A couple of VERY picture heavy posts coming up!!!

I’m back briefly for a two-week stint on the internet, before losing it again for possibly a full month … I wish I could say I’ve been spending my time offline stitching my little heart out, but the truth of the matter is I’ve hardly touched a needle the whole time … I’ve had my nose in a book instead, and finally read Diana Gabaldon’s latest novel “A Breath of Fire & Ashes”. All I can say is “wow!” – over 900 pages, and once you get into it you just can’t put it down!!! Those novels would have to be some of my all-time favourite books – and every single one has had me hooked and enthralled through every single page!  Next up I’ve borrowed “The Kite Runner to read, which apparently is supposed to be exceptional – everyone I’ve spoken to so far has raved about it, so I thought I’d find out what all the fuss is about … 😉

Anyway, I can say that I have done some sort of stitching, although it’s not embroidery … I finally hand-stitched all the binding onto my Quilt UFO – this would have to be about 8-10 years old, and it’s a great feeling to finally get it finished. One of the Supervisors at work has offered to buy it from me, as I wasn’t too sure what to do with it now it’s all finished, so I’ll probably take her up on her offer – even if I just get $20 for it.  I need to get it drycleaned first, though, to get rid of both the old musty smell and the wrinkles 😉

As to what else I’ve been up to … there have been some hiccups with my housesitting, which I won’t go into in huge detail, but it’s started me thinking about giving it up and looking for my own place in November. Daniel came home from overseas a day early, when I was in the middle of packing up … I got a call at 7pm (on a 6pm shift) to say they were at home and basically wanted to get into their own bed – having no spare room, they stayed at his parents place overnight and kept saying “how early can we come over?” so I felt really uncomfortable, I ended up finishing my packing after work at 2am and doing the last lot of cleaning, then going back to work at 5am to pick up a key from my pal a day early … she wasn’t expecting me turning up at work, of course, and let’s just say I had a frosty reception. Made me realise how much I rely on her for my ‘inbetween’ times of housesitting, and I think it would be better to call it quits (mind you, I did get an apology from Daniel when I saw him next.) It would be perfect if I could get something for 2-3 months over Christmas, but I guess that’s not going to happen, so decisions need to be made ho-hum 😦

While I had my days off, though, I made a concerted effort to get out and see some more of the Mornington Peninsula – I headed out for a drive to Arthur’s Seat to take in the views, then spent time in both The Enchanted Maze Garden and Ashcombe Maze & Lavender Gardens, before taking a quick drive out to Sorrento and back home. It was a wonderful day out, and even though most of the garden wasn’t in bloom yet, it was a really pleasant way to spend the day. I’ll definitely have to go back again when the flowers are out, as the gardens will take on a whole different personality again 🙂

Here are some shots of the views from Arthur’s Seat … there’s usually a chairlift operating to the summit, but it’s closed during winter, so I just drove up to the top instead 🙂

The next couple of posts will be dedicated to both of the individual gardens I went to, and they’ll be pretty chocka full of photos – I took oodles more as well, and in fact went a bit snap happy overall haha.

In the meantime I’ll close this post with photos of some of the colourful beach huts on the beaches of the Mornington Peninsula – I just adore their bright colours, and I’ve been dying to take some photos of them forever. I still want to head out to Brighton beach at some stage and take photos of those ones too, as they’re the most famous ones in Melbourne, I think (there’s a great shot here – love it!). Here are a few from Dromana anyway …

Rightio, while my next lot of photos are loading up into Webshots, I’m off to clean up cat sick … that was what greeted me on my first ‘morning’ here in Edithvale – I woke up after my nightshift to find a pile of cat sick on the lounge carpet and floorboards … there’d better be some rubber gloves somewhere, that’s all I can say!!! Let’s just hope I’m not like I normally am … I often join in in sympathy at the sound and smell of sick … yukky!! 😦