MAY

Snapshots of May - most taken with my phone as my shoulder continues to heal more each day. One  major events was our daughter Grace being local support and opening singer for a wonderful James Morrison concert. It was a special night to remember. James is amazingly talented musician and very entertaining with his jokes and stories throughout the evening. 

My husband and I had a 24 hour visit to Sydney for a specialist appointment regarding his complex health issues. We are little closer to resolving things but every piece of the piece ought puzzle helps. (He attempted a graduated return to work early this month but he wasn't successful. He has been unable to work since early October, and has been healthy enough to work only seven months in the last three years). 

While in Sydney we had the great pleasure of catching up with both of our Sydney-based daughters. Miss N collected us from the airport and we enjoyed a meal together near our accommodation. After my husband's 90 minute morning appointment we met Miss E and had a leisurely afternoon around Circular Quay before we headed back to the airport.

While waiting for our evening return flight I noticed the last remaining Simply Mini quilt in my Etsy shop had just sold. A very pleasant surprise. The first thing I did at home the next morning was go to the cupboard where I keep all my ready-to-sell quilts to parcel it up for shipping/posting. I looked and looked, pulling all the quilts out - twice - but the littlest quilt of all was nowhere to be found! I searched in every other likely spot but still no Mini quilt! After a couple of hours I decided I may as well spend my time sewing a new one. Thankfully I had enough of the same fabrics to create a replacement. I had not tried using my sewing machine since dislocating my shoulder five weeks prior, yet here was an ideal small project to test the shoulder. Over the next 24 hours I slowly and carefully worked through each stage of production in small bursts, with the last hand stitches on the binding completed at 9:03am! A quick hand wash and drying flat in the fresh outdoors before it was packaged up and sent on it's way that afternoon. I didn't mention this story to the buyer, partly out of embarrassment. One day I may well stumble upon the original in a most unlikely location!

It's very satisfying to pick and eat fruits from trees we have planted. This year the avocado, lemon and orange tree are each bearing more fruit than in previous years. The orange above weighed over 550g/19.5oz and was sweet and juicy. 

Sunset walks are now comfortable again on the shoulder. Loving the colours and flocks of birds which make every sunset special. We have a pair of White-headed Pigeons nesting in the tree outside our bedroom window. My husband told me today he saw a small single egg in the nest. This variety of Australian pigeon only lay one egg and share the incubation.

Having a couple of hand sewing projects on the go have made my non-machine sewing weeks much more pleasant. I do love to be making something with my hands! Last week I slowly recommenced quilting the queen size quilt I had been working on before hurting my shoulder. My shoulder lets me know when I've pushed it too hard, like today. So tonight I rest it some while putting well-overdue words to my ever growing collection of photos.....

* If you hover your mouse/cursor over the photos above, some will have text details to accompany. *** You can read more details about most of these photos on my Instagram feed which I add to several times a week. You don't have to join Instagram to view either - just click on the little blue square camera logo under my blog profile (top right hand corner).