More ancient history

It's definitely spring, although we are still putting the fire on most nights, because it is pretty. My husband has sanded and re-varnished the garage door and it looks AMAZING, I am very impressed. He has a can of varnish left over so will do the front door as well. 

We are continuing to go through the tubs. Here is my graduation photo, with exactly the haircut I have now! I went through many many hair variations from there to here ... thirty five years worth. But hey you work with what you have. 

When I became an officially recognised de facto spouse (for the purposes of the Australian government paying to move me to Australia, excellent lurk, five stars) I had to have a medical exam. This is what the doctor wrote. Apparently I was outraged at the time ... I am STILL outraged. Well built indeed.  Who says that? NO DEFORMITIES??????

And this is my lifetime driver's license that the NZ government went through a phase of issuing. You got your license - no photo - and kept it for 55 years. So this license was all mine at the age of 15 (because that was the appropriate age for operating a vehicle apparently) and has not yet expired. I don't think it is valid any more because they changed the rules but I am still amazed that anyone thought that was a good idea.

Urban sketchers again

After the excitement of the north it was a quiet weekend back at home. I spent Saturday sitting quietly (although I did get a haircut - sick of it blowing in my face!) and then on Sunday I went and joined the Urban Sketchers meetup again. This time it was at Parliament House, which was a bit like a work day for some of us, but we met in the gardens which are always beautiful.

I decided I'd do the beehives. There were lots of long vistas and big buildings and gorgeous landscapes ... all of which frighten me and none of which I think I can do successfully. I felt like tackling something a lot smaller. The only problem with the beehives was you can't get too close for obvious reasons, so I took a few photos and just zoomed in when I felt I needed more detail. 

I am unusually pleased with the finished result, although I did use a lot of artistic license in the layout. I felt like just using pen rather than trying to capture the landscape (dull gum-tree brown mostly) but it was a bit boring so I added in the bees! Completely wrong species of course, I think they are more bumble bees, but fun to do and got the point across.

Here is the group throw-down of all the sketches, some are absolutely amazing. Everyone is so supportive though, no matter what people do, I really like it.

Townsville

Last week I had a couple of days in far north Queensland - in Townsville - somewhere I had never been before! When we lived in Port Moresby we spent a fair bit of time in Cairns (which is about four hours drive north of Townsville) as a long weekend / shopping trip destination but I really haven't explored the area at all. My expectations of Townsville were quite low, given that it's beef, army, the reef and not much else ... but I was pleasantly surprised, it has a lot going on and it's very pretty.

I definitely think a long retirement driving holiday could be in order. Or maybe not driving, it is about 2200km from here if you go the boring inland route. It took most of the day just to fly there, via Brisbane.

This is me looking hot. It was only about 26 degrees and breezy but I am acclimatised to the Canberra winter. My flight back was at lunchtime so I went for a long walk in the morning along the esplanade which was very pleasant. I didn't bring my swimmers sadly but there looked like an excellent swimming lagoon. You can allegedly swim in the water without nets from May - October but I don't know if I would risk it.

Most of the time was work (or what passes for work in my world) - flying about in a helicopter with the ramp open.

And walking out onto a very windy wharf right on the east coast. It feels very remote, with a whole coastline of nothing leading to more nothing in both directions.

There was also some research tanks - heat resistant coral! Bring it on I say, thumbs up for all the people doing amazing things with their gigantic brains. 

T-shirt dress

I wore this to work the other day - very comfortable if perhaps not entirely professional. It is a t-shirt dress made from a 1990s jersey knit I bought at one of the church de-stash sales. 

It is quite unflattering with no seams or any kind of shaping ... which of course makes it lovely to wear, and if you put a cardy over the top who would know.

And it doesn't need ironing. I made it ages ago and haven't worn it, so it was on its last chance, but it was so comfortable and easy to wear that I will keep it.

Wildlife

I went down the beach for the weekend and saw an echidna on my walk! Dumpy dumpying along the beach, which is not a sensible place for a wee echidna, especially not an off-leash dog beach. They are so cute in the way they waddle about, and randomly dig; there was a whole heap of people watching and trying to shoo it towards the dunes. But not too close because spiky.

That was absolutely the most exciting thing that happened on the weekend. It was incredibly windy but not as bad as up in Canberra - in fact the whole country - where we have had unseasonably warm weather and gale force winds. Nasty, and a scary sign of the summer to come.

My walk also took me down one of the back streets towards the river ... and into the south coast equivalent of the bayou. It is rather pretty in its own way but I'm not sure I would build a house there. 

This is absolutely swampland - there is standing water underneath that house. God only knows how they got planning permission - you can't drive to the house although there is kind of a raised driveway - you have to park on the road. It just looks like malaria and snake-bite.

The creek is more my style I think.

Here is a picture that should not be on the internet, my chonky fat faboofadahs with a rather spectacular bruise. I was rolling on my art chair when I went over the cord of the hairdryer that I use to dry the watercolour paintings - the chair stopped rolling but I kept travelling into the sharp corner of the closet. A straight line bruise now going all shades of yellow. Nice.