Crowdy Head

On of the places on our list to go to was Crowdy Bay National Park, as it featured in a touristy magazine and looked amazing. I'd already looked up the campsite we'd be staying in and was looking forward to it.
In Australia, some places have been entirely taken over by old people. Entire towns. They are eerie places. Everything is immaculate. There is at least one pharmacy on every street. The only animals around are little hairy rats on leads. All socks are blindly white and are pulled up to mid-calf. There is ALWAYS a bowls club, usually with tons of people playing. There are newly built, toy-town style 'shopping villages' with carefully replanted shrubs, where tumbleweeds go to get their sardines. Harrington, where the campsite was, was one of these places.

The, er, church, at Harrington's deserted shopping village.

We drove on through to Crowdy Head and found a seafood wholesaler, a lighthouse and a nice little surf break, nothing inspiring enough to stay for more than a day, but we went up to the lighthouse and Zappa gave the break a go.

I saw a cookie monster in one of those claw machines and wanted it and Zappa won it for me! That's proper boyfriend stuff that is. However he came wearing a hideous basketball outfit so I am making him a jumper. This and watching some of Zap's wipeouts kept me amused.

Blanket Progress

Look how big it's got!

Happy Monday!

Hello and a Happy Monday to YOU. We are in the most lurrvely cafe called the Vintage Nest, which has loads of vintage STUFF everywhere, and has a vintage clothes shop through a door. It is tres cool. What has been happening in the last week, hmm...

1. I searched for a suitable Easter egg for myself and was frustrated - here Easter seems to be run purely by Cadbury's, which is mystifying as Cadbury's chocolate is terrible here. 

Have I told you why yet? Ruth sorted this out on a trip to the Tasmanian Cadbury's factory. Now. I was told before I came here that Australian chocolate is rubbish, because they have to put something in it to stop it from melting at room temperature. Firstly most Australian chocolate is really yummy, bizarrely Nestle chocolate is much better than its European counterpart. The only one that is rubbish is Cadburys. And that is not because they add something weird, as Ruth found out, it is because they use evaporated milk from Australian cows for transportation reasons, then restore it with water when it gets to the factory, and this for some reason makes it taste different.

If I have told you that before I'm sorry, but it is important so it's best I say it twice than not at all.

What else.

2. We had barbequed roast chicken outside.

3. Whilst shopping for more yarn I came across mad knitting books and have decided to learn to knit.

This is my favourite, so buying it when I get home:

check out the Mr. T mohecan hat!!!!

And the Godzilla feet. Amazing!

4. I have got so far with my blanket:

And finally admitted that it is a bit long. So this morning I woke up and cut a foot off it. I wasn't sure if you're allowed to do this in crocheting so I didn't research it and although reconstructing the edge was a brain teaser, I am happy to report it is now done and very smart, and will save me lots of money and time. It's still long enough to cover a bed completely.

5. Zappa went surfing in 9 foot waves (from trough to peak) and got absolutely owned! Haha. It took him about an hour and a half to get out the back, and a guy went 'Mate! How on earth did you get out here on THAT?! Respect!' Everyone else was on tiny boards and could duck dive the waves.

Zap did amazingly well, although he started threatening to buy another smaller board, prompting an Excel budgeting spreadsheet.

6. I met a crab.

Quigley and Jean's House II

Helleo! How marvelous to have the internet. Have you noticed that old people often call it 'the Web'? I wonder why it's only them. Hands up all those I have made to feel old? Sorry.

We are in our final day of our 4 days housesitting for Quigley and Jean for the second time. It's great! This time they gave us loads of jobs to do, and unlike last time it hasn't been constantly raining so hard if you stepped outside and looked up you would drown. So we have been busy bees. Zappa has been powerhosing like a maniac and today he is cleaning windows. I started out cleaning windows, got too tired and cleaned cupboards and replanted plants, which was good fun. What?! Both tasks are immensely satisfying.

And guuuuess who we saw again?

Little tick paralysis chicken!!

Looking very normal chickeny.
7 out of 9 of the latest batch of chicks (of which paralysis chicken is one) have turned out to be cockerels, so I kindly offered to make them into roast chickens. The family didn't want to eat any but they said I could. So I selected a stonkingly obvious yellow-legged young cockerel and took it round the front of the house away from the others. 'What are you doing?' asked Zappa.
'I'm killing a chicken,' I said proudly.
He looked uncertain. 'Are you sure it's a cockerel?' he said.
'Yeah, look at it, it's enormous, and check out these long green tailfeathers!'
'......hmm.....I'd wait until I'd definitely heard it crow,' he said.
I suddenly felt unsure. But still sure. But unsure.
'If you're sure it's a cockerel, go for it,' Zappa said, 'ignore me.'
So I carried on and found a quiet spot and held the chicken in position.
'Bwaaaaaark?' said the chicken softly.
'Awww.....' I said, 'I feel so sorry for you!'
I'd lost my momentum. It wasn't going to happen. I put him back.

A happy addition this time is Dolphin the Dog, who was in kennels last time:

She loves going round with me, trying to eat the chicken food/horse food/compost, and is ecstatic when I dig holes for plants, wanting to see what's in the holes, or trying to be beheaded, I haven't quite worked it out. She does however have quite early breakfast times, which she lets us know about by barking a lot, and can't understand why we're not as excited as her when we come out and it's still dark.

Sometime I found really weird was what the next door farmer has done to his fields:

Apparently he has sprayed herbicide all over them (great for Quigley et famille who are religiously organic, instead of jif and windolene they have eucalyptus oil mixed with water), not only killing the weeds but also the grass??? I have never heard of it before. He then puts enormous amounts of fertiliser all over it and the grass grows back at breakneck speed. We don't do this in the UK do we? Have I just never noticed? I don't understand why you'd need to.
Haha Zappa has just said from the other room, 'If I'm ever looking for career ideas and I come up with being a window cleaner, shoot me.' He's finding it tiring as well! That makes me feel a lot better. It knackered me yesterday, I was really disappointed.

The day before we came here, Zappa and I went to the Bellingen craft shop which is so gorgeous, I should sneak a picture of it sometime. I got some really nice purple yarn and we both loved a hand spun, hand dyed merino yarn made by a local lady, all different blues, sooo nice. So Zappa bought it and whipped me up a pair of wrist warmers that afternoon!

Such beautiful yarn!

I felt the need for chocolate muffins but we had no muffin tins or cases...

Not a big enough obstacle, group crocheting needs cake.

Ta da!! Aren't they gorrrgeous? He's so clever.

Anyway it is a beautiful sunny day today, absolutely gorgeous, with a nice cool breeze, and I am going to go and enjoy it. And maybe do another cupboard.

Knitting Club Infiltration

The other day I took my crocheting to the beach.

There I was, hooking away when a woman from the group in front of me (that's her surfboard in the pic) elbowed her friend and said 'LOOK! Crocheter!' and came over to speak to me. We had a chat about all sorts of stuff, and I asked if she ever goes to a crocheting group, and she said that her and her friends had formed their own, and, determined to make friends, I asked when was it and if I could join it. She said 'Err well actually we're meeting this afternoon! And it's round Nicole's house so I'd better ask her...' and Nicole said it was fine so later on that day, off I went with my straggly two rows of wool and infiltrated a Genuine Australian Crocheting and Knitting Club, at Someone's House! It was FUN and there was CAKE. And Nicole had been asked by someone to take a picture of the club for International Women's Day, so:

I have officially gone down in history as being a part of something Australian.

Sadly they only meet once a month and we're going back to Bello tomorrow so probably won't see them again.

Enthused, I went to a big Hobbycraft type store to get some more yarn. Look Petesy, the biggest hackysack in the world!!

Gotta love the Wright eyebrows.

Look what I now possess!!!!!!

*aaaahhhhhhhhhhh......* angelic music.

I LOVE COLOURFUL THINGS.

 It's not looking bad ey? I love it. Although I didn't realise quite how big I was making it:

It's going to be a blanket! Nom nom nom.

I had a dream the other night where the unit of time was the crochet stitch. I'm not sure I'm doing this in a healthy way, I am quite addicted. Last night I dreamt I killed someone with a biro for a new phone number and a box of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes. Analyse THAT.