Yeah! Looks like summer has finally left us! Two days under 30 degrees and at night it got down to 16 degrees. I can wear my new flanellette leopard print jammies and blue socks without sweating, and last night with the one doona on, I woke up a lil chilly.
Bring on the cooler weather please!

High tea and curries.

Have had a few really busy days, On saturday night we went to my Dad's cousin Dot's 50th birthday. It was held at Brighton Leagues social club just past Brighton and it was packed full of people I haven't seen for probably about 10 years! The food was fantastic and plentiful, lots of fried rice, charkai chicken, sweet and sour pork and fish, sesame green broad beans, stir fried vegie noodle dishes. About 70 or so people went including Nan and Pop and my dad's younger Brother Spikey (not his real name!, I think his real name is Kenneth but all I have ever known him is as Spikey), my cousins Markia and her boy Chevy, she is due again in August. Stevie spent alot of time with nan and pop, and thought Dot's brother Aurdi was hilarious. He was bombarded by many relatives (he was one of only a handful of non-new guinean people there) whilst outside smoking, having to deal with bad braveheart jokes. Just before the cake and singing happy birthday alot of the younger girls put on a new guinean traditional dance show with grass skirts on. I had a grass skirt when i was one!

Sunday was spent cleaning and organising for the week, as I had today off. Mum also had today off, so went went into Newstead (near New Farm) where she had to sign over the papers for selling her car! poor Ivy! Mum's getting something slightly smaller. Whilst there we decieded to venture to James st at NewFarm, we visited a traditional Indian supermarket and I spent $40 but bought about 8 curry pastes, 4 huge 400 gram bag of spices, traditional naans, pickles, chickpea dishes and the like. Considering most things were priced at $2-3 each, I bought a whole heap! I am going to make stevie some chicken curry tonight. We stopped by alot of the lovely homeware shops and retro shops but struck big at a shop called Maiocchi. Its mainly japanese like, with amazing structured and quilted dresses all made of Japanese fabrics. It also sells kokeshki dolls, quiled purses, babushkas's just beautiful things! I wanted everything. Whilst there I spied the most beautiful Spencer and Rutherford bag. When I used to work at David Jones I used to drool over there small handmade bags. They now do larger bags as well, and I found the lovely Lulu High Tea which I just had to have! It combined some of my favourite things, cherry blossoms and tea sets! I got it after much drooling and my mum going, you work hard, get it! So I did. I did very well only getting the bag and a babushka keyring. I want to go back and get a lucky cat keyring aswell, but they have opened a shop at the wintergarden in the city so for birthdays and anniversary's I will be sending stevie there! I might get the matching purse one day, its just got cherry blossoms all over it.

Now that I can't get all shoe obsessed, I think it will be my bag collection which will go off tap!

We then headed to Chermside where we did a bit of shopping at big w, I have picked up millions of cardigans for only $20 each which I have been loving and had some japanese curry for lunch. By 1.30 we were stuffed and I came home for a nana nap! Its super windy today, blowing a gale so instead of going for a walk I think I'll put on some music and dance around the house.

Hope everyone is well!

Here are some lovely sites to look at: http://www.spencerandrutherford.com/Collectionnew.php?Type=1#

and http://www.maiocchi.com.au/index.php

Caught by the fuzz....

I went to the podiatrist bright and early this morning at 9.30, Stevie walked with me and went to breakfast at Cafe Nada. My appoitment was for an hour as I had to have all this measuring done and then a plaster cast of my feet made. Stevie came in and watched that bit, which was quite brave of him! Supposedly I dont have one big 'abnormality' with my feet but a series of three things, each about 3 degrees out which are all going the same way, and are all adding up which are causing the difficulties I've been having. I will only need a 3/4 orthodic which should hopefully mean I can still get the two pairs of shoes I want.
After my appoitment we quickly hailed a taxi and went to the movies to see HOT FUZZ, a really brillant english film with simon pegg who was in shaun of the dead. It is about 100 times better than shaun of the dead which I thought was pretty poor despite my love for b grade horror flicks. It had one of stevies favourite people ever in it, Stephan Merchant from office and extra's fame.
After that we went for some malaysian food which was lovely and then ice creams after that!. We caught the bus home, and mum and dad were over at the house, after spending the day before at the Sofitel hotel for their 28th wedding anniversary. Stevie played 'catch the advocado' with dad, who climbed up our huge tree to retrieve about 40 ripe advocadoes we have! Score! Its unfortunate we can't sell them in scotland, you pay a small fortune for them there!
Stevie has gone into the city for band practice which he is loving. They are recording on good friday, and playing there first gig on the 31st of may. He has found an amp he wants which we will try to squeeze into the budget in the next couple of weeks, the painting of the house will have to wait a little!
Because of going out for lunch, Im just going to make myself a whole lot of roma tomatoes roasted a little with some rye cruskits. I got three punnetts the other day for 50cents each! I've gone tomato mad! I made lasange last night with a whole heap of them, and been having salads as a side every night so they don't get wasted.
Must go have a shower and get in my jammies,(new ones, white flanellette with black and light blue desa leopard spots!) and do a little snuggling up on the couch watching the bill!

Feel my bones

Shorncliffe



Shorncliffe



Suttons Beach parklands



Shorncliffe Church



Low tide over looking the Shorncliffe Jetty










Redcliffe








Suttons Beach



Scarborough,a boat and wind surfer


Redcliffe Jetty



The week has gone so fast! Its nearly the end of March already.
We'll lets see, its Autumn and we are still daily in the low 30 degrees temperatures, its like summer has gone on for months and months. It is getting marginally cooler at night, hovering at about 20 degrees. It is making days off nice as I go for a long walk around Scarborough and Redcliffe and even down to Margate! and the water is beauutiful and blue.


Tommorow Stevie and I have the day off. I have to get up early and go get fitted for orthodic inserts for shoes! Cry Cry Cry! I went to the podiatrist last wednsday and unfortunatly was met with bad news. My feet are in a bad way! I walk with a pronation going inwards which has led to bunions on my two inner sides of both feet and the starting of tailor bunions on my outside of my feet aswell! Ouch. It has only really become noticeable this year, my big toe on my right side is heading inwards :( and I have the big telltale lump which is my bone moving out and on the left my second toe is heading upwards. Supposedly this would be a result of how I walk and not neccessarily of my shoes, as because of my wide feet, I normally wear ballett shoes all the time. I used to wear pointy shoes but I cant get away with them anymore, mainly because of how my feet have gone! So to stop the progress I need to get some insoles made which I will have to use all the time, I have to get rid of my ballett shoes which are the worse things to wear and start wearing orthodic shoes.I have to wear shoes all the time now aswell! Luckily there is a shop that sells some kumps orthodic shoes which are actually really nice. I want a pair of mary janes called Glitter and another slightly heeled strapped pair called Irene. http://www.kumps.com.nz


Unfortunatly they are super pricey at $200 each, but my health fund will pay $250 per year, so I will get both and just be out of pocket $150 which I will claim on tax. I need to always be wearing strapped or laced up shoes as slip ons are the worst shoe for your foot! My instep is going to cost $400 but I also get half of that back from my health insurance!
I will have to sneakingly wear my ballett shoes when I'm wearing my nice dresses. In the week since I have know about how I walk, I have been trying to correct it in my own not very scientific way and have pulled a hip muscle! Hehehe so I'm hobbling and probably making it worse!
Why did it have to happen to me! I love shoes, I have atleast 50 pairs!
Yesterday we picked up stevie from the train station and went out for dinner. On the way, we went the coastal road as it was such a glorious day and took some pictures. These were taken at about 5.30pm so you can see what a bright and sunny day it was.
We're going to go for some lunch and go see the movie Hot Fuzz tommorow after I see the podiatrist and then stevie heads off into the city for his band practice. On Wednsday he is going to see Converge! I am well jealous! He got given a free ticket, I used to love Converge and haven't see them since 2000 when I was in germany!
I picked up all my lovely laybys and have ordered my new uniform, which is majorly impressive! We got two pants or skirts and 5 tops. I ordered 2x pleated skirts, 2x white cuffed long sleeve tops, 2x blue cuffed long sleeve tops, 1x black 3/4 length boat neck top, 1x black cardigan and a black 3/4 length belted collared shirt dress. We also get cuff links and a blue neck scarf and a black short jacket with the order. I also have gotten a few pinafore dresses and a few skirts and cardigans to mix and match with. I have been sneakingly wearing them already! I love black and white! The new uniform isn't due to us until about June.
On saturday night we are going to a party at Brighton, Its my dads cousin Winnie. So stevie will get to meet all the Papua New Guinea extended relatives, it will be a pretty big party as its her 50th. The food will be great no doubt!
Enough rambling. I'll post some pictures. Happy UK mothers day Judy! Hope your being spoilt rotten!

Photos Photos Photos

Gawd my feet hurt! I have to go to the podatrist tommorow, I know I have bunions by the big lumps coming out of the side of my feet. I wear such sensible shoes these days, really only ballet slippers and my zoe wittners tbar's, I soo hope I dont have to give up those! They are so beautiful, I was going to get another pair, so I can have one for work and one for going out good. I wonder what he is going to tell me what I have to do from now on. Its dramatically narrowing my shoe selection down to about zilch :( I wish it would narrow my big flat wide feet!

We had a really quite big weekend, we had uncle keith's birthday on saturday night which stevie got very drunk and sick at! and on sunday we tried to escape the 38 degree heat by heading to the hills up to Maleny and Montville. No suck luck it was boiling even up there! We got the name of the bed and breakfast we are staying at next month Tanderra House, which is a lovely big qlder.
http://www.tanderrahouse.com.au/
We got out at Maleny and went to the little village markets and visited alot of the shops, alot easier when its not hailing like it was when Judy visited! We then drove down to the Mapleton to go to the Mapleton tavern for lunch, it seems like everyone had to same idea as it was packed!
http://www.mapletontavern.com.au/index.html
Its a beautiful pink qlder which overlooks the sunshine coast hinterland called the Blackall ranges. We'll go there for lunch when we head up again next month.

The party on saturday night was really great, about 50-60 people went. Uncle keith and marion were dressed as the Osbournes and Madeline and Courtney went as the Veronica's. Stevie accidently nicked keith whilst shaving his arm for his transfer tattoos! hehe. Stevie went as the singer from the mc5, I went as a flapper girl, mum went as a 70's girl and dad went as bob marley. My uncle frank (my mum's brother) went as rod stewart and his wife arooua went as diana ross. They looked great! Theyre were quite a few sonny and cher's, alice cooper, a few cyndie laupers, the construction worker from the village people and quite a few punk rockers, there were also quite a few blues brothers.
Stevie was up all night after dinner dancing with everyone! He was very drunk at this stage and was swigging from his bottle ala keith richards! My mum also was up dancing doing what I call the foxy chicken run. She was strutting her stuff in her short dress!. At around 1am we went home and made it about 50 metres from the house before stevie begun being sick in the car. I was sitting next to him which led to a mass exodus out of the car, my dad left about a minute earlier then us and came back to the car where he went to get a bucket of water to wash down mum's car, and he ended up driving us home. Despite having the seat all the way back, stevie liked sleeping on my dad's shoulder for the hour drive home. He made it all the way to Scarborough before being sick again. He had a really good sleep before being woken up rudely by myself at 6.30am to go to work where he had to comprehend with a early morning train ride with very noisy children on it, with a sore tender head!

Stevie had some good news on the weekend, he won two awards at a really big tattoo convention. He won 1st and 2nd prize in the traditional section which is by far the most popular catergory. Yeah stevie!

Cruisin...

Howdy! Well its been ages since I've written on here, things have been a little hectic of late.

I've settled in really well being a manager (and being paid manager wages...yeahhh!) its quite a bit of extra work and a little more stress but things are going really well and I can honestly say I really like my work 9.9/10 which is fab. The 15 minute bus ride per morning and mum picking me up in the afternoon's is great aswell. Mum and I have been doing a lot of antique shopping and normal shopping on our joint sunday's off together which has been great, went up to samford two weeks ago and got a beautiful vintage geisha doll and another bird ceramic for our room. The antique shop at samford is lovely, and because we have been getting alot of rain and storms lately everything particularly the countryside at daybro and samford is lush and green. The cows look very happy in their fields.

My aunty di is down from Katherine at the momment, she was meant to come down on Saturday but she was flooded in the northern territory. They managed to get through for a sunday flight, on sunday afternoon we picked up stevie from the train station and all went to Morgans for fish and chips. Aunty Marion and Keith and the girls all came with us well, I made a roast sweet potato, roast peppers, roma tomato, lettuce and roasted pine nut salad and everyone brought along wine and goodies (in my mum's case she brought along salt, her and her sisters are what keep the salt mines of the world open!).

Its uncle Keith's 50th on saturday and he's having a big party at their house, about 60 people are going and they've got it all catered for and have over 15 cartons of Brown Brother's wine for the night. I think my mum will have a very tender head on the sunday! Its a costume party where you dress up as yr favourite rock star or favourite era of music. Stevie is going as the singer of the mc5 and has an afro wig and mc5 shirt and a little scarf for his neck. I am going as a flapper girl as I love all that...shooobywoooby war music. I actually scored a real dress from the 1920's which is peachish in colour with black spots on the skirt. I already have tbar shoes, I bought some kylie minogue black fishnet stockings (normally $24, I scored them for $3 each at a big sale at Myers, I bought 10 pairs of beige and 3x black!), I got some gorgeous drop black earrings from myers, and already had a beaded necklace and braclet set, from kleins at my work I got a feathered black fascinator and feathered black broach.

I'm going all out for it! On sunday I also got some glitter hairspray as I am doing my fringe in finger waves at the front and a bun, and also got some peachy lipstick as I am wearing my Bvlgari bling bling spec's and heavy rimmed black glittery eyes. I also have a vintage lace black shawl to wear. I got dressed up in the gear last night and I was impressed! I will definatly take lots of pics on the night, my mum is going psychodelic for the night and keith is going as ozzy osborne complete with tats from stevie, and marion as 'SHAAAROOONNN'.

A fun night should be had by all.

Stevie is going really well in his two bands, we have new mobile phones and he is mr popular forever getting msgs from all his million of friends! Hmmp!

We are offically going on a big holiday next year in Febuary. I booked it this week, how exciting! We're going on a cruise through the Whitsundays and the Great Barrier Reef for 7 nights. We have a stop over in Cairns where I booked a trip to the Kuranda Rail and also a day snorkeling on the reef. It seems like its one big eat fest! The food looks amazing, and the good thing is I have a year to organise a cruise worthy wardrobe! Cocktails with the captain..hmm lets see what sorta outfit I can come up with! Drinking (probably ginger beer) by the pool...something maybe glam?

Haha p and o pacific sun will not know what's hit them!

Here is a site about the cruise http://pocruises.com.au/html/n808-south-pacific.cfm

We are going to book a few nights in May to go up to Maleny and Montville to stay at a bed and breakfast with my mum and dad for the weekend. Its beautiful in winter and stevie wants to go up there.

I have sent away for some brochures for Morteon Island as we want to go there for a fishing (!) holiday in september for a week.

Hope everyone is well, will post pictures of saturday