Sunday 27 May 2018

AMAZING AMIRA, AMAZING GRACE


Click HERE

Love Nanxx

READING, EATING AND CELEBRATING








Hellooo my looovlies...

I had a lovely brekfast on the back deck through the week and couldn't resist taking these photographs before I sat down.  All ready to eat one of my favourite meals of the day, have a read of my book, do my Bible Study and write a couple of birthday cards for Janet and Finn.

Well, today has been a busy day.  I was very naughty and slept in until after 8.00am.  This ment, of course, a mad dash to get ready for church.  I even managed to get a lode of washing on the line before we left...just!  Today was the dedication service for the grand piano that has been left to the church by a family here in Toowoomba.  It was originally the family's parents and grandparents paino. I'm not sure if I should have apostrophes after parents and grandparents?

We had a beautiful service with lots of singing and piano music.  HERE'S a link to one of the duet peices played on the piano.  It is beautiful.  I'm sure that Andrew said it was written by Mr Bach after his wife died.  The choire from Fairholme College were there too and sang Ubi Caritas.  And here's a link to that to.  

After the service, we went into the hall for a giant morning tea and caught up with lots of folk and ate a cake or too :)  Then it was the big clean-up and home.

Papa made a roast chicken with roast vegetibles for lunch and we are now about to sit down and have a rest.

Hope your weekend is going well.

Love Nanxxx  PS  Eight mistakes to find - after the hello bit...

Monday 21 May 2018

ALL SET TO WATCH THE WEDDING


Hello my lovelies!

I may, as usual, not have gone overboard with the dress and shoes, but at least I thought to wear a hat for the wedding.

Have you watched it yet?  Loved it!  Squealed in parts!

Love Nanxx

Saturday 19 May 2018

SATURDAY AFTERNOON AT 4.43PM


Hello my lovelies!

Kerrie took this photograph the other day.  I am sitting on her front verandah.  Only the 'other' Kerrie and I were there for quilting so Kerrie decided we would sit on the front verandah.  I think I match the quilt I'm quilting!  Can you see the beautiful plane (I think) tree in its autumn colours in the background?

Toowoomba is looking very autumnal now.  The weather has been pretty much perfect this last week and is set to continue this week too.  I have moved the table on the back verandah a bit more towards the shutters so that I can get some of that lovely northern sunshine in the morning when I am eating my breakfast and doing a bit of reading.

Today has been a bit of a quiet day.  I did my usual chores then sat myself down at the table on the back deck and read the weekend papers.  After the papers were all read I proceeded to read the book I'm currently reading which is called THE BENEDICT OPTION which I am really enjoying.  Lots of underlining going on I can tell you!

In between all this Papa popped in and out to the church to help with some of the renovations that have been going on.  Someone has left the church a beautiful grand piano which has meant that in order to bring it into the church we have had had to alter things a tad.  Next week is the grand celebration of all the renovations completed and the piano's installation.

Girls from Fairholme College are coming too to provide choir music.

We have all been asked to bring a plate for the giant morning tea we are going to have afterwards in the hall.  I'll try and remember to take my camera.

Tomorrow we are having a baptism service when Ava and George are going to be baptized.  Ava was born at only 25 weeks - only half cooked - so it is a double thankfulness to God - one for her life and also her baptism.

I'll forward the church newsletter where you can see a photograph of her when she was born.

Did you go to church last week?  If you did, can you remember what the sermon was about?

Love Nanxxx


Friday 11 May 2018

MEMORIZING



Hello my lovelies!

I was chatting to the 'other' Kerrie the other day and she mentioned that she and her husband are planning a trip to the Orkneys next year.  The Orkneys are islands way, way up and off the north of Scotland.


This got me thinking about a poem I learned a few years ago.  "I think I'll get that poem out again and refresh my memry." I said to myself and so I have.  I have printed it off and I am re-learning a verse a day as I have my breakfast.

The poem was writen by George Mackay Brown and it is about a day in the life of his father who was a postman.  I love how the poem begins before daybrak, traces the various 'doings' of the fishing town and ends with a verse showing how much the poet loved his father.

Here's the poem.

HAMNAVOE

My father passed with his penny letters
Through closes opening and shutting like legends
When barbarous with gulls
Hamnavoe's morning broke

On the salt and tar steps.  herring boats,
Puffing red sails, the tillers
Of cold horizons, leaned
Down the gull-gaunt tide

And threw dark nets on sudden silver harvests.
A stallion at the sweet fountain
Dredged water, and touched
Fire from steel-kissed cobbles.

Hard on noon four bearded merchants
Past the pipe-spitting pier-head strolled,
Holy with greed, chanting
Their slow grave jargon.

A tinker keened like a tartan gull
At cuithe-hung doors.  A crofter lass
Trudged through the lavish dung
In a dream of corn-stalks and milk.

In the Arctic Whaler three blue elbows fell,
Regular as waves, from beards spumy with porter,
Till the amber day ebbed out
To its black dregs.

The boats drove furrows homeward, like ploughmen
In blizzards of gulls.  Gaelic fisher-girls
Flashed knife and dirge
Over drifts of herring.

And boys with penny wands lured gleams
From tangled veins of the flood.  Houses went blind
Up one steep close, for a
Grief by the shrouded nets.

The kirk, in a gale of psalms, went heaving through
A tumult of roofs, freighted for heaven.  And lovers
Unblessed by steeples lay under
the buttered bannock of the moon.

He quenched his lantern, leaving the last door.
 Because of his gay poverty that kept
My seapink innocence
From the worm and black wind;

And because, under equality's sun,
All things wear now to a common soiling,
In the fire of images
Gladly I put my hand
To save that day for him.




Closes...and


seapinks.

Love Nanxx  PS  I've made three spelling errors in the main text - not in the poem.  See if you can find them and perhaps you would like to count the number of similes in the poem.

Saturday 5 May 2018

SATURDAY AFTERNOON AT 12.15PM



Hello my lovelies!

Do you like this embroidery?  I just love it.  Apparently it's the group badge of the folk who made the Great Tapestry of Scotland.  HERE'S a link to some more photographs of the various blocks they have made.

All well this end. Papa and I have had a fairly relaxing morning reading the Saturday papers and doing a few chores.  I stripped the bed and the sheets are now hanging on the line in the sunshine and Papa did some more work on our grass at the back.  Have I already told you what a mess it's in?  We're not sure if the top-dressing a few months ago was full of weed seeds but we've had a hard time of it trying to stop the grass becoming one huge weed bed.   In the end, Papa scraped most of the grass away and has re-sown parts with new seed.  New grass is starting to appear but it's a bit patchy to say the least.  The other problem could be that we have too much shade what with the leopard trees taking over.   Papa is going to work on the grass for a while yet, but if the worst comes to the worst, we shall have to put our thinking caps on and decide where to next!  All ideas will be gratefully received.

We have been watching a fabulous programme on Netflix called LOVE YOUR GARDEN with the presenter and gardener Alan Titmarsh.  It's been a wonderful series - about eight episodes.  The programme starts with Alan talking about the family he is going to surprise and off the cameras go with him down the street to the house in question.  He rings the bell and waits for the owner to answer the door.  It's hilarious seeing them open the door and the look on their faces when they see Alan and the cameras.  After they get over their initial shock Alan says "I hear your back garden needs some work."  The families who have been chosen have been recommended because of some difficulty in the family;  for example a member of the family may be confined to a wheelchair and can't get out in the garden because it's such a disaster.  Anyway hopefully the series will still be on when you get back HOME! and we can watch it together.

Papa's just calling me for lunch so I'll away and have my sandwich.  I'm on cooking duties today so I'll set to and make a nice stew in the afternoon.

Love Nanxxx

TUESDAY MORNING AT 9.42AM

Hello my lovelies! Here are Wayne and Papa leaving for Geham to put the cross up.  Can you see wee Molly and Spotty Boy looking u...