Seaweed washed ashore at Shallow Inlet

Cyndy tagged me Four jobs I've had 1. Receptionist (only job I’ve ever been sacked from!) 2. Usher at university graduations 3. Student Engineer (two summers) 4. Civil Engineer (Roads) Four movies I could watch over and over 1. Pulp Fiction 2. Love Actually 3. In the Mood for Love (I would watch it over and over again if I had a copy) 4. Pride and Prejudice (the TV series, but I’m putting it here) Four places I have lived 1. Somerset, Tasmania 2. Hobart, Tasmania 3. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam 4. Traralgon, Victoria Four favorite t.v. shows 1. Documentaries 2. nothing else really Four places I've been on Vacation 1. Vietnam 2. Snowy Mountains, New South Wales 3. Whitsunday Islands 4. Fiji, Northern Yasawas Four favourite foods 1. Curry 2. Cherries 3. Vegemite on toast 4. Asparagus Risotto Four places I'd rather be right now 1. Tasmania 2. The beach 3. Melbourne 4. Antarctica (Always wanted to go there!!) Four sites I visit daily 1. Fibermania 2. Google 3. Any site that has been updated on my blogroll 4. Jodi Green Four people to tag I’m too chicken to tag

Riscy and I just had an extended weekend camping on the coast. A little break. We had a wonderful, relaxing time together. Swimming, reading, and trying to find creative ways to prepare our meals given the Total Fire Ban which meant that strictly we were not to use our primus stove. Tuna Salad and sandwiches :-) Yay! It has been very, very hot here, on Thursday we it was well over 40degrees again and humid to boot which is not pleasant. We also had thunderstorms and I'm pleased to announce that our cheapie OzTrail tent was waterproof (well, except for one zip area). I love our tent, it is tall enough so we can get dressed standing up and there is a handy vestibule and porch so we could sit in comfort drinking our wine while the rain came down. The above drawing is of part of the Bracken Fern frond I used to shoo the flys away whilst reading the mystery novel Riscy bought me for Christmas.

Bracken Fern from Shallow Inlet

Pre-painted. 32 pages ready for... whatever!

On Sunday it was HOT, (our car thermometer told us it was 43C which is 109.4F) so Riscy and I decided to escape our un-airconditioned house and the smokey Latrobe Valley (bushfires still raging nearby) to the beautiful Wilsons Promontary area. We took our dog Reuben so we couldn't go to the National Park, but Waratah Bay more than satisfied our need to cool off :-). As you can see from the above pic it was a great place for a swim. We are hoping to find a good camping spot there tommorow so we can escape the extreme temperatures again predicted for the coming days. Tommorow is Australia Day and we are taking Friday off work to create a 4 day long weekend for ourselves :-) Tonight, I spent AGES browsing through the website of Roz Stendahl. I had visited her site before but today I took the time to really take in her journals. Her dog drawings are WONDERFUL. I was inspired to pre-paint some paper after seeing some of her journal pages. I failed to be subtle in a lot of cases, and I imagine that some of the pages may be cut up and collaged rather than drawn on because the colour is too saturated. I really don't know where this will take me... but I've had a fun couple of hours splashing paint around anyway!

On knitting and spinning news: I am about to embark on the EPIC JUMPER. My first. I will be spinning the yarn as I go because I can't wait to start. I have plyed 255m of approximately 8ply weight yarn so far, my swatch tells me that it knits up to 6st/inch on 4mm needles. So I can proceed with the calculations required to make the Seamless Yoke Sweater from Elizabeth Zimmerman's book, Knitting without Tears. Wish me luck!! :-)

A portrait of our little family at Waratah Bay, Wilsons Promontary is in the background

Luckily the rain stopped as quickly as it began so our house didn't flood.