Classic Adelaide

Here it is for the petrol heads - the video of some of the action at Classic Adelaide 2009!!!!

That is me in the orange jacket and white vest - kind of standing where I was told not to. Was supposed to be behind any big tree in case a car fell off the track. And so I pretended to be, and kidded myself I could leap to safety if a car came at me 180 kph. Fortunately none of them did and The Sweetheart didn't need to give me too big a telling off when he saw how stupid I had been.

Two Victorian based Porsche blokes were killed on the first day (Thursday) when their car smacked into a very large gum tree, so this sport is really dangerous. Not for the fraint hearted at all. The rest of the field were pretty subdued for the rest of the event because of the deaths of Gary Teirney and David Carra.

This is just a little taste - here are lots of photos that The Sweetheart and I took. Can't tell you which ones are mine and which are his though. You can hear me clicking away when you watch the video. There should be a camera that doesn't make noise! (yeah yeah I know there are, and my dig does have a silent feature so you can stop pretend it is a real camera, but this one is a real digital and does make noises cos it has proper innards!).

That is Bendigo used house dealer Bernie O'Shannessy and his nephew in the silver grey 1930 Chrysler. He was having GREAT fun - he rather epitomises old car racing for me. Get in there and get your hands dirty, find a car and fix it up yourself - and then bloody well race it like you were enjoying yourself! Laugh a lot of everyone else and everything else whilst doing so.

There was a frigging Ferarri worth something like $12 mill (YES - TWELVE MILLION bucks) and as it fluttered slowly past a woman behind us snorted "I drive my kids to school FASTER than that". And she is right - if you can afford a $12 mill car then you can afford to drive it like you can afford to fix it if you bend it. Otherwise (in my opinion) you are just a wanker.

Anyway, have fun with a little slice of the action:

Oh bugger, the embed code isn't working on Youtube.

Until I get it fixed just go to Youtube and check out the video there. Here

And I will give embedding another burl!

eBay Delights!

Since I bought the John Watts quilting frame etc back in June I have been slowly getting the hang of eBay.
Watching LOTS of stuff, and even bidding on a couple of things. Usually at the very last moment - I have been to enough auctions to know not to push up prices half way through an auction...

Recently, I bought ten Barbie dolls for $26 (woohoo- after spending $4,000 of Noela's money on the John Watts frame etc that was a good way to get the hang of a second auction!).
I have been making clothes for them from the Enid Gilchrist Teen and Fashion Dolls book and they will be for all the great nieces, and Moo the GK for Christmas pressies.
They are all gorgeous, and the seller had washed AND SHAMPOOED their hair and their clothes were all clean and a couple of them even had shoes (tho Trevor ate one I later discovered. Naughty Barbie thing must have kicked it off while I was taking the photo out in the garden...)

Next, I got a pair of the most delightful little Japanese dolls for $10.

They came from Tasmania near Noela's place so she picked them up for me.
While I was waiting for her to organise collection with the seller I bought a great stack of Lego blocks for Noela to hand on to her grandies as well. That was about 250 pieces for $20.

Aren't the dollies gorgeous? I have yet to touch them but Noela said they are really lovely. I thought they would be lovely toys to have when (future) grand kids come to visit. (There were special toys at Nana's for us to play with - a Mammy Doll with gold hoop ear rings, and a topsy turvy Red Riding Hood and Wolf, a long legged clown and an elephant. Nana had made them all.).


Last night I bought two quilt tops...
When I got the notice from eBay I realised I "knew" the seller. She is an Axe Murderer quilter who wrote to congratulate me on buying the John Watts.

This is the link to her blog with photos of the tops she sold last night. I haven't met her except here on the Net.

I got the lovely square one with yellow stars on purple and print which has coffee cups all over it; and the red Hunter's Stars on green background. As she says in her post last night that it wouldn'tbe possible to make them for the price they all sold for.

I rather wanted the autumnal coloured pineapple - for The Sweetheart's Dad for his summer quilt. It would match the flannel one I made him when he first moved in to Happy Paddocks Retirement Village. However, it went very high - as much as I paid for the first two tops.

She says she has 50 more to quilt. I don't feel so bad about the 13-ish WIPs I have here... And I want her to send me a label so I can acknowledge her creativity when I quilt the tops.

I have got such bargains. I will have to sell something, but I really can't see what is going to make me any money when things are so cheap!!!! There ARE lots of quilty books that I have outgrown so they really may be the first things I flog off...

Mum's ball gown

Our Mum made a ball gown to wear to a Highland Ball - 6 weeks after she had her 6th baby. I wrote about it here where there is a photo of my sister Noela wearing it.
Mum was so slender she wore under it the full circle taffeta petticoat she had worn when she was a bridesmaid for her sister. When she was 16...

Mum made this gown on the Singer treadlie, it is blue crystal organza with embroidered silver sprays on it

The original pattern is long gone. I have spent years looking for one. I think I have found it!!!!

It is Butterick 6810 and looks VERY like Mum's gown. Mum made a gathered skirt rather than the circle - the organza was so fine that it fitted the waist just fine without bunching out. Mum had to sew the seams with tissue paper over them to stop it scrunching and dragging and making life hell under the presser foot. It is 22' feet around the hem...

Mum actually was (is) about as skinny as the drawing of the model - she is nearly 6' tall. I remember how gorgeous she looked in her ball gown. Hector was in his full kilt regalia - MacDonald tartan of course.



I just found it on eBay - an envelope that didn't look very healthy, and I found it with only minutes to spare in America so there wasn't time to ask the seller if the pattern was complete etc.
So I didn't actually buy it. There have been a couple for sale - mostly around $US65 - 100. Ouch.

So I shall just keep looking. If anyone has this pattern in a useable condition please let me know - I could swap something Aussie and worthwhile for it.
Though how does one put a price on nostalgia?

Photos

Here are some photos from the weekend that I didn't get to add in on Monday's post.










This is Edna the Axe Murderer cuddling a koala.
Please note no actual koalas were harmed in this photo shoot...
This koala was made by Mum's Uncle Shig (Sid) Bayliss who was a famous tanner, saddler and whipmaker in Tumut. He shot the kangaroo, tanned the hide and made this koala for me when I was a tiny baby.

We don't get to see too many left hand drive vehicles up our road...


















And here is the Axe Murderer, and her DH, and The Kid.
Yep, some of my quilts hanging there.
Actually - quilt tops...















And this is the wonderful dessert I made.
Jelly (jello for your Americans) made from cranberry juice and pomegranate juice with a dash of rose water. I reduced about 500 mls of the pomegranate juice to 200 mls - so it was a thick syrup with intense flavour.
Thickened it with a few envelopes of gelatine, and then cut it into cubes when it had set.
The dessert is made to your liking with crushed meringue, dollops of extra good icecream (this one had caramel clumps in it), globs of cream, strawberries sliced finely and added to thawed mixed berries, with the cranberry jelly on top.

It is sort of based on Eton Mess - have a Google for more ideas...

I might have to go make some afternoon tea. I don't think there is any jelly left, but there is icecream. And cream. And meringue and berries...
I can justify it. It is heading to 40*C again today....

I love aprons!!!

Mum always wore an apron, usually with her wedding ring pinned to the bib with a nappy pin. One frosty winter morning she got back from milking and discovered her wedding ring was missing.
Back in the 1960s it was a dreadful thing to not be wearing a wedding ring - particularly with six little kids trailing along behind like a duck train. I think Mum wore her engagement ring back to front when we went to town, church etc so she wouldnt be branded a Scarlet Woman (not that it would have mattered - everyone knew who she was! But it mattered to her). Until about six months later she saw something glinting in the dust of a hot summer morning as she was struggling back with a couple of buckets of warm frothy milk - and there was her wedding ring.

Mrs Prange from Mittyack made most of Mum's aprons. She had even more kids but they were a bit more spread out and older and able to look after the younger ones, so she had time to whip up aprons. I guess she made thousands over the years. Always full aprons with sensible ties and bibs and a useful pocket or two for hankies and little kids' treasures.

Remember this apron I wrote about a few months ago?



I found a lovely give-away apron to celebrate Goosegirl's 100th posting.

You can find out about her give-away here.

Isn't this gorgeous? It is rather similar to the old pattern I lust after. In fact Goosegirl copied it from an ancient flour bag apron that used to belong to her MIL.

Axe Murderers

Edna The Axe Murderer was an American quilter who found me last year on Facebook, when she and her DH were living in Germany.
She is now a member of QDU and Scquilters and settling in well with the Canberra Quilters, etc.

Her DH is with the American Embassy and was transferred to Canberra in June. And this was their furtherest trip from their new home (450 miles according to their GPS machinery)! Smellie 3 stayed with them for a few days when he was in Germany earlier in the year and they treated him to every tourist trek they could and looked after him so well.

They drove for 11 hours on Friday (the 13th) stopping at every quilt shop, and a few wineries (Brown Bros tho missed June Brown by a few minutes but got to see her quilts in the winery) and craft shops along the journey. It has been appallingly hot weather, was 40* again on Saturday when we took them to a barbeque and Naming Ceremony for my friend's little boy Oliver who was born 13 weeks prem in Aug last year. This is when he should have been one year old!
A lovely party at the Dad's parents place here in Newstead apart from the appalling heat. Oliver's Mummy had very cleverly thought of buying a GREAT many cheap water pistols from the $2 shop and handed them out to all the kids (even the old kids!). Fabulous idea in that heat.
A lovely meaningful ceremony with Gifts of laughter, music, light, faith, friendship, family bestowed upon the dear little man.

I made one of those desserts with 2 packets each of chocolate ripple and ginger snap biscuits (cookies) dipped in coffee and then sandwiched together with 1.2L of whipped cream, then smothered in more cream, sprinkled with cocoa, grated chocolate and peppermint choc bar crumbled. All served on a great oval silver tray. It vanished in one minute.
The other desert I made was 1 litre of pomegranate juice and cranberry juiced with some rose water set with gelatine and then cut into cubes, and served on bought meringue cases filled with more whipped cream and served with lots of sliced mixed berries and strawberries. (We had more last night but with added icecream mushed in too,. Perfect!!!!!)

Yesterday we went to Bendigo to the Swap Meet which was rather disappointing as most of the stands were already packing up at noon. However - not too many of the 25,000 visitors who usually turn up! I bought the Axe Murderer a very old Grimm Fairy Tales book (her surname is Grimm), and a little old Corgi Matchbox metal Porsche for The Sweetheart as it is our anniversary today. I also tried on a diamond ring and walked over to the next stand to show The Sweetheart - it was worth (the stall holder said...) $26,000. It was pretty garish actually...

We went to the quilt shop in Maldon where Edna scared her plastic a fair bit. They all got to talk to the alpacas and emu at our neighbours; and pat the Clydesdales around the corner who are on R&R from Ballarat's Sovereign Hill (historic village) - their 14 yo boy hadn't ever touched a horse before!

Lots of 'chantelle' this morning (show and tell), and in between we had a lovely lovely visit with her, her DH, and their boy. They set off at 11 this morning to head back via Threadbear quilt shop in Castlemaine...

I am just putting this up quickly before I fall sidewys in to bed - check back tomorrow for the photos and the links!

Housekeeping...and Axe Murderers!

Today there is an Axe Murderer coming to visit. All the way from Canberra with her husband and a 14 yo son. They left early this morning to avoid the heat - when I rang at 0800 they were just coming up to Gundagai and The Dog On The Tuckerbox.

And instead of making beds, and doing dishes and knocking down spiderwebs I am deleting spam comments on my Gallery.

Thousands of them...
They were being added as I was deleting them. Faster than I was deleting them too which was frustrating!
I talked to Smellie 2 in Dublin - he is the Treasureful Son who hosts my website - he said "Oops, sorry, I set a spam filter up for (his wife) but I must have forgotten yours"... He is forgiven. Nothing to forgive, really - I should have done it myself.

So now all comments will be moderated for a little while. I also added an API Key - http://en.support.wordpress.com/api-keys/
If you have any sort of website you should add this. It does all sorts of things, including keepign stats etc, but specifically - for me - is a spam filter.

How good is it to read:

"Checked 585 comments. Found 0 spam comments."

Hooray!!

It is free, and although you need a Wordpress account you don't need a Wordpress blog.

While I am on housekeeping there are a couple of other things you could do for me. And for yourself, and for the rest of the world really!



Please activate your email address on your Blogspot profile. That way, when you leave a comment I can say thank you to you.
Otherwise, it looks like this:
noreply-comment@blogger.com
and that is no use to man or beast. Or me.

Thank you to Sheila aubirdwoman who is my blog helper on this.

Additionally, regularly check who your followers are.
I have had a couple of followers whose names have been obscure - sometimes just letters, or scary stupid - who are phishers. I have blocked them.

There are also some of my followers who don't have a photo.
It isn't at all difficult to add a pic. It doesn't have to be of yourself. You can put up a photo of a quilt, or your dog, whatever. It is really hard to remember who is who if ten of you look the same!

Also (another also!!!) check and see how many blogs you have. Seems that when you are just beginning here mistakes are made. It is easier to start another blog than to correct the mistakes.
Just make sure you have deleted your old, unused crappy blog.

Now I had better make beds for my visitors. The Axe Murder is an American quilter and her family. When they were living in Germany Smellie 3 stayed with them. Now they have recently moved to Canberra and this is their first big trek out of our nation's capital (a bloody good sheep station ruined...).

We have some excitement planned - apart from 40*C heat and spider web counting I mean.
Bendigo Swap Meet - the largest in Australia - is on the whole weekend with lots of wonderful treasures. We will be going on Sunday I think (hoping it has cooled down a fraz by then!) or the Daylesford Market.

The Restorer's Barn in Castlemaine which is always a magic place to visit.



And here is today's quilt.

The green and yellow front is my own design ("Mallee Windmills"), tho I later saw it being taught by someone who claimed it as their own design. Someone who had asked me how to make it. And who, when confronted, said "I didn't think you would mind".
Well I did actually.
I still do, actually.

Anyway, this was made in 1998 for my lovely friend Frank Ham for his 60th birthday. It is called "Dressed in Green and Gold" for Eric Bogle's wonderful anthem "Shelter". It is named with permission from Eric Bogle, and he even signed the quilt for me (Frank).
The reverse (the B side) took much longer to make! It is all lovely Aussie bright colours.

Here is "Shelter" - I reckon it should be our national anthem.

And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

I shall again try loading my video of Eric Bogle and John Munro singing at Maldon Folk Festival last week:


Hopeless - BUT I did find Eric Bogle singing on Youtube:



There is also a rather lovely version sung by Joan Baez on Youtube tho I am mystified as to why there is a picture of a woman whenever she sings "...waltzing Matilda...". Perhaps she thinks that refers to dancing with his girlie????
And those aren't Aussie soldiers in her stills...

For a great explanation of Waltzing Matilda, here is Rolf Harris to make all you ex-pats feel a bit sniffy:





And here is a "real" swaggie - my friend Campbell The Swagman.

Campbell travels all over the country, going to festivals and reciting poetry. He has a wonderful voice. He has only recently started flying to events rather than going by Greyhound or hitching lifts.

He is a lovely bloke, supports himself (and a lot of charities like the Fred Hollows Foundation) by busking - he has never been on the dole.

Sometimes he comes and stays - I love having him. He is the most appreciative eater - you scarcely need to wash plates after Campbell has eaten!!!

He had polio when he was young, but despite this still walks all over the place if he can't get a lift.




One Easter he was performing, as usual, at the National Folk Festival in Canberra. He then came to stay with me for a wee while.
My neighbours had a fit. Robyn rang me to say "I saw Campbell in Canberra yesterday, we came home and I just saw him walking down our road. How DID he do that????"!!!!


Ted Egan and Greg Champion wrote a song about him - "Where Ya Goin', Campbell?".
Having a song written about you is pretty special, I reckon.


Yesterday it was 41*C here. And going to be hotter today. Am going in to town to forage for groceries and more shade cloth for my garden.
And fly spray - under the verandas in the shade it is black with blowflies. I hate flies too.
Where is that predicted cool change????

Another quilt before I go:



Who did I make this one for? I had forgotten all about it until I found it whilst looking for photos of Campbell. Made it in October 2006, it is from an Aussie book - Margaret Rolfe perhaps???

Please let me know if I gave it to you!

Rememberance Day

At the 11th hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918 Armistice was declared in the First World War.

Both my grandfathers were in WWI - I posted about them on ANZAC Day.
Eric Bogle wrote a mighty fine song about WWI - "And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda"...

This is a vid I took at Maldon Folkie this year with my little camera. The beginning is missing cos I wasn't paying attention (but then I would have missed out on the end as the camera ran out of memory anyway...):





Maybe I shall try loading this video later. This is the first time I have ever done one of my own and there is a possibility I have done something not quite right because it is already more than an hour since it started...

If you really lack patience you can google Eric Bogle and "And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda".



But November 11 is also famous for other momentous Australian happenings.
Ned Kelly was hanged at the Old Melbourne Gaol in 1880. I love his Jerilderie Letter.
Paul Kelly and Mick Thomas wrote "Our Sunshine" but I can't find it for you to listen to.

Redgum have a great song about Ned ("Poor Ned") but I can't find that on Youtube either, only this pub session with an unknown but lively lot of Wesburn Pub Allstars:



Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was dismissed in 1975. It was a very tough time in Australian politics - I reckon The Dismissal was the closest we have come to a revolution since Eureka Stockade:




The Whitlams wrote a song about Gough:




Here is a photo of the shady bits I made for those plants I put in on Monday. Whipped up from some shade cloth which was too small so supplemented with a worn out sheet, and lovely bamboo sticks.

I really really want to grow some bamboo. I don't think there would be much chance of it getting away and going feral here.
Does anyone have any plants, corms, sproutings, shoots - whatever they grow from?
Especially that great big enormous bamboo that I could use as an instant garden to hide from the horrible neighbours and then make a four poster bed from at the same time. Or shortly thereafter...

And here is a quilt I made a while back for wee Jarvis. Using Anjii's Angles which is an immensely clever thing to do with Half Square Triangles. Just to show that I do make quilts occasionally...

Gardening

It is such a battle to get anything to grow around here. I am right on the edge of the alluvial gold mining area (from the 1850s) - just a couple of kilometres away are deep shaft mines.
In the alluvial mining areas where the gold was close to the surface the easiest way to get to it was to wash all the dirt away and pick up the shiny leftovers.
Consequently, I have very little top soil.
Even after 160 years...

When I bought this place there was a LOT of rubbish around - we took 8 or 10 big tip-truck loads to the tip, and had a great bonfire that burned for weeks, and there are still some mounds that need setting fire to when (if) it rains again.

There were lots of falling down, white ant ridden goat sheds and the dirt from them was pushed into a mound to rot down, along with some other compostables.
After 7 years it is getting good enough to do things with. It is still pretty sandy but my neighbours have offered me their alpaca poo which will be yummy garden tucker!

The last few weeks I have been gardening.
The top photo is a long shot of the garden, with The Chook Palace in the background. It was once a wonderful, functioning Chook Palace until the little bastard delinquent youths across the road kicked down the walls (they also stole thousands $$$ of my stuff before being caught (and then getting only a slap because they were children, and their mother saying it was my 'fault for leaving windows open'... at least they don't come around any more).
I am slowly rebuilding The Chook Palace, Smellie 4 came up a few weeks ago when we did the fencing, and did some more on it. Have to get industrious tho because my Nearly Cousin Neighbour is soon giving me some of her spare chooks. Mud brick building is hard work and no fun on my own.

There are two rows of potatoes. I planted them in trenches and have been mounding up the soil around them as they grow so they will have more spuds. I planted corn in between those rows the other day.

And today planted out boysenberries and strawberries, 4 artichoke plants and transplanted some sunflowers I started from seed.

Lots of sugar cane mulch and some good soakings, and hopefully they will survive the heat wave. I did all this at the crack of dawn, and then came in to the radio telling me that it is going to hit 40* in a couple of days. Bugger. (That is about 105*F).

My most successful plantings are in four concrete well rings (the circles that line wells to stop the walls falling in) along the front of the house, and lots of pots:
Herbs, snow peas, lettuces, mint, strawberries, cucumbers, flowers...


And tomatoes from seed in toilet roll tubes. The kindest way to sprout seeds because the roots are undisturbed when you pot them up. These are only ten days old. You are meant to plant tomatoes on Melbourne Cup Day but there is still a danger of frosts after this (tho not now with this heat wave I suspect). Actually not all tomatoes I now remember - there are are chillies and capsicums sprouting here too.


The Sweetheart and I finally put a gate across the front gateposts - The Mighty Erections.


Screwing in the bottom peg that the gate swings on - hard work just to scratch a little hole so the peg could be turned! You can see what the soil is like - not much growing here.



And clever Trevor slithered under the gate as soon as it was hung... Never mind, another load of gravel on the driveway will fix that problem. So long as it also keeps kangaroos out of the garden. That will be the biggest battle. Just keep sprinkling blood and bone around - they don't like the smell too much apparently.




These Mighty Erections were a dead tree overhanging the house when I bought it. We planted them at the front with the help of a bobcat and anxious sweat.

Even if there isn't much rainfall, and even less soil I do like my home!

Friday Flaunt

My Friday Flaunt



Remember those two drawers I got at the clearing sale a few weeks ago? I added a painted door across the top of them so I now have desk in the corner of my room. Right hand drawers have all my beads and shiny things in them (some of them). And lovely papers to make cards with are in the left hand side.
I also made a linen curtain to hang up over the window - just old linen with hand stitched top and bottom and an ancient brass curtain ring in the top two corners hooked over brass cup hooks screwed in to the architrave. Simple but effective.


And I made some more Log Cabin blocks for The Sweetheart's Dad's partner for her Christmas present. Eight blocks done, six more almost done, another 16 to go. QAYG with Pellon in the centres, and the same lovely Japanese print cut into squares for the backing as I am using cut into 1" strips for the logs. The lights are about 10 different creams. The centres were a panel I got at Melbourne quilt show back in July. They are about 3.5" square, finished blocks will be 8.5".



And in between all this work I have been dreaming of some little summer dresses for the Moo from perhaps these bits of old things:

Squishy Day!!!!!

Today I got armfuls of lovely squishies at the post office!!!



First, 36 (but two of each) more Sister's Choice blocks from Trish.
18 of them are for my Best Sister - because over the last two years we have each made about 100 blocks for each other.
So we will, in theory, have identical quilts. But of course we wont because we have been playing with them as well as whipping up Sister's Choice quilts for our other sisters and sister in law for their birthdays last year.


Here is Trevor checking out the blocks that I just got - laid them out on the bed, went downstairs for my camera and came back to find the Self-Appointed Quilt Expert making himself at home!!!

I have about 100 blocks now, I think - they are real Magic Pudding blocks cos I seem to have far more than I made!




And then there were the ten Barbie dolls I got for cheap as chips on eBay to make more clothes for and give away as Christmas presents to various younger members of the family...


One has some weirdness happening round her back. It may well be normal but then - I am not aBarbie expert at all!!!
Apart from a weird hypo-thermic look to much of her skin, she has a screw in panel on her back that maybe contains a battery but I haven't yet looked. Her hypo-thermic skin is also rather translucent and she seems to have some robot wires in there. (If she is a little alien thing I hope she knows how to do ironing...).


And then a big bundle of material from Miss Vikki Frou Frou who was having a stern clean-out of stuff she didn't think she would use. And I thought I could.
I think Mum's Christmas present is in here...


And I had to get the Mary Engelbright jelly roll for two very good reasons.
Firstly, I haven't ever bought a jelly roll before, and secondly I have a sad old ME t-shirt I bought in Ann Arbour when I was there in 1990 which is falling to bits so I need to replace it...
Actually THIRDLY - they were so cheap it would be rude not to help Miss Vikki out!


I took a photo of the lake that is the septic tank, but I wont post it today either...

The rest of the day was too lovely!!! Lots of material to fondle!

The Race that stops a Nation!!!

Melbourne Cup Day!!!!!

The Melbourne Cup really is The Race that stops a Nation!!

Everyone stops - at school it was even broadcast over the PA so we could all listen to it.
And everyone runs a Sweep - in offices, at schools, even quilters on the Net...
Shocking won. MUCH nicer than if any of the foreign horses had won, especially that one owned by the murdering Chechen bastard...

I didnt win any of the three Sweeps that I had horses in but owe three FQs to the winners. They will be in the post tomorrow!

Back in the Eighties I worked in Thailand, and the Aussie Embassy in Bangkok didn't even take off Australia Day - but they DID take off Melbourne Cup Day!! And Qantas flew in slabs of Fosters, crates of Seaview champagne, 4 & 20 pies and the secretaries all dressed up in jockey silks and there were all sorts of shenanigans. I scrounged my way in somehow - needed some Aussie company after months of working on the Cambodian border in refugee camps, as well as in Burma. We had a lovely day. He he he!!!

Anyway - you can find HEAPS about Melbourne Cup on the Net but start here at the website for Flemington Racecourse. You probably got to see it even if you weren't in Australia.

Hope you all had a lovely Cup Day.
I didn't - we found why the sink isn't emptying promptly. The septic tank has 2' of water on top of it, The Sweetheart dug up some of the absorbing thingie trench and it isn't absorbing. Mostly cos the pipe is chockers with tree roots.
It is going to need the septic tank pumping out, and then new trenches and new pipes with slits in them settled into gravel so all the water can seep out after the septic tank has done it's work.
That is very very depressing.
I have got a photo of the small and neat lake in the yard, but I am too depressed to depress you.
Bugger, wish my horse had come in. And that I could have afforded to put ten bucks on it.