Things that have been making me happy in October!!

1) Photos by Geoff Whalan on flickr. I haven't met Geoff but discovered his wonderful photos of Darwin on flickr. He takes photos of my haunts around Nightcliff and it's so wonderful to see my world through his eyes. He has a series called 'the nightcliff sunset ritual' - of the sunset over the sea and people watching the sunset!! I usually do my walks in the morning but he's inspired me to do a few evening walks, the colours of the sky and sea are so glorious and the sea breeze makes it more pleasant (bearable) than in the morning at this humid time of year.

Dogs at the beach high tide and full moon

2) Walking! My workplace has had a 10,000 steps a day challenge through October. It was interesting to clip on the pedometer and find out how many steps I do. I was very pleased to discover I do around 8,000 to 10,000 on a normal day, and really surprised that while my walk to work and back is around 4,000 steps altogether, the rest was made up of all that incidental walking - around the house with piles of washing, putting out the rubbish or watering the garden, even walking round the kitchen cooking a meal. A few times I have topped up my steps with a little walk in the evening (as above) and it's been a real treat!!

Walking by the park at dusk

3) Bon Iver. We have the car radio tuned to Triple J - my kid are teenagers, it's their choice. Now and again I hear something interesting - I check what time it's playing and leater search it up on the triple J website for another listen and to see if I like anything else they've recorded. Well I hit the jackpot with Bon Iver. I heard a sample from their new album, it sounded like a symphony, like choir music, like jazz with a saxophone like Keith Jarrett...I've listened to the whole album about 10 times now on youtube, and I keep coming back to it. It's pretty experimental, not pop songs! There's something 80's about the sound and if you journey on to the end you're rewarded, the last 3 or 4 pieces are gorgeous.

4) Embroidery. Happy to be doing some sewing :)

You're a star - pincushion

Thanks for visiting, and have a great week.

dipping my toe in...

It's the new year, but I'm making a slow start! School holidays is not conducive to sitting down and focusing on painting, so I'm trying to do some sketchbook stuff

and some sewing. I'm embroidering over an old print on fabric that didn't work very well...trying to salvage it for something, maybe flags...

the last few days we've had record breaking hot temperatures (I'm glad to be back at work in the aircon for a couple of days a week) We did drag the kids out for a short walk in the bush at the weekend - beautiful!

Reasons to be cheerful

(The title of this blog post shows I'm an Ian Dury fan from way back.)

First reason to be cheerful, is we have two pineapple plants flowering. Growing pineapples in the tropics is easy, but only for the patient! You just cut off the top of a pineapple, plant it in the garden, water it now and again, and wait...a couple of years...

Here are the plants, about thigh high,

and the beautiful spiky flowers nestled inside that should be fruit by christmas. I'm also waiting with bated breath for 3 eggplant flowers to open. Fingers crossed they won't just drop off like the tomato flowers did.

The second reason is these gorgeous embroidery threads that I couldn't resist at the dollar shop. I don't do much sewing, even less embroidery... I'll probably sit and look at them for a while, maybe steal the colour combinations for some of my paintings.

The third reason is this inspiring new book I picked up at the library - Eco books by Terry Taylor, it shows you how to make books from recycled materials, there are 40 projects to try, some simple, some too complicated for my limited bookbinding experience! I'm having a go at a fabric covered one and I'll let you know how I get on.