Happy New Year, or Can You Eat Too Much Sushi?

At last, something that even I could make, or me and my treadle sewing machine. I constructed Santa's stockings without any instructions; who would know that the stocking on the right wasn't an ingenious personal design? Some might even suppose the zig zag trim to have been sewn on upside down in a frenetic pre-Christmas frenzy...

Santa was very good and. God was good and gave us sunshine, apricots, whiting, prawns from Port Lincoln and fine wine from South Australia. Some smashing friends came and spent Boxing Day with us. The chaps fished (more Whiting) and the women and children read, lolled and got burnt on the beach.

Blighter Hal lost his first tooth; the Tooth Fairy followed the pixie dust and made it to the shack - and left him $2.

Now the Gent is away for New Year, and the blighters and I have indulged ourselves. Imogen and I had our first attempt at sushi. It was such a success that I now feel sick. Hal declined and ate some sausage rolls with good old tomato sauce. He is fast asleep. Im is reading.

I may not make it to midnight. We purchased some fabric to make covered pin boards today; it's just me, the canvas and a staple gun. Watch out!

Quangdong Decorations

News of the impending decorations has drawn enthusiasm from Sydney, England and possibly New Zealand.

After almost scorching ourselves with the hot glue gun, then asphyxiating ourselves with the silver spray, the children and I have made countless tiny silver things for the Christmas tree.

Hal is taking some to school tomorrow, for the classroom tree. Boy, Room 3 is lucky.

Below is the photo of the quangdong nuts in their natural state, and in the front, the new, turbo boosted silver plated version.




Call me crazy, but I'm not starting a small 'quangdong' business yet.

I'm about to wrap some Christmas presents.

Am I getting ahead of myself?

These are to send to Sydney for the Kiwi Cousins, along with a birthday present, so I sort of have an excuse.

I do love Christmas.

This weekend we are going to make decorations from pine cones and quangdong nuts. The latter are also known as native peaches and grow wild.

The Absolute Gent's father, George, adores pies made from them. Recently, we found a veritable orchard near the shack, and loaded our sun hats with the small, bright red fruit.

I divested them of the nuts and stewed the fruit, adding a generous helping of sugar.

And more sugar.

And quite a bit more.

They were still very, very bitter, with an aftertaste of bitter.

So we didn't eat the quangdongs, but we kept their nuts.

Imogen and Hal are very excited about the decorations. Hal has to take one to his beautiful teacher on Monday for the class tree. We met said lady at our local shops this evening. Hal proceeded to throttle himself as a means of overcoming his excitement/pleasure/embarrassment that his most loved teacher was before him, discussing cacti and carols (as you do).