New walking shoes

I've been doing so much walking that my shoes have worn out! When does that ever happen ... they have rubbed away at the back so Saturday morning I went and bought some new ones and tried them out on Sunday. And went too far of course, and gave myself blisters, but I did take a photo of them looking pretty. Unfortunately it was hot, even early in the morning, so between the blisters and the sweating I can't say I had a wonderful time. It might be the end of the afternoon walks for a few months. 

We had a long weekend and husband and number two son went down the beach, while number one and I hung out at home. Lazily, mostly. I went round and had drinks with friends who are having FAR too much fun in retirement - bees, chickens, vegie gardens, watercolour lessons and gin drinking. I am very jealous. 

Sunday number one and I went to IKEA, which we both enjoy every now and again, to look at the furniture layouts, buy unecessary things (me) and have a hot dog (him). IKEA sells little speakers now, which they like to put in the different rooms all playing different music. Loudly. It drives me insane because you can hear multiple types of music at once and I find it beyond distracting. So I turn them either off or right down quiet as I go around ... number one son agrees with me completely (we have a very quiet house). My personal best is six speakers in one walk through, but I think I can do better. 

This was the sky on Sunday - hot, windy and a high cloud that made it feel like weather was coming. And there was a huge thunderstorm on Monday night at about midnight - I was still awake (curse you daylight savings, my six am alarm this morning was a terrible shock) and number one was coming back from his regular dungeons and dragons evening - he reported massive lightning and thunder and rain. It's still raining today on Wednesday which is very nice and very welcome.

The yellow is cape weed (Arctotheca calendula), an environmental weed that flourishes in crappy soils (i.e. all of Canberra) and crowds out the grass and is generally undesirable ... except for two weeks in spring when it is a very pretty carpet of yellow flowers. Pam asked about the bug spraying - no infestations to report luckily, we just have the house sprayed every six months or so. Mostly for redback spiders, which we get a lot of around the house. The spraying keeps them reasonably in check, although we are also happy to live three minutes drive to the hospital.