Have glue gun will work!

We are going to a ball here on Saturday night, lots of excitement in preparing our costumes,  as you see the theme is "Havana Nights".

It's the 88th Waratah Ball to be held in Avoca,  one of the small villages here which have the old fashioned community hall and are always in desperate need of funds for the upkeep of these country institutions.  Indeed we have our own  Glenquarry Peace Memorial Hall which will be celebrating its centenary in 2020.  They are a real centre for our very small communities where we don't have any pubs or cafes to congregate at but are always available for events such as  weddings, parties, anything!

I have spent a little bit of time on pinterest getting the vibe for the Cuban dress sense and I think I've got a handle on it now. Got the dress, (you'll have to come back another day to see it) and then this evening I have put my glue gun to work and made my headpiece.

I started with a stretchy headband, some fabric flowers from Ikea and some plastic fruit from the Toy department of Target.

Add the glue gun, some artistic licence and ......

Viola! here is the finished product

 and here I am with my work of art!

I'll take some more pics when I'm fully frocked up on Saturday night, so please come back to visit me on Sunday for the post ball blog!

ciao

GG.

Home is where the heart is

For those who do not know we have been living in Sydney for the past 18 months for work, and last June moved back to the Southern Highlands and are currently living in Bowral in a townhouse. Don't worry, the Goddess abode is still there waiting for us we are just taking some time to do some renovations to an investment I bought a few years ago.

It's a lovely location, we're located onto a reserve called the Cherry Tree Walk

You can get a bit of the vibe of the area from the video, we really enjoy walking the puppies there each day and its only a 5 minute walk from the centre of town so we are really enjoying the Bowral "inner city lifestyle"!

It's a 3 storey townhouse with the garage on the bottom, the living rooms and kitchen on the middle floor and the 3 bedrooms upstairs, so all we see from all the windows is the top of trees and we are constantly serenaded by the birds.

I'm so excited to be back blogging now that I have more time again and I look forward to sharing my thoughts and adventures with you again.

ciao

European Vacation 2016: London Calling

Bon Jour,

Just arrived back last week from 2 weeks in Europe, well part of Europe, well, 2 countries actually!

Went to spend some time with my favourite youngest daughter and her young man in London Calling, then some time in Paris (always a good idea).

Travelled with my friend who shall be known as "M" as she prefers to travel incognito, this was going to be a bit different to previous trips as this was "girls" time so very different to travelling with our  significant others.

Started off as all good journeys do with a couple of liquid beverages  (definitely more than 100 millilitres involved! ) in the Qantas Club and before long we were London bound.

The young ones are living in a up and coming area of London called Shoreditch. I think of it as the sort of area that "Call the Midwife" would have been working in during the 1950's. Now it is a cross between Brooklyn, Newtown and Surry Hills. Think cafes, small bars, creative workspace hubs and lots of hipsters! Lots of buildings are being renovated and repurposed a lot of urban regeneration going on. Its very close to the city and has great transport options.

While in London we did Borough Markets, which I cannot do justice to in words, the only thing I can recommend  is you have to go and do yourself a flavour! I managed to score my favourite white asparagus and did a bit of cooking for the hosts one night.

Sunday,  it was time to channel our "inner rock chicks" and take in the  Rolling Stones exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery

Well,  that was 2 1/2 hours well spent.  I was amazed at what they had managed to keep over the years, old set lists, even clothes worn back in the early 1960's. The ultimate experience was the special 3D concert where we were on stage with Mick!  If you are going to be in London this year take time to see it, you will not be disappointed.

The final big thing we did in London was to get our "Kinky Boots" on. I had wanted to see this show 2 years ago, but never had time, so made sure we booked tickets before we left home this time and on our final night in London we had a girls night out with favourite youngest daughter at the west end theatre. The show will not be here in Sydney for another 2 years I think so I'm glad that we got to see it. Great costumes and great music. 

Next day we were off on Eurostar to Paris, so stay tuned for Paris Adventures.

Underground Movement

The other afternoon I got to do something pretty unusual, I went for a tour in the Tank Stream under the city of Sydney.  This is something we have wanted to do for ages, but never had the time, or managed to get lucky in the ballot for tickets.

The Tank Stream was the source of fresh water for the first European settlers and now it is about 4 meters under the city and not readily accessible to the general public. So we rocked up at our assigned time at Australia Square( which is a Harry Seidler building, which is actually round!)

I love Australia Square, the building is so modern even after 50 years and it has a very swish restaurant at the top ( called O bar) where you can have a drink or a meal and the whole restaurant revolves 360 degrees, a great way to see the city sitting down! We went there for dinner a couple of years back when Vivid Sydney was on.



Anyway back to underground, we had to get into gear, gumboots, hard hats, hi viz vests and safety harness, attend a safety briefing and watch a video on the history of the tunnel and then we were off!

Safety briefing 

dressed to go!

Down a ladder and then we were below the city, It was quite low and we had to be careful not to bang our heads, there was quite a lot of water as there had been a bit of rain yesterday ( so much so that they had to cancel yesterday's tours, too dangerous).





The whole thing was done by convict labour, and you can see the pick marks where they were working at the sandstone. They kept to the original course of the stream which has meant that the sandstone has not weathered too much.

Our Guide was Yvonne, who is an archeologist working with Sydney Water so has conducted this tour 400 times! I thought how amazing some people's jobs are that they get to do stuff like this!

Yvonne our tour guide showing us the tunnel ahead

the tour only took in  part of the tunnel that was fairly easy to navigate we went up to the Ovid tunnel which is much smaller and narrower you can see a picture below, I declined to go in and have my pic taken, it was just a bit too confined!

The tour took about 1 hour and 15 minutes all up and it was really cool to be under the city and hearing the traffic over the man holes above.

So that's another thing ticked off my to do list, what about you have you ever been on a cool tour in your home city? 

Bleeding heart

I gave blood the other day, I am a regular blood donor and have been since I was a student nurse.My blood group is A negative. The nurse at the blood bank asked me if I had thought about donating my plasma. I looked at her quite puzzled and said don't you already take that from the blood?

Well yes they do, but there is another issue, When you donate blood they take about 470mls of whole blood which has plasma, red and white cells, platelets and they use the various components for a variety of purposes, so the total volume of plasma they get to use is really quite a small amount.

The other issue for me is that my blood type is only about 8% of the population so my red blood cells are not always that useful but if I just donated plasma they could get a much bigger volume which is of more use. Here's a link to the blood bank info http://www.donateblood.com.au/learn/apheresis.

So the great thing is that you can donate every 2 - 3 weeks as your own red cells are returned to you so you don't have to wait for the body to make more red cells. http://www.donateblood.com.au/learn#

So I've been booked in to donate plasma in a couple of weeks I'll let you know how that goes, but maybe if you haven't thought about it maybe you could be a blood donor?

FabriKate

I love being busy, I almost always have a project on the go, whether it is mastering a new cooking skill, learning to weld (really!) decorating, house renovating or re purposing old furniture. I've a couple of things on the go currently that I thought I would share with you.

First a couple of weeks ago the Significant Other and I did a "welding for beginners" course at
the Workshop Chippendale I had expressed an interest in trying this and our lovely son and daughter in law gave us a class for a Christmas present. I got to try stick and mig welding and managed by the end of the class to weld a couple of pieces of steel together. Not sure when I'll next do anything but at least I know what is involved.

I've had a old bedroom slipper chair I got from Vinnies about 12 months ago for the bargain price of $15 and I've decided to have a go and reupholster it myself. You can see in the picture it's a pretty grotty old brown velvet chair and I have plans to cover it is a pink flamingo fabric.

Here is the work in progress, I have taken off all the old fabric and am working out how the place the fabric, I think it will look quite lovely when it's done, I might even offer it as a prize for some lucky reader!

Below is a old piano stool that I recovered recently for my "Paris" room I'm pretty pleased with the result what do you think?

and yesterday I got the mother of all finds, we were visiting one of our daughters in an nearby suburb and they must have been having council cleanup because the streets were full of stuff! I managed to find these chairs which are right up my alley of mid century modern design

planning to make some funky cushion for the chairs

  and then these lampshades which I am planning to cover in the flamingo and Paris fabrics too.

Testing the fabric to see what it could look like

Test driving the flamingos!

so as I get the projects done I'll put them up for you to see.

Do you have any projects on the go?

Do you like a bit of DIY?

how old are you feeling?

I'm getting a bit annoyed at some of the ads on the TV and radio that seem to think that if you are "over 50" you've got one foot in the grave, "no longer working full-time" (I wish)  and spend all your time worrying about your pre-paid funeral!

So I asked myself, how old is old? Then I went to the source of all knowledge,  the Internet and found this study which basically says old age is relative, the older you are the more generous you are in your assessment of what is "old".

OK I get it, I recall being a 20 something ( not that long ago, I'm not that old!)  and thinking people of 40 were ancient and served no useful purpose in the world, and god forbid they should even think of having sex, that was for young people!

Obviously people over 50 are a very attractive market, and I'm not talking about our good looks!

The number of businesses targeting the "grey" consumer is increasing; here is a list of what I found just by doing a quick search.....

Over 50s Insurance | Apia.com.au

Over 50s Resorts 

Scenic Tours Australia With Fun Over Fifty For Seniors 

Fitness for the over 50′s

Dresses For Over 50s 

Join a club for over 50's Aussie Over Fifties Seniors 

Over 50 Retirement Home

Over 50s Retirement Living & Villages | For Sale, Rent ...

plus a plethora of over 50's dating sites, in my search it pulled up   29,800,000 RESULTS ! 

Older singles are getting frisky on ‘Tinder for seniors ...

To me the thing is how you perceive your age , 

• how you feel "mentally"  (about 18 most days!)  

versus 

• how old you actually are (your biological age)

although I subscribe to Christian Dior's model of age

Women are most fascinating between the ages of 35 and 40 after they have won a few races and know how to pace themselves.

Since few women ever pass 40, maximum fascination can continue indefinitely.- Christian Dior

• and then there is how others see you;  How old you look? do you "look your age" or are you "not bad looking for your age"  or "don't look your age"  or have you "not looked after yourself"

Then the issue arises how what is age appropriate behaviour, clothing, attitudes. 

Since our life expectancy has increased over the last century our perception of "old  has changed but I'm not sure some of our attitudes have considering my previous rant above. My grandmother died in her late 50's to me  she was an "old lady", whereas I now do not consider myself  "old ", and realistically we are not as "old.  Our health is better, we have more opportunities to keep participating in life and most of us are now working in careers that allow us to work way past the "retirement age" ( what is that now ?) and hence my indignation at people over 50 being considered "old". 

At the current cost of housing in Sydney I will be 80 before my mortgage is paid off! So I can sit and dream of 0ver 50's not working full time, over 50's resorts and holidays for seniors, for now I'm planning to be one of those most fabulous women who refuse to be defined by age.

Here are some over 50's  poster girls for you 

so how old are you feeling today?