car and drove home where we had a couple of wines and sat and watched the New Year's eve lineup on TV for the rest of the night which included the amazing fireworks live from Sydney Harbour Bridge oh wow just amazing, we saw the New Year in and then headed off for the night and the beginning of 2011.

Well here goes

Welcome to my blog, I have included a brief run down about myself. This blog is not only about my craft but also my family. The idea is to keep you up to date with what I do with myself to busy other than working
I am living in Queensland on the Sunshine Coast. Originally I am from Christchurch NZ. I have been living in Queensland for 6yrs. I have an adult daughter who is my pride and joy, her partner, and my other pride and joy is my 4yr old grandson.
All my family are living back in Christchurch. I am married to the most amazing husband who is simply wonderful to me, he has family here 2 daughter's and 3 grandchildren, so total of 4 grandies, 2 girls age 11 & 10 and 2 boys both aged 4.
I have only taken up craft in the last 3yrs and started with card making classes at an amazing craft shop in Nambour - (Daisy Chain). Last year with some gentle and helpful advice from friends I decided to try my hand at scrapbooking I am only a beginner however with the help from many friends on the Artistic Document forum I am really enjoying it.
I work as a casual for a printing company in Warana - LEP Colour Printers, I generally work 4days a week or as required, I am unable to work Monday's. On a Saturday from 0800 until midday both Brian and I run the office at the Fort Knox Complex where we live on site in a nice 2 bedroom unit, there is a lady who will do any Saturday that we would like to have off. Therefore that is about it so you will no doubt be waiting for the next post, so I had better get my thinking cap on and sort out some photos for you.
Thanks for taking the time to read my blog.