What's ahead this year?

Another year has been put to rest and now I'm popping my head up again on my first day of work.  Hanno and I had a lovely rest over the holidays, although truth be told, we both had a cold. I picked it up at our Christmas breakfast, with lots of hugs from people I didn't know, and gave it to Hanno a couple of days later.  Two weeks down the track and we're just both getting over it but it did us a favour really. It made us rest and sleep and take it easy and now- here we are a fresh as two daisies ready for whatever 2010 will bring.

Today, my plan is to let you know a few of the happenings here over the holidays and tomorrow I'll start my simple living series.  The popular kitchen sink photos will continue, I still have a enough for a couple of weeks and then I'll be calling for more photos to be sent, so don't be shy, join in and show us your kitchen sink.

I love the end of the year.  I don't like the hot and humid weather, although this year is another mild one for us, but I love the feeling that most of the year's work is over and it's time to sit back, rest, watch cricket and plan for another year.  We decided to stop planting in our garden a while back. We wanted to rest the garden because of a couple of bug and disease problems that were starting to show.  For the past month we've had no tomatoes, although a few are coming on now, and there hasn't been any lettuce, but we've been harvesting perfect black and shiny eggplant, heavy, juicy capsicums (peppers), sweet corn, zuchinni, enough beans to sink a ship, herbs, sunflowers and cucumbers.  Last week we let the chook forage in there.  Hanno took out a panel of the fence between the chook run and the garden and instead of letting them free range in the backyard, they can quickly pop into the garden and eat to their heart's delight.  I've seen them eating grasshoppers and caterpillars and I know they're also eating bug eggs and scratching around aerating the soil and the compost and leaving little parcels of nitrogen.   They'll be allowed to roam freely in there until we start putting the new garden together in March.  I hope the sweet potatoes, herbs and pumpkin survive, they're all still growing nicely.  While they're feasting on the old silverbeet, cucumbers and carrot tops, they're reducing the amount of work we have to do to get the garden reading for the new season and they're getting rid of more bugs than we could ever hope to find.

While I was watching the cricket, and in between those times when I nodded off for a while, I made a cotton cover for my steel water bottle.  It's a simple thing, just cast on and all plain knitting with a crocheted circle bottom.  I usually fill my bottle with cold water and when it evaporates drops of water slide down the side and onto my desk, it makes a mess.  I sat the bottle on a dishcloth for a day or two, then decided to make the cover.  I'm testing it out today when I go back to work and I hope it will absorb the water and dry out.  I'll keep you posted on that one.

Yesterday Hanno and I drove into Brisbane to buy a floor rug and to spend some time with Shane and Sarndra.  We found the rug we wanted, the last one in the shop, and then made our way to Coopooroo where we had a nice lunch of sandwiches and cold drinks.  Shane and Sarndra have made themselves a lovely little nest there.  Everything is set out well, it's nice and tidy, the wedding quilt is on the bed - all is good.

We drove back home and picked up Alice who stayed with Jens and  Cathy while we were out and all walked in here about 3pm.  We spread the rug out to lay down a non-slip backing and Alice decided it was her space.  I'm sad to say that Alice hasnt improved at all since she ran into the creek in November.  She has periods of breathlessness and sits panting on her bed.  But she still enjoys her food and when we looked after Koda, her cousin, for a few weeks, they had a good time together with a little play every afternoon.  It's what she used to do when Rosie was alive.  But I have no false hopes that the future is bright for Alice.  The vet has told us she has a heart valve problem and as she's 12 years old, she doesn't have long to live.  So we are giving her treats and looking after her as best we can and hope to make these next few months comfortable and pleasant for her.

I woke early today eager for this new year to begin.  Today I go back to work at my voluntary job.  We move into our new building in a couple of weeks so from today we'll be planning, packing and measuring spaces for the new furniture and equipment we'll buy to go into the new centre.  I don't know what else this year will bring but I have a feeling it will be a busy one and I hope it is full of interesting work and wonderful surprises.  Thank you to everyone who left comments over the holiday period.  Long time lurkers came out of hiding, that always pleases me a lot, and many new folk introduced themselves.  Well, hang on to your hats, everyone. Let move forward together into this new year and prove what our grannies all knew, that with hard work and persistence, anything is possible.