Marking time.

Winter, or rather the cool weather that we have which passes for winter, is my least favourite season. No looking forward to hot chocolate, cold walks or tumbles in the snow in this household. Instead you will find me grumbling and snuffling under heated throw rugs.
Adding to this sense of melancholy is the news that we have had a spill in leadership in the Labor party and our first woman prime minister has been dumped in favour of a former leader who it is hoped will lead us to victory in the coming election. There is an abiding sense in Australia that she has led us into an abyss of debt and has ruined the country, this despite a triple A rating from international credit agencies and an economy that is the envy of the world...what do we have to do? It would enlighten some of her critics if they looked farther afield to see what real poverty, instability and debt looks like but alas the conservative mind very seldom looks farther than its own wellbeing.
Sorry about the rant but the vitriol directed at Julia Gillard by her critics, the personal attacks (many disappointingly by women) and the ongoing campaign by the largely Murdoch controlled press to return us to a conservative government has been disappointing to say the least.
Back to my other passion...etegami!
Looking at these huge luscious California strawberries I bought yesterday it occurred to me that the Beatles were prescient, we do have strawberry fields forever! It is strawberry season somewhere in the world at any given time and they are only an aeroplane flight away...this may not be a good thing but it is a real manifestation of that much used seventies term the Global Village.

A miserable week.

Yes, it's cold, yes, it's wet and yes, I am still chewing on the malaise left by last week's excursion...but there is light at the end....etc.
All of which have left me in a rather philosophical state of mind and wanting to express myself in a Haikuish kind of way. The Prof says it is a bit late in life to start writing poetry, all the good poets died young to which I retorted "not the Haiku masters". This caused a minor choking incident  (tea inhaled can be quite distressing) but a hearty thump on the back got him back to his normal docile self and peace was restored in the household.
Stamp carving is a sovereign way to achieve that longed for state  where one's mind is totally engaged but not stressed...aaah peace!

 

 

As for the intrusively large name stamp, that is a result of ineptitude, not ego, I like the idea (a bean with the 'C' forming the dark embryo of the bean) but shall have to refine my carving techniques a little to scale it down a bit.

Post hubris malaise.

Surely in the handbook of psychiatry there is somewhere a description of idiots who bite off more than they can chew despite years of suffering the consequences of their actions? I would definitely be one such case.
Wednesday, a lovely train trip to Sydney with my good friend Jan (she bakes remember?) to see the biggest,  brightest wonderfullest craft show in the Southern Hemisphere (well, a little hyperbole will get you everywhere I have found). That is; a three hour trip, three hours walking around the show (maybe not the biggest, brightest etc,), three hours back and to top it off, a night out with friends!
Result? predictably, a day in bed, another day in my slippers and who knows what the morrow will bring?
I have done a couple of etegami though, another "recipe" card and a little something to send a friend.

I did have fun making the buzzy bee stamp.

Life after the open house.

Living in a home that is putatively owned by someone else is quite strange. Keeping it tidy and clean is now my job as a kind of custodian and is helping me with the "weaning off stage" so that I can  let my thoughts stray to furnishing and organizing the new space, on paper that is.
I have always maintained that houses are like overcoats, you can shrug off one and move into another that is more suitable without any qualms but with this place I am questioning my own philosophy. Is it ageing, the fact that I did move in meaning this to be my forever home after moving so many times before? It does seem that we are repeating a well worn theme, move in, make a lovely garden and then leave just as our fruit trees are fruiting, hedges hedging and shade trees shading.
This has been the longest we have lived in one place (11 years) in our married life so things are just that much more advanced and harder to leave. I console myself that I leave something to be enjoyed and hopefully nurtured by others.
We settle on our new digs tomorrow but because the current tenants have a lease until October, that is when we will move in. Amazing really when we only started to seriously look at alternatives to our home just before Anzac Day (April 25), to have things tied up so neatly, buying and selling, in only two months.
I have had time to do a little creative work as I have been a "bowls widow" this long Queen's Birthday long weekend, the Prof being absent almost the whole time gallivanting about on various bowling greens. He is a little sad this week though as his home club has closed it's doors because of a burden of debt too big to trade out of. Pity really as the club is in the park across the street from us and allowed him a celebratory (or consolatory) drink after a game without worrying about driving home. Of course this would all have become moot in October anyway and I suspect I will be chauffering  him and his mate quite a bit in future.

My first etegami is in response to a call for recipe card etegami by Debby, so a little humour seemed a good idea.

The second is in response to a call for cards celebrating the Japanese festival of Obon.

A quiet Hurrah!

There are moves afoot and barring unforseen circumstancess, the house is sold! At the one and only open house inspection our agent rounded up 26 couples from his database and of those, five made offers well over the asking price via a silent auction....we were amazed. We have signed the papers to exchange contracts and after the cooling off period allowed to the purchasers we can breathe again.
 It is said that selling a house and moving is one of the  more stressful things in life but so far, apart from the decluttering phase, this has been relatively painless. I guess it helps that we are happy and committed to the move and it is not being done under any kind of duress.
The new owners are happy too and seem to really love the oasis we have created here. The best aspect of the whole thing is that they are happy to allow us to stay in the house until October when our new place will be vacant.
Reading back over this it seems that I have used "happy" more than usual and I am happy with that!
Of course, now I am marking the time that I see each and every flower as the last time and that is a little sad but the new owners have said it is okay if I want to raid the persimmon tree next year so that is a bonus.
Time to get back to a little bit of etegami-ing and forget the constant cleaning and tidying for now!