Post Christmas and Happy New Year

Happy New Year to you. Hope you all had a lovely and festive time during the holiday. Mine was busy throughout the holiday and at the end I needed a few outings to recharge! 

Christmas day was nice and quiet. Kitiya came and spent the day with us. We decided to just have cold cuts and antipasto for Christmas lunch. Matt (Kitiya's boyfriend) came over in the afternoon when I put high tea and dessert on for us. For dessert I made mini Pavlova and Kit made pecan pie. The weather was terrific; not too hot, just right for a relaxing day! All in all it was a lovely day. 

Below are some photos of the holidays. Enjoy! 

A very hot day where most people
headed to the beach!

We had a few hot days over the holiday. It was over 40'C/104'F for two days. One of those hot days was the day I arranged to meet my friend Ayako for high tea in the city. I took DIL along with me for a treat. I think she really enjoyed it.

Family picnic

Family picnic: We have family visiting from Germany. The first visit for the little ones. Most of the time we have visited them, but it was lovely to have them visiting us. We took them out for a picnic at the Rhododendron Garden in the Dandenong Ranges. The temperature is always lower there than in Melbourne, so cooler weather gear was required. 

Aussie BBQ on New Year day

Pavlova - the Aussie favourite summer dessert 

My DIL Bron and I found time to play dyeing on one of those busy days. Bron brought some red gum leaves from her sister's farm in Gippsland and we gathered more leaves from my neighbourhood. 

Here are some bundles before and after steaming. We had a lot of fun using my new electric burner. It worked perfectly. Below are some of the results from the batch. I will add captions to each photo. You can double click on each photo to enlarge. 

Rose leaves on wool. 

Unopened bundles

Eucalyptus iron bark and red gum leaves

Eucalyptus silver dollar leaves

Bundle opening with rose leaves on wool

Well, that is all from me for now. It's my first week back at work. It's going to be a big year for my library. It's a year of major library refurbishment. All the staff will have to move to make room for construction. Our department will be moving at the beginning of Feb. I have to go through the stuff I have been collecting to clear my desk (sad face!). It's okay, lives move on don't they?

Although I don't update my blog very often. I'm always posting photos on Instagram so don't forget to have a peek at my daily photos there. I decided that I will only blog when I have something to blog about. Have a great year everyone. Good health, good fortune and good friends all around. Those are my New Year wishes and the same goes to all of you too!

Until next time

Nat