Old men, giant flamingos and retrenched Christmas fairies

Happy new year (albeit belated)! I absolutely did not mean for so much time to slip by between posts, not that I imagine many people were on the edge of their seats waiting for me to utter my next word. The universe was against me in everyway; unexpected disasters, Blogger issues, photo uploading problems, a misplaced camera cord, unreliable internet connections, and so on.
We had a busy end of year, as everyone does, and then my (soon to be) 82 year old father became incapacitated, then hospitalised. Hands up anyone who has experienced the joy of transitioning an elderly parent from their own home to a nursing home (although we're constantly battling to use other names for it).
For the past week he has been trialling a lovely 'ah hm' at Clayfield. It's beautiful, heritage listed, all meals are made from scratch on the premises, it has beautiful gardens, air conditioning, it's close to everything, it has lots of common areas and easy accessability of course.

But guess what! He hates it, it's full of old people! This ageing parent business isn't easy on anyone, least of all the baby of the family. Poor me. So now he's back off to his own house to battle along a bit longer, then I imagine we'll start the whole process again.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I finally managed to get my hands on some giant flamingos. My Era buddy has a pair which I've coveted and I now I have my very own. With the stuffed peacock and now the flamingos the living area has taken on a rather 'camp' tone, which I don't mind a bit.

I also got these two brass goblet-ty things at the Salvos, tarted them up with some white paint and popped in some succulents. Yes I know a monkey could have done it, but I was still chuffed with the result.

Here is some more of my handy work. I acquired these two cane chairs, also from the Salvos. Then I whipped out the Janome and made some new covers for them. It made for a highly productive Friday night, and as it turns out, they are the most comfortable chairs ever put on the face of the earth.

This is a bonsai Fig I found in my father's garden. He said it's about 30 or 40 years old. We love it. It also had a mate, but after Peaches jazzed it up with a swing and a slippery dip it strangely passed on to the big garden in the sky. Considering it had sat happily unattended in Dad's garden for a few years it was a rather insulting gesture to turn its toes up only weeks after coming to living with us. Good riddance I say.

The girls have taken to calling regular trees 'big bonsais', which I suppose technically they are.

While we're on the subject of show and tell, this was one of my Christmas presents. I squeezed myself into it and wore it on Christmas Day. It gave the effect of a giant Christmas fairy, who had somewhat let herself go.

The stonework out in the garden is now pretty much complete and is just waiting for its plants.

She's coming along the old girl, slowly but surely.

Evolution of the Christmas tree

We put the Christmas tree up in late November.
Originally, my idea was to do what I termed 'colour banding', where we sorted the decoration into colours and put, for example, all the silver ones around the bottom, then the red ones on the band above, etc. But then I decided I really did have more of a life than that, and anyway, the idea was over-ruled by a pair of bossy midgets who had obviously been discussing the aesthetic shortcomings of the result between them.
Our tree is about 8ft I think? This is it in it's natural, unspoilt, green plastic state.

We already had the decorations divided into their colours, so we added each pile progressively. First the pinky dinks.

Then the sterling silvers.

Then we added the gold.

Then the rest.

For a good tree, I steer clear of tinsel. Tinsels for amateurs. You'll be the laughing stock of the street if you use tinsel.

As beautiful as Theodore Buttons is, he's a sandwich short of a picnic, I think. He seems to think the tree is real and loves nothing more than to laze under it for hours on end, occasionally whacking a dangling decoration off for fun.

Over the past couple of weeks we've been woken up a few nights by the frantic squeaks of a terrified mouse Ted has dragged in and thrown under the tree. The poor little things sit there shaking, eyes wide and chewing their nails until my husband 'rescues them' (a.k.a. throws them out the window).
And at night we spark her up, and she lights up just like a ....you know what.

Christmas Lights

May I just interrupt my New York three part story to give you the hot tip on some OTT Christmas lights you may like to check out.
It's such a phenomenon, the whole Christmas Lights thing. What motivates people to cover their house with illuminated Christmas paraphenalia? I'm not sure, but I'm glad they do.
The first one is at Cougar Street, Indooroopilly. This is the last year they will be participating in the Christmas Lights competition and everything is for sale. The man who puts it together, Noel (no I'm not kidding), is an engineering genius and he's made dozens of little motorised displays, like a Zipper ride with Barbie dolls.
Every night there's entertainment from 7pm to boot.

If you like Las Vegas, you'll love the house on Dorrington Drive, Ashgrove. She really draws a crowd.

I'd love to know what their neighbours thought of the whole thing?
On the way, you can also swing past Amarina Avenue. There's a house opposite the Ashgrove Library that is worth a look too.
If you've got any Christmas Light tips, do share!

Unnatural Disasters and Cyclone Yasi

We are into day 2, birthday cake 3, of our week long 4th birthday celebrations.
Tomorrow we are having our playgroup friends around to celebrate Peach's birthday, yet again. We have been in the same playgroup for more than five years. Now tots that once pulled each other's hair in the portacot are in school uniforms, and their younger siblings are tottering around.
Some of us, me included, are unfortunately running out of children and this will be my last year as a legitimate playgroup member.
Today I made myself a list, and ran around the house like I had a motor on my rear end. I felt quite smug that I'd got everything ticked off. I even made the birthday cake and layered it with jam and cream (whipped by hand, thank you very much).
Feeling the efficiency charging through my veins I thought I would just whip up the icing and decorate the cake before the children went to bed.
Hells bells! The disaster that now lies grimly in my fridge is almost beyond belief. I had to laugh....or else I would have cried. It will surely get some laughs in the morning.
I am trapped too. I can't just duck out and get another one, everyone is arriving just after nine.
Have put quite the gallery together so you can really appreciate how bad it is. My fatal errors included:
- not taking enough care
- not making enough icing
- making the icing too thick
- cutting the layers of the cake too thin
- not having a proper plan in my head when I started
- not concentrating
I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Please learn from my mistakes.
Before I wheel out the beast, let me firstly show you what I normally churn out. It's not great, but passable.

This is the Frankenstein thing I created this afternoon.....from all angles....it's bad, very.

Then the avalanche....

This is a blurry, unflattering photo of me trying to stick it back together, which I liken to lying down in front of a runaway train to stop it. Notice how close it is to the side of the bench. I'm not sure if I was subconsciously trying to push it off, or the poor thing was trying to jump! See my look of panic.

Let me tell you, there's going to be a lot of wide eyes and hands over the mouth tomorrow when I unveil this baby.
As a social experiment, I don't think I'll give them a heads up. I'll just put it on the table and check out the reactions.

In summary, as we like to say, 'Nevermind, it doesn't matter'.

This is a photo of our house from an angle I've never seen before - compliments of a tiny, budding photographer. (actually looking at it now, I feel I should point out that the tiny photographer is not the cat)

Tonight, at the bottom end of the state, we will be thinking of all those at the top end.  Wishing you a safe and uneventful night.