Winter holidays

What a busy time it's been for the last month or so. Ellen, Rod and the boys have been in the USA and Geoff and Jen have been in Europe. What a great time they have all had.

I have had lots of patchwork jobs to tidy up and finish off and lots of singing concerts.

The best part of it all has been that Ponyo has come to stay for a few weeks.

Lots of sticks to chew

Breakfast with Ma at the back window in the dark.

Naughty times. She gets black blotches when she anihilates my water gardens.

 

I've had visitors too. Pernilla has come to stay and we visited Camelia Gardens which is beautiful at the moment with all the camelias out.

This one is my favourite "Winter's Own" - Camelia reticulata.

I also love the Pyrocanthus around Sydney at the moment so bought one to grow in an ugly corner of my garden. It might look like this one day.

And of course I love violets.

Yu (from Japan) came to dinner with Karen and Alastair. And I had a special outing to see Strictly Ballroom (the musical) with the Ingold family.

Concerts over the last month or so have included one with the Sutherland Choral Society, Chorus Oz with the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs and of course every Sunday and even a Friday funeral with the St Stephens Church choir. I am loving all the singing and the brain work of having to learn alto parts for at least four hymns and an anthem each week (sometimes more) must the doing the grey matter some good.

All this has happened squished in between my normal activities so I've been busy but this has been good because there is absolutely nothing on TV with the world cup interrupting a lot of my normal shows.