Irene's Blog

Recently, I went up to our local council offices and thought I'd take a photo of the artwork outside the Karalyka Centre next to the council offices.

Just as well there was glass between Corey and the eels, because they seemed to have taken a liking to him.

Uncle Stephen was 22 years old on 13th March and even though he couldn't be home for his birthday cake we went ahead and recorded the event which he saw when he got home from work - and we even saved him some cake.

Here's a photo of one of my roses. It's my favourite one right now because it's so bright. I have a number of other rose bushes throughout the garden including 2 white climbers, a red rose, lilac rose and a couple of beautiful yellow roses and a standard yellow rose. They are so rewarding when they're in flower and the white climbers right now are covered in roses.

Just back from a lovely week at Surfers Paradise, Queensland. The weather was brilliant and we managed to see a lot while we were there. We stayed about 2 blocks away from Cavill Mall where all the action is. Along one side is mainly eating places with a huge range of restaurants to choose from. You can get meals for less than $10 and they're more than enough at times. We visited Movie World, our second visit having been there 17 years earlier. I even went on a roller coaster, but not the big one - the little one in the kiddies section but that was more than enough for me as I don't like fast rides and I'm scared of heights. I don't know how I even agreed to go on that ride though there were lots of other adults on it and hardly any children. Met Batman and Robin on our travels through Movie World and enjoyed the Batman 2 ride - but I wasn't game to go on the big Batman ride. We were happy to see that the main street at Movie World is now under cover as I had vision...

Kids sure do keep you on your toes and at times are a great source of laughter. This is a photo of one of my grandsons taken today when he was having lunch. He'd asked for Vegemite in his bread roll but then decided to examine it up close just to make sure I'd given him what he wanted. Why he made such a funny face I don't know but I just couldn't let it pass without a photo. Just wait until he's having an 18th or 21st birthday - I'm sure he'd love it blown up to poster size!!!

Tonight, John called me to see the possums who were walking across our front fence so I rushed in and got my camera to see if I could get a shot.........they're quite cute little animals as long as you don't have a metal roof as we used to have because if they jump from a nearby tree onto your roof in the middle of the night, it gives you quite a scare. Thank goodness we have tiles on the roof now and don't hear them even if they do run across the roof. After I took this photo, the possum made a dash up a nearby tree......I guess he was camera shy.

The new Eastlink tollway between Ringwood and Frankston opened recently but as it's free to use until the end of July, we thought we'd take a trip this morning since it was such a lovely day for a drive. Entering the freeway behind Eastland Shopping Centre, the traffic moved really quickly and before we knew it, we were doing 100 kpm. Along the way, we saw a few "sculptures" but this was my favourite - a giant blackbird One vehicle, not going at the same speed as all the other cars, was using the side lane so as not to hold everyone back......but I guess he was having a great drive too. After travelling for about half an hour, and nearing Frankston and the end of the tollway, there was a sudden traffic jam which took us about 10 minutes to get through to a place we could turn so we could make the return journey. All in all, it was a very pleasant drive and not having to stop at all, was brilliant. It would definitely be worthwhile using it if we had to travel to Frank...

We went to see the new Indianna Jones movie (Indianna Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) during the week at the Knox Cinema complex. We had tickets for the Gold lounge which meant being escorted to our very comfortable recliner armchairs, with footrests. We were offered a cushion and blanket but thought we might just fall asleep being that comfortable. We had a coffee served to us during the movie though that could easily have been a glass of wine - what luxury. Meals are also available but as we went to the 10.30am showing, we thought we'd have lunch after the movie. We really enjoyed this latest Indianna Jones adventure which had plenty of action and sound with a bit of humour thrown in as well. Harrison Ford has aged well !!! Afterwards, we went to the pub next door for lunch - Seamus O'Toole's Irish Pub. The pub's a bit rough looking inside as far as decor is concerned, but the food is excellent and nobody could complain about the prices and the portions. W...

A nice little visitor to my garden.

After days of exceptionally hot weather up around 38ºC to 40ºC each day and not cooling down much at night, we had a cool change around 5pm today. What a relief. It's to be cooler, in the mid 20s, for the next few days and hopefully we've seen the end of the hot weather and we can give the air conditioning a rest.....after all, it is autumn. As the clouds rolled in, this was the sky from the back of the house - it looked really weird. It would be nice if it would rain, but I'll believe that when I see it.

Have you ever had one of those days where a minor, nuisance of a problem has taken up most of your day. Well, today was one of those days for me. It all started mid morning when one of our 3 smoke detectors beeped - not just that little chirp you get when the battery needs replacing, it was 3 high pitched beeps but not at regular intervals as you'd expect. I got the ladder out and replaced the battery as I figured that would be a good start - but that didn't stop the noise. I then checked the battery I'd just put in to make sure it wasn't a dud but it was fine so I made sure I'd put it in correctly, positive and negative in the right place. Okay, should be okay now - nope, still beeping. I got the vacuum cleaner out and vacuumed inside and outside the detector even though to my eye, it looked fine and after about an hour of silence and thinking all was well, that darned beeping started all over again. What now I thought. I don't want this continuing all nigh...

CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES 100g icing sugar 8 digestive biscuits 50g butter or marg tablespoon cocoa powder 15ml boiling water Coating (I use desicated coconut or chocolate sprinkles) I used double measures to make the batch in the photo. Put butter or marg into mixing bowl, stir until soft (I put in microwave until it melts a little). Sieve icing sugar and cocoa powder into mixing bowl - stir well. Put digestive biscuits into blender until crumbs (I put in a bowl and smash them up into really small crumbs with the bottom of a glass). Put biscuit crumbs into mix and mix well. Pour boiling water (15ml or more if the crumbs need it, but you don't want them any way runny, just so the mix holds together) and mix with all ingredients. Roll mix into small balls and then roll in coating and refrigerate. You can substitute some of the water for rum if you like rum truffles.

Not long to go now until Santa comes. Our tree went up on 1st December and looks really lovely especially at night when we have all the lights flashing. I've been well ahead this year having done just about all of my Christmas shopping at the end of last month. I've even bought most of the food for Christmas dinner and only have a few last minute things to get - I've really surprised myself as I'm usually running to the shops at the last minute.

That's me got my new garden bed done behind the retaining wall I built a while ago. It's looking great and can only get better as the plants grow. We're on water restrictions here in Melbourne, so I have to save water from elsewhere to water the plants. We all take water so much forgranted but when you're told you're not allowed to water the garden except for two days a week between 6am and 8am, unless you use recycled water from the shower or the washing machine, it certainly hits home and means lugging buckets from the house to the garden just to keep things alive - especially if you forget which day you're allowed to water and find that you have other things to do early in the morning.

Last night, we went to see Jeff Wayne's musical version of THE WAR OF THE WORLDS at the Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne. I've known the music for years as I have the old vinyl double LP which came out in 1978, plus the cassette and now I have the CD. It's a really good show with lots of special effects including a huge Martian tripod ship which is lowered on to the stage with flashing lights, smoke and explosions. The late Richard Burton stars as the journalist who appears as a 3D hologram talking head at the side of the stage. A 30 metre wide screen with animation of the storyline also shows the singers / actors close up. Jeff Wayne conducts the 10-piece Black Smoke Band and a 40-piece String Orchestra. Moody Blues’ Justin Hayward returns to reprise his role as The Sung Thoughts of The Journalist. The show also features Shannon Noll playing Parson Nathaniel, Rachael Beck as Beth, Parson Nathaniel’s wife, Michael Falzon portraying The Artilleryman. Manfred Mann Earth Band’s Chri...

We're just back from a short break in Geelong and did some sightseeing down the coast while there. The weather was perfect and Geelong looked better than ever - it's been a good few years since our last visit so we noticed quite a few changes. Eastern Beach looked brilliant in the sunshine. I love these decorative bollards which are all along the foreshore. They add colour and interest and a bit of humour to the area. This is the lighthouse at Point Lonsdale. This area is one of the most dangerous parts of the coastline with many wrecks in it's depths. Ocean Grove is a lovely little town with a great surf beach and lots of nice places to eat. The Blue Fin Café on the corner serves very nice food at a reasonable price - and has an all day breakfast which suited my husband. We only had a short break of 3 days but we made the most of our time and toured all over. Every beach is lovely and all the little towns are clean and well looked after.

This was at 8.30 this morning and my son's car at the front of the house. The roof is covered in thick frost which is as close to snow as we get around here. Even with the sun shining on it, it took a while to melt. The frost has gone now and it's a lovely sunny winters day in Melbourne.

Today, we went to visit our daughter where she works at HMAS Cerberus, the Royal Australian Navy's premier training establishment near Hastings. I took a few photos, none of which would be regarded as a security risk, but I was aware that I just shouldn't be snapping photos all over the place. This is one of the two churches on the base. The Wardroom is where the officers are served their meals. It's very ornate with two chandeliers and has two large murals, one at each end of the room. Across from one of the churches, there was a park with a small lake/pond but because of the drought we're experiencing right now, there was no water in it.

After their Easter Egg hunt, the twins decided to count how many eggs they'd found. They had such fun searching for eggs in the garden, then again seeing what was inside each egg, then when they were finished, they put all the chocolate back inside the hollow plastic eggs. Kept them busy for ages - and they hardly ate any of it which was a miracle. The golf was on as you can see - what a lovely golf course it was too. Could that be Tiger playing a shot?