A bunch of hydrangeas

Well, this week has been a tough one for my family. Last week, the family gathered to say goodbye to my Grandma. It was tough for all of us and the loss will be one that we feel for a long time, especially around Christmas when we would usually be headed of to 'the Bay' for a day of catching up with the family and overeating.

Anyone that knew Grandma would know that she wasn't always an easy person to get along with, and most people had some form of falling out with her along the line. Some people might think that these personality clashes would make the loss of Grandma easier to deal with, but in fact, it is exactly the opposite. Grandma's huge personality, and her habit of butting in and trying to control her children and grandchildren's decisions has made her a huge and central figure in all of our lives. She was such a massive part of my family that I am still struggling to comprehend the fact that she is gone.

With the family all gathered, and everyone's thoughts on Grandma, a lot of funny stories have been told. Most of these reminiscences were ones that I was already familiar with, but there were a few I hadn't heard before. For a few of us, though, one of the things that we have been reminiscing about, something that will now always be connected with Grandma in my mind and is now a sort of symbol of her personality is a bunch of hydrangeas. During my childhood, there was always a large vase full of dried hydrangeas on Grandma's mantelpiece, and somehow these large and colourful blooms seem to be the perfect floral emblem for her. Apparently, Grandma had a theory that a large bunch of flowers would draw a visitors eye and distract them from the mess. And that was just Grandma all over.

Nothing to say

I don't really have anything to say today, but its been quite some time since I posted so I thought I should post anyhow.

I have a new housemate now, and its going quite well so far. I'm still not convinced of  the wisdom in having a workmate for a housemate, but its only for a few months.

Anyway, if you are bored, here are two fascinating creatures to look up. The first is a naked mole rat from Africa. Very creepy looking, but interesting.

And the second is a gliding lizard from the genus Draco, but most people prefer to call them dragons. And you can see why. Tiny, but magnificent. I want three of them :)

Catch-up

So, I've obviously been slack again and haven't posted in quite some time. Sorry about that, but it happens. I've been busy at work mostly, and trying hard to ignore the looming deadline of my contract running out. The deadline no longer looms, as I have been given another extension and I have a job until June. I've also been ignoring the fact that I was going to have to move house in a couple of weeks, but it looks like I may not have to worry about that either. See, problems do go away if you ignore them.

Today I've got two videos for you. The first is one that I should have posted ages ago. It was taken the day that Ronan and Tayla moved out to Cressy, and is the first few minutes of them wandering around and exploring their new home.

I've really enjoyed having Ronan and Tayla out at Cressy. I'm out there nearly every day so I've still been able to watch them grow. I am incredibly proud of the way they have both grown up. Ronan is a good kilo heavier than Tayla now, and has really chunked up. He still likes to interact with people a bit too much, but he is just really curious and inquisitive.

Last week Ronan and Tayla got split up for the first time ever. I only had a couple of days notice (typical in this job unfortunately) that Tayla was going to be sent down to our Taroona compound for pre-export quarantine and will probably be sent to one of our mainland partners in about 3 months time when her quarantine is up. I'm excited for the future that she might have, but obviously I was a little sad to pack her up and send her off. This video was taken the day before Tayla was sent to Hobart.

Ronan is doing well without his sister. We gave him a new friend, another hand-raised little girl called Preia. She's slightly smaller than him, but is pretty tough so its a good pairing. We always try and group house juvenile devils to give them someone to play with, but so far they seem to mostly be avoiding each other. I'm sure they'll be best mates soon.

New Trail Camera

For Christmas, my parents gave me a trail camera. Its a motion sensor camera for tracking wildlife - it takes both stills and video and has infared night vision. The other day, I put it in the enclosure with the little devilies I raised to try it out. I was please with the fact that it was as easy to use as the ones we have at work, and was about the same quality.

The stills, as can be expected, were much less interesting than the video, but here's a still taken just after dark to give you an idea of the night vision capabilities.

These two videos are pretty cute - they show the right way and the wrong way to climb up the branches to the highpoint. Ronan demonstrating the sensible way and silly little Tayla(usually the sensible one) demonstrating the wrong way.

No vids, so photos instead

Currently, blogger won't show any videos I upload and seems to have lost all the videos out of previous posts as well. This is very frustrating as I was going to share a video with you, but as I can't here are a few photos of Ronan and Tayla in their grown-up enclosure out at Cressy where they have been thriving for the past month or so. At last weigh-in they were around 3kg and Ronan was actually heavier than Tayla for the first time ever, but that was weeks ago so they need weighing again.

 We love hanging out in our tyre - its the perfect size for us to snuggle up in.

 Our nest box opens into this lovely den so we feel nice and secure. Mum lifts our hessian sack curtains to check on us when we are hiding out in here. Its our favourite place on hot days as it is so nice and cool. Although, we also love hanging out under the leaves of the huge lomandra on hot days. Or playing around in our pool is always fun as well.

 Now that we are used to it, the big, wide outside world isn't scary at all.

Actually, its kinda boring. 

Except the hose - that's still very scary! We run and hide whenever the hose monster appears.

A soft spot for softies

Earlier this year, I made both my housemates Adipose (cutsie little aliens from Dr Who) softies for their birthdays as they both love them and said they wanted them when we were re-watching the episode of Dr Who they feature in. I hadn't made a softie for a while and found I really enjoyed so I made myself a little owl as a prototype of a pattern I was designing.

Tiani's adipose and my little owl spent a while living on the back of an armchair in our living room. Our friend, Hannah, came over one night and admired them. It was only a few weeks until her birthday so I offered to make her the soft toy of her choice. We pulled out my soft toy pattern books and Hannah decided on a bunny, but there wasn't a pattern she liked so I was set the challenge of designing a bunny softie pattern for her. Bunnies are a lot more challenging shape to simplify than owls, but I gave it a go and Mr Bunny is the result.

 I took Mr Bunny to show my crafty workmates as I was quite proud of the way he turned out, which resulted in a commission for me to make another owl for an upcoming baby shower that my workmate was attending. I've previously made large owl softie/cushion/things for a couple of workmates who have had babies and they have been very popular so I adapted that pattern and made a bright blue one (they were having a boy). I was even paid for it, which kinda makes me a professional soft toy maker.

Most recently, I've made a coffee cup plushie (from the chewing gum ad with all the evil food creatures) for Christine. While watching the ad together several times she remarked that she would love a softie of the coffee cup, and when it got close to Christmas and she said it again, I knew what I would be making her for Christmas. The coffee cup plushie is the size of a large takeaway coffee and was a little challenging to design because of the complicated shape of the lid (most of which you can't even see from this angle), but turned out pretty well.

So, the moral to this story is:

Don't mention you would like a plushie, softie, or teddy of something in my vicinity unless you really mean it.

Darcy's photo shoot

My friend Reegan is crazy about Darcy. She is my first port of call if I'm going away and need someone to look after Darcy, and lately she's been asking me to go away more often so she can have him over for more visits. Reegan has also proclaimed herself to be Darcy's godmother. I gave her a photo of Darcy to put on her fridge, but she has framed it and put it in the middle of the mantlepiece because she wanted him in pride of place. Her reaction to the photo gave me an idea, I could take a heap of photos of Darcy and print her a calendar of him. I may have then got a little carried a way, but with a few props, a little bit of peanut butter bribery, a good camera, and a lot of patience this is what Darcy and I produced: (as always, you can click to enlarge if you want a closer look)

Cover Art:

The Months:

I hope that made you smile :)