HAPPY NEW YEAR

Well the year is coming to a close and when I look back on it WOW!!! what a busy year we had. My new job keeps me busy and I find I just don't have enough time to keep up with all my blogging pages. But my New Year Resolution is to ensure I resume active blogging again. We'll see.

This afternoon we are heading off for Sorrento and spending New Years Eve at Gail's villa with the rest of the mob. No doubt we will be drinking and eating throughout the night. It is going to be a warm night 43 degrees. Yuk!!! I hope Gail has air conditioning. Unfortunately Ang is on afternoon shift tomorrow so we will return around lunch time. Hopefully to the open arms of our lovely children. Hmmm! don't think so.

Anyway - Happy New Year Everyone!!!!!

Veggie Garden

At last Ang has been able to grow a veggie garden. He abandoned his garden when we had the drought because it was too difficult to maintain and get water to it. At the moment he is growing lettuce, peas, broccoli and silverbeat. He will attempt to put some tomatoes in soon. At the moment the weather is just gorgeous but I haven't noticed much rain over the last 2 weeks. October is suppose to be our month for the rain so let's hope.

Family Gathering

We had a family gathering on Sunday. Our nephew wa s celebrating his recent engagement and our niece was saying goodbye to the famuly as she will be going soon to work in the USA. It was a lovely sunny day and we had lunch at my sister's place out on the verandah. My brother in law took this great picture of me with my siters and younger brother. As you can see by the smiles on my face, we had a fantastic day.
It is always good when we get together.

LOG SPLITTER INCIDENT!!!!

I thought it would be a great idea if we got a log splitter to cut up our wood for the winter. Up to now Ang always has to go out and spend hours chopping the wood up. Our wood fire heater is our main heating for the house. The Winter nights lately have been a bit chilly. We have a lot of wood collected fro trees being felled and trees falling over naturally from storms. We hired the splitter on Friday and started that night. It was fantastic. It split the wood like a hot knife slicing through butter. We did a large amount that night. But as I was busy on Saturday Ang asked Jacob to come down and assit.

We were all plowing though the wood when I took these photos.

I left to see a good friend of mine recovering from an operation when I got the call from Maroondah hospital. It was Jacob telling me that dad had crushed his finger in the wood splitter and that they were at the hospital awaiting the doctor. .

As it turned out Ang ended up staying most of the night undergoing an operation to repair his index finger. At present he has his hand plastered until Friday and will need regular check ups to ensure the finger repairs. Looks like having around 4 weeks off work

We managed to get a quarter of the wood cut. We only put a dent in the pile but it was amazing how much wood we ended up with.

What a day!

We had an amazing night last night. It will be Ang's birthday on Monday so we decided to spend the night in the city at the RACV club. As it was also Ang's sister's birthday last week, so we invited them to join us, along with Paul and Elizabeth, in the Members dining room. RACV had a guest chef from Western Australia cooking that night. All six courses along with the various wines were a showcase of culinary fare from WA. We had a great night and got to chat with guest chef Shane Keighley and his assistant. The food was great though Gianni would had preferred a larger helping.
Ang and I went to the club around 2pm and spent the afternoon in the gym. We had a go at the equipment, swam a little in the pool and finished with a sauna and a spa.

I thought it would be good to work up an appetite ready for the big meal.

Happy Birthday Ang & Maria!

Mother's Day

It's been a while since I've down loaded any pics. But here we are celebrating Mother's Day at the Red Olive Restaurant.. It was a little noisy in the restaurant as it was chokkas with people celebrating how wonderful their mother's are.

I'm tryng out a new thing today from Jigzone I hope it works.
This is a fab picture of me visiting my son at Singleton in NSW. It was only a short visit but we had a great time.
Click on the picture and it will go to a puzzle for you.

We have been renovating our back garden. We have put brand new steps and paving. We have increased our garden beds to make them larger and have attempted to add lawn. However we were advised against putting the turf down until September because that is the best growing season. So in the photos you will notice patches of bare dirt well that's where the lawn will be going. We were very please with the final look and now all we have to do is plant. Unfortuantely we need to wait for the rains to come. Hope they come soon!

Gardening

Well it's been such a long time since I've added to this post. That's because I have been so busy with work and everything. At Vittorio Park we have commenced our next major landscaping renovation. We had 5 trees pulled down that were around the house and now we are planting same trees further away. 25 in fact. You can see the last remaining logs of the big tree that was in the centre of the old holding paddock.

. In this photo you can see I've planted a stand of candlebark trees with native grass as companions. At the moment I am having to hand water them using a bucket. Hopefully the rain will come and give me a break. Once they start growing I'm sure they'll look lovely from the verandah. Next month we will be paving the top area of the block

. This is the view from the verandah. Soon hopfully to be improved.