Autumn Adventures

'SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,	5
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,	10
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.' John Keats A perfect description of Autumn and I am so enjoying it at the moment. Beautiful, misty mornings, cool evenings, it's time to think about getting cosy and hunkering down against the coming cold weather. Our wood shed is choc a block, I have put the doona on the bed and filled the freezer with nourishing soups made from home grown vegies.

While it may be heading towards Winter here, my FB news feed and blogs are full of beautiful Spring images from the UK & USA.

Of course it inspires me and comes out in my stitcheries.

A sprinkle of rain and a sunny day, have mushies popping up here and there in our paddocks.

After spending Good Friday out and about, I had to light the wood heater when I got home. 

It had been raining and was quite chilly.

The fire warmed the room, but I felt icy fingers of air sneaking under the door and curling around my ankles.

Action stations.......

I needed a new draught stopper to replace the saggy, old ones which were no longer earning their keep.

 An old, grey blanket was used and then I snipped and stitched Autumn treasures onto it......success.

No more chilly draughts....

I had so much fun making this that I think I need to make 2 more for the other doorways.

Look who I spied feeding in the Zinnia patch this afternoon!!

I quietly high tailed it back to the house to grab my camera and hope that he hadn't flown off.

I stood there for a good 30sec. snapping pics as this Eastern Spinebill flitted from flower to flower.

Isn't he amazing?......

Eastern Rosellas are regular visitors to our property and they enjoy the Silver Birch seed heads in the 'Wild Wood'.

Love seeing them here, I just hope the bird life at our new property is as prolific and diverse.....I'm sure it will be..

Monday week ago I picked up two very special visitors from the local airport.

My nieces Jacquie (Middle) and Shelley (RHS) from the UK made a whirlwind visit to Oz where they visited their dads family in Perth for 10 days and then flew across to Victoria to spend a week with me.

Jacquie was born in Albany, W.A. and has been back to Oz for a 3 month visit in 2002. Shelley was born in the UK and has never been out here, so it was extra special to see them both.

They are such lovely girls, funny, animated, friendly, happy, delightful house guests and yes I am a very biased Aunt.....

Nice to have some female company about for a change!

We chatted and laughed, drank lots of cuppas, went adventuring each day and before we knew it we were back at the airport again.

They are now back in Edinburgh having moved there just before their holiday. So, busy unpacking and setting up their new home.

Friday we packed sandwiches muffins and a thermos and headed to Mt. Beauty for a late picnic lunch, but when we arrived we decided to head up the mountain to Falls Creek resort.

We watched the outside temp.gauge drop as we drove higher.

We all had a guess as to what the temp. would be at the summit.....7 deg. I won!!

I had the pleasure of making the cuppas (teapot, tea leaves hot water, etc.) out side the car in the icy wind and rain!!

No complaints, I love a car picnic when it's rainy out and you're inside .......happy childhood memories.

We stopped in at Bogong Village on the way back down.

The water level was pretty low in the lake, so we could walk across to the island.

It reminded me of something out of the Hobbit or

 Lord of the Rings.

Beautiful, Autumn colours.....

We lunched at the Milawa Cheese Factory one day.....

Beautiful food and I just love this 'curtain' of foliage.

How gorgeous is this colour?

While the girls were here, I had my sewing machine and fabric etc. packed away......we needed to use the dining table!!

I did have with drawal symptoms, but had my crocheted granny square blanket to work on.......

By Easter Friday, some embroidery thread and snippets of fabric had found their way onto the coffee table and a little stitchery was taking place.

It's now finished and I so enjoyed a change of stitching pace.

It's been such a busy time with Easter falling while the girls were here.

There were two dinner nights with friends and family and we've just finished eating the leftovers!!

My 2 sisters who both live interstate made the trip down so it was a great family get together.

I showed the girls my little corner of the globe and introduced them to the joy of breakfast and coffee in town on a Saturday morning and the fun of doing the Age newspaper quizz with 'the gang'

They cuddled baby kangaroos and got up close to wombats and wallabies at our local wildlife refuge.

We headed to Bright last Saturday and fought our way through crowds at the markets and bumped into cousins that couldn't make it to lunch.

The last night they were here, we wrapped ourselves up in warm jackets, headed outside and lay down on the driveway to gaze at the stars.

They couldn't get over how many stars they could see.

 They were absolutely gobsmacked and I have to say the stars put on a great show for them.

It's been a very special time, who knows when I will see them again, but Jacquie has a spare bedroom in her flat, so if you don't see another blog post for a couple of months don't be surprised if I suddenly post pics from Scotland!

Righto, the sewing machine is back in it's rightful place....the dining table and I've got lots of ideas that need stitching, so catch ya later.

Claire Xx