Peters Birthday Quilt

After me playing around with little bits and pieces practising a technique for joining little squares all very exactly, a beautiful red and black kimono lap quilt arrived in the post for Peter's birthday. When our daughter does it well, she does it really well. Peter was delighted. It is so beautiful I am not sure if he is going to use it on his knee or put it on the wall!

And I have been invited to join the quilting class/group in the cultural centre next door - so I am looking forward to "playing" with some like minded ladies next Tuesday morning.

It has a busy and topsy turvy week or two - After a lovely residential weekend practising my Sanskrit, we heard a dear friend's health was failing fast and she died on Sunday. She was 91 years old and was a much loved, generous lady whose Christian faith was exemplified in all she did.

LAst weekend I helped organise a very well received workshop with a renowned British speaker and spent time showing her around Auckland. Since then I have been busy working - so much for my semi retirement - but all the jobs are interesting and working with nice people. I am lucky.

Looks like I will have several trips to Oz in the next few months, and our bus is almost mended, so lots to look forward to - thank goodness we are both in pretty good health.

A constructive rainy day

It has been wet and wild since I got back from Christchurch and after working on the computer on Thursday and Friday decided that the evening and the weekend were "me" time - so I had fun with my sewing machine. The block for this month for the Rainbow Connection group was a log cabin in reds - and I was told to watch out and keep it square! Warning was justified - the slightest error in the seam width would have made it a parallelogram or a trapezium instead of a square - however I was tickled pink with the overall result - see photo.

Then I spent the rest of Saturday working on other patchwork projects that are on the go. FUN!

Today my throat which overnight had been burning has developed into a full blown runny nose cold and sore throat - so much for my invulnerability!

Playgrounds are fun!

This weekend Peter and I drove to Palmerston North to babysit Callum - sole charge - for the weekend while J went to a judo tournament and O went to a scrabble tournament. The little chap is a delightful baby - slept like a dream and had the most delightful wicked grin.

He is now almost 14 months old and walking and exploring at great speed. My friend Christine and I took him to the magnificent Esplanade playground - with miniature train - I think perhaps the adults enjoyed the train more than a one year old - maybe he needs to be a little older - he looked very solemn! But he loved the swings, slide and Christine followed him around the climbing frame! I took photos!

Really glad to get the chance to be with him for the whole weekend. We think he is saying Nana and something that signifies Grandad - definitely knows Mama and Dada! Woof and Shut.

A successful weekend for J - he got two gold medals at his tournament and O. also had a very successful weekend and ended up the B grade Scrabble champion.

I am off to Christchurch for a couple of days work tomorrow - they had a 5.5 quake today so hope they dont have any tomorrow!