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.

Keeping Busy in June

Winter has set in and June has meant harvest and pruning in my garden...

Two are orchids in flower at my back window.

I harvested my water chestnuts - thanks Rauri.

The last rose buds gathered as I pruned my roses and added lots of my lovely new soil.

Moving in at last

Elaine and I, Terry and Ellie spent Thursday/Friday this week moving into the new Underhill 'shed'.

The lounge room complete with very old Persian Rug.

The dining room

The kitchen area complete with servery

Terry and Ellie came to help move the caravan into its new position and to cut some firewood for themselves

Nothing is ever simple - the tow ball would not fit.

Luckily I was equiped with towing chain and then had to walk along beside with the solar panel

Decisions had to be made about where to put it

Here is where it ended up until we can actually move it into the carport area - reconditioned tyres needed for manouvering

 

 Sleeping in the caravan in its new temporary position was fine.

Elaine gave it a wash and now we can see out of the windows

Homemaking in our new space was lots of fun but quite exhausting.

Thank you Elaine, Terry and Ellie for coming to help with this new adventure.

Underhill - guess what we found yesterday!

Yesterday Geoff and I (and Ponyo) visited Underhill to inspect the new 'shed' and start tidying up after the building. Here are a few pics...

Two medlars were ripe and squishy. Apparently they tasted fantastic raw.

The fear of having the rooves falling on us is now over and it is amazing the new feeling both Geoff and I have for the place. I can't wait to get down there again.

There is now a lot of work to do to tidy up and tow the caravan into its new home so if you'd like to come and help some time or just come to inspect the new space please just let me know.

Dirt, girls and cockatoos

Last week I had 3 cubic metres of vegie mix soil delivered. Unfortunately the truck was too big to get up the drive way but the driver did try. So I ended up with a large pile of beautiful topping for my vegetable gardens on my front drive.

 I started moving it that evening but to my delight Leigha came to stay that night and in the morning Leigha and Arianne helped move the huge pile onto my vegie gardens and stockpiled the remainder in my back carport ready for various areas that need to wait until further into winter.

 The driveway is now clear in less than 24 hours after deliver. Thank you so much Leigha and Arianne. At least getting my steps up two days this week have been quite easy (see previous entry).

 The cockatoos have invaded the street again as they do each year. They are after the Podocarpus fruits and leave a sticky mess all over the cars. So if you come to visit do not park your car under a tree at the moment.

Steps, steps and more steps

I've been wearing a Fitbit since Christmas to gauge just how active I am in my normal daily routine. Sometimes I can achieve a mere 2000 steps all day and my highest has been 20000 steps in one day. However, for the last four weeks I have set my goal at a minimum of 10000 steps each day. Today I achieved my goal and Fitbit has provided me with the graph below.

They decided I was an overachiever but I had to prove to myself that I could do it. On the occasions where the green bars just reach the 10000 line are probably days when I have had to jog on the spot to actually get there but I feel that is a legitimate exercise anyway and that I'm quite justified in counting it.

So the conclusion is YES - I can do a minimum of 10000 steps per day. Sometimes if I want a lazy day I just have to do a 10 minute row, some jogging on the spot or take a walk around the block to achieve my goal.

One thing I have noticed is that my core body muscles are much stronger than they have been for a long time with my combination of steps and Pilates.

Music, music, music!

Wow! April has been a month of music and it is going to continue. My musical commitments include...

The Sylvantones (the Sylvanvale choir) continues to practice every Monday after lunch in various retirement centres and performs at a variety of extra venues. Here we are at a dinner in 2013. Tonight we are performing at another dinner at Cronulla.

The Sutherland Shire Choral Society will be performing on Sunday 18 May. If you'd like tickets I have some for sale or you can buy them at the door. Details are on the website.

On Good Friday I performed Olivet to Calvary (Maunder) at St Stephen's Uniting Church in Macquarie Street. What an uplifting experience. I had never heard the work before and only had a week to learn it so it was quite a challenge.

At the afternoon tea that followed I expressed my love of sacred music and would love the opportunity to sing in such a choir and was immediately offered a position as an alto. So now I have a huge commitement to sing from 9-12am each Sunday in the St Stephen's Choir in the city. This means I'll be learning something new each week plus the alto parts for all the hymns. The psalms and some prayers are also sung for each service. I'd been invited to join this choir about 10 years ago but lifestyle commitments did not allow it. Now I can commit to at least half the Sundays in the year and am still allowed to take leave for various travel opportunities. This will also give me an opportunity to visit Mum more often as she lives just a few train stops away.

I will be performing Rutter's Gloria and the Duruflé Requiem with the Sydney Philharmonia Chorus Oz choir in the Opera House on Sunday 8 June. Tickets are available so please come along. This is a fabulous opportunity and again I have to learn it on my own with only the Saturday and Sunday of the long weekend to practise it en masse before the performance. I have joined this choir each year and this will be my 10th year I think.

So can I maintain all this music action? We'll see what happens.

Underhill Demolition Continues

Yesterday the demolition of rooves began and was completed in just 6 hours. One neighbour Cal and another neighbour Laurie worked like trojans to complete the job on a beautifully fine day.

From this...

...to this

Even the caravan roof was taken off safely.

The caravan was moved away from the new building site too. Apparently it only has two flat tyres.

Thanks Cal and Laurie.

Now the building of the new roof can begin as soon as the builders are ready.

Underhill Demolition Begins

Geoff and I have now cleared the covered areas at Underhill ready for the rooves to be removed.

We have now exposed lots more termites and are extremely glad that this job is starting at last. It would not be too long before the rooves collapsed on us. Surrey was watching them rot away over the last few years of his life and knew he would not be able to build any replacements. Geoff and I (and Ponyo) spent some time reflecting on good times as well as reasons for choices that have been made over the years.

We now have empty spaces where walls and furniture has 'always' been.

 We also have a rather large blue "Noah's Ark" of furniture covered in a few huge tarps that are tied down. I do hope they are protected enough until the new roof is ready.

The new roof is to have METAL uprights which we hope will thwart the termites a bit.

Boys and Ponyo

Last weekend I had a great time with a sleepover for Alex, Luke and Ponyo at my house. We all had a great time. Ponyo loves gardening and occasionally rearranges plants for me. The boys love sewing but we could not do any this time. However we did make pancakes for breakfast and played other games both inside and with Ponyo.