Barkley Blah!

great success story

2009-06-06T15:03:00.000-07:00

Late last year I posted about my daughter Carlena, her partner Sharda and two of their friends who had taken the plunge and opened a new concept 'wine bar' at a beautiful beach suburb location in Adelaide.

I was a bit concerned at the time, wondering if starting a new venture in the current economic climate was such a good idea. But she almost put my mind at rest with her conviction that it would be the right thing to do, the price was right and between them the 'girls' had all the skills needed to make a success.

Carlena and her partner Sharda are chefs with long-term high level experience, and the other two combine fine wine expertise and bar service with administration and financial management skills. A sure-fire combination, all they needed were the customers.

Well, how delighted I am to report that they have just had their 6-month anniversary, and they haven't looked back from day one, exceeding their own expectations and garnering more than a few favourable reviews along the way.
Link to the Yellow Pages entry..

My only concern now is that they are so busy I hardly ever see her, with her in Adelaide and me on the Gold Coast.. but of course I am very happy for them.

The pictures are screen dumps; one is a page from a google search, the other is their yellow pages entry, which shows off the premises really well.
Link to the Google Search Page..

Ever had a chance to listen to a tree?

2009-03-05T13:01:00.000-08:00

This one is special.. you can put your ear to the trunk and hear the noises the tree makes. I think it must be the sounds of water being taken up the trunk. Very Interesting.

There are a few bird calls on the audio. I captured the sound by putting my digital camera video against the trunk.

little bit of godzone.. A Visit To The Bush

2009-02-13T18:23:00.000-08:00

the outdoor loo definitely adds character!

Spectacular Plants

pontoon.. on the lake..

easy walking trails..

Pretty Cabin for Guests..

AND .. a Talking Tree..
listen carefully!

all good in the greenhouse..

2009-01-25T03:15:00.000-08:00

I never really expected to still be growing in the greenhouse this late into the summer, and it does get pretty hot in there some days.. but it's been a good exercise. We've had tomatoes regularly, and cherry tomatoes, capsicums and lots of different lettuces. And the herbs just keep going.. coriander, basil, spring onions and chillis.. all producing strongly.

Some things doing well outside..

Very pleased with the first Apple Cucumber.. lots more on the way too, looks like!

Lots of trial and error.. we only got 1 eggplant from the first lot planted, not enough water I think.. it's so hard to know how much water is too much or not enough. The new ones look to be doing better, and we now have zucchinis and bok choy making a good start.

time flies - and Angel is going to school..

2009-01-16T23:10:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe our 'baby' (who, by the way, HATES being called a baby, she tells me "I'm a BIG girl now nana!") turns five years old this year and starts at pre-school later this month.

Here she is, graduating from child-care.. love the face.. and the thongs..

in the backyard..

2008-11-29T14:05:00.000-08:00

I've been puzzling over why the kangaroo paw flower stems have been breaking - having used very thin flexible bamboo stakes to hold them up and there has never been a problem in the past. But this year, I went down to put in a few more stakes, and found the stems bent and broken.

Check out the look on it's face..
priceless..

26 Semaphore Road, ADELAIDE

2008-11-25T13:14:00.000-08:00

Daughter Carlena has joined with three of her friends to open a new venture at a beautiful beach location in Adelaide. It is a wine bar called The Third Cork, with fine wines, wonderful food, classy surroundings, live music and good company. Their ‘opening night’ last Friday was a HUGE success - congratulations to all, and I wish them every success (because they deserve it!)

birds in the backyard

2008-11-04T14:09:00.000-08:00

Found this little fellow in the backyard.. thought it was making a LOT of noise, till I discovered he/she wasn’t alone – we have THREE new baby carrawongs; well done Mr and Mrs Wong!

Now then, 'How do I get back up there?'

'hmm.. maybe up this way?

this might help...'

And never very far away, one or the other of the parents; funny things, they bomb me if they think I am getting too close to the babies!

nearly 8 weeks later...

2008-09-22T13:58:00.000-07:00

A Good Start..

Little bit of turkey-proof fencing..

greenhouse progress (what else?)

2008-07-31T15:16:00.000-07:00

Did I say I got the greenhouse? Probably - anyway, it's here now and the fun starts. Did I also say that I was a touch off on the measurements and that it wont fit where I want it to go, without moving the clothesline?

Before:

Work In Progress:

Now You See It!

Now You Don't!

Watch This Space...

Saturday afternoon...

2008-07-26T01:36:00.000-07:00

12:45 pm
Well, I spent the morning playing with a photograph that I wanted to print. Haven't done that for a while so had to recap a bit... Just the other day I found a really good Paint Shop Pro users/helpers group and a great bloke called tattoobob who helped me with another problem I was having with a photo. http://ravenspaintshoppro.yuku.com/directory

It took me hours, of course, to get the result I wanted on the photo, it's my own fault, I know that if I want to print a picture then I have to leave the resolution settings as high as possible on my camera. But, no, decided to reduce the size because mostly I take for digital photos and they don't need to be so big. So I've had to digitally enlarge the photo to get a large-size print, and that never works properly. Good enough though, to show the subject, which is what I wanted.

I've been clearing the yard for the place to put the new greenhouse (YES YES, I now have a greenhouse). I got it for a very good price, only half what I was prepared to pay, and it is the one I really wanted, even better; it's arrived, I haven't unpacked it yet, but there is one problem.

The space I had marked out to put it, isn't really long enough. Well, it is, but it's much too close to the clothesline (rotary hills hoist) - so I have decided to cut down the clothesline and am waiting for the man to come and do that. Next week, hopefully. I've found a space that will fit one of those fold-down lines at the side of the house. Much better, and I can place the greenhouse to better advantage.

Today is our first day of sunshine for a while and I did think I might do some more yard clearing while it was a bit warmer - and then I went into the kitchen and remembered that last night, in a fit of unseasonal cleaning fever, I had emptied out one of the kitchen cupboards with the intention of having a throw-away and a bit of a clean, and that is what I am supposed to be doing.now...

6:26 pm
Very strange, went back into the kitchen to finish the job, and decided I was a bit hungry, so made myself a crusty wholemeal bread roll, with bone ham and swiss cheese, fine slices of spanish onion and a tiny touch of mustard - finished that off and felt a bit sleepy. Curled up in my nice warm bed with a book and drifted off into a lovely nana nap.

with a little help from my friends...

2008-07-15T05:47:00.000-07:00

Found some really cheap pavers I've been keeping an eye out for - couldn't resist and soon had them parked in the driveway.

Noel shifted them for me, thank heavens, a very heavy job..

girlpower at work

Willing Helper - fully fashion clad, of course!

Still Cheerful!

finished

looks good!

this is funny...

2008-07-12T13:30:00.000-07:00

How do you decide who to marry?
(written by kids)

(1) You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like, if you like sports, she should like it that you like sports, and she should keep the chips and dip coming.
- Alan, age 10

(2) No person really decides before they grow up who they're going to marry. God decides it all way before, and you get to find out later who you're stuck with.
- Kristen, age 10

WHAT IS THE RIGHT AGE TO GET MARRIED?

(1) Twenty-three is the best age because you know the person FOREVER by then.
- Camille, age 10

(2) No age is good to get married at. You got to be a fool to get married.
- Freddie, age 6 (very wise for his age)

HOW CAN A STRANGER TELL IF TWO PEOPLE ARE MARRIED?

(1) You might have to guess, based on whether they seem to be yelling at the same kids.
- Derrick, age 8

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR MUM AND DAD HAVE IN COMMON?

(1) Both don't want any more kids.
- Lori, age 8

WHAT DO MOST PEOPLE DO ON A DATE?

(1) Dates are for having fun, and people should use them to get to know each other. Even boys have something to say if you listen long enough.
- Lynnette, age 8 (isn't she a treasure)

(2) On the first date, they just tell each other lies and that usually gets them interested enough to go for a second date.
- Martin, age 10 (who says boys do not have brains)

WHAT WOULD YOU DO ON A FIRST DATE THAT WAS TURNING SOUR?

(1) I'd run home and play dead. The next day I would call all the newspapers and make sure they wrote about me in all the dead columns.
-Craig, age 9

WHEN IS IT OKAY TO KISS SOMEONE?

(1) When they're rich.
- Pam, age 7

(2) The law says you have to be eighteen, so I wouldn't want to mess with that.
- Curt, age 7 (good point)

(3) The rule goes like this: If you kiss someone, then you should marry them and have kids with them. It's the right thing to do.
- Howard, age 8

IS IT BETTER TO BE SINGLE OR MARRIED?

(1) It's better for girls to be single but not for boys. Boys need someone to clean up after them.
- Anita, age 9 (bless you child)

HOW WOULD THE WORLD BE DIFFERENT IF PEOPLE DIDN'T GET MARRIED?

(1) There sure would be a lot of kids to explain, wouldn't there?
- Kelvin, age 8

And the #1 Favourite is........

HOW WOULD YOU MAKE A MARRIAGE WORK?

(1) Tell your wife that she looks pretty, even if she looks like a truck.
- Ricky, age 10

Things I Enjoy Doing..

2008-07-07T12:29:00.000-07:00

I've been reflecting a bit about what I wrote in the last post, about 'getting a life'. There was a time when I did need to focus on that a bit. It was one of the more unpleasant, low periods, when I found I had to tighten my belt to survive, and to come up with reasons to keep smiling and be happy. Luckily I am good at that, and have some excellent tools to help.

There have been reams written about people who make lists, and those who don't, and I fit into the first category, in fact I probably lead the field, a list-maker extraordinaire, that's me! So of course, that's what I did. It was quite a few years ago, this one, before I moved back to the Gold Coast to live.

I mean, I'm not complaining, I've had a fantastic life so far, ups and downs with a few road humps here and there, but I do get bored easily and need to keep myself occupied. Work has been good to me too, and being a work-aholic (until recently) has kept mind and body busy.

So I had a re-think about what I wrote, and went and dug up the list. I didn't have to look too far, it is still stuck up on the side of a cupboard beside the computer, not quite in sight, but still there even after the move. So, let's see what I am left with now, and what changes need to be made.

First thing to go is the golf, cannot play any more with my crook neck; camping looks like a fizzer too (Noel and I did try, but there is a certain temperament that enjoys the rigours of camping, and one of us doesn't have it!). Dancing is out - although I do keep promising my sister that I will one day be fit enough to go Rock'n'Rolling with her (apparently age doesn't matter, she tells me, but I feel I need to lose some weight before I try that one...). And cross out walking - the pain in my neck has migrated down to my knee so it's more hobbling than walking at the moment.

So where does that leave me? Well, gardening is still at the top of the list; to the internet I can add blogging; still studying too, have completed a uni course in ecommerce, and two writing courses since I first made the list. Finally joined a library - and have to spend every spare minute reading just to get the books back in time - as for watching tv, well, now I work for a pay tv company and they give us the full service so we can talk knowledgeably about it - currently battling a syndrome known as Law-and-Order re.run.itis. The cooking shows are good too, I can't believe I am still learning about cooking... but I have to be motivated these days to do more than just make a meal...

Things I can Add to The List?

Number one has to be the grandmother thing, that's new - and it's worked out that I get to 'mind' the baby for a few hours a couple of times a week, not that she is a baby any more, turned four in April and is a delight in my life. And now I live at the beach, so I can do my reading under a spreading tree, watching the people at play on the beautiful sands under the brilliant Queensland sunshine. I should swim, I'm told, to exercise away the aches and pains. I like that idea - we'll see...

What else can I add .. well, I've always liked to play cards, and I used to play online a bit, so I might check that out - and do some more writing, I've been a bit slack about the 'Book Blog' so I should get back to that..

And so, back to gardening, and a decision I made yesterday after the fiasco with the Bunnings greenhouse that wasn't..

This is it! The one I really want and can see myself spending many happy hours in - I have decided what the heck, go for it and spend the money to do it properly...

the saga continues...

2008-07-05T23:50:00.000-07:00

OR... maybe I just need to get a life!

Don't you just hate it! You'd think I would have learned by now, but no, still making the same silly mistakes... It's still about the greenhouse; I've been watching a couple of versions come and go on eBay, one I don't like at all really, and of course it's the cheaper one. So off I go to Bunnings, to do my research - and lo and behold, there is a greenhouse for sale, a 'special' item, marked shop-soiled, and very cheap. To be fair to myself, I did ask the shop-guy what 'soiled' meant, and could he assure me that all the bits were still there. He says, 'yep, that only means that the packaging is damaged, the product will be okay'.

Well, of course, it wasn't, was it ... everything in the box, except the connector bits that hold it all together. So back I go to Bunnings, and get my money back. So I still don't have a greenhouse, but my poor little tomato seedlings are hanging in, braving the winter cold and rain.

On the good news front - this cold spell has seen me indoors a bit more and today I've taken the plunge and completed my tax return online. You know they give you extra tax back, just for being 'old' and not earning very much.. how good is that?

Now there's a thought, I must be meant to have the more expensive model (of greenhouse) - when the tax cheque comes I should spend some of that - indulge myself! Yep, back to eBay and see if there's any left..

glasshouse or greenhouse?

2008-06-23T15:49:00.000-07:00

When I first moved into this house, back in 1997, I made a decision not to garden! Over the years I have moved about a bit. And in quite a few of the places I've lived, I have tried to create some semblance of a garden (more of mothers influence, I've worked out..) and every time, or so it seems to me, that the garden has reached the time when I could sit back and enjoy, I've had to move again!

So, when I came here, I thought, no way, let me just leave the trees, keep them trim, and cut the grass; I wouldn't have called it 'lawn' back then, the previous owners had fenced in a big dog, so there wasn't really any ground cover left. Let me see if I can find a picture to put in here.

Then it started - 'I'll just put this little plant in here, and another one over there, oh look, that would make a good place for a little bit of bushie stuff..'. Things grew, most things, others went in; I took out one of the big trees to bring in more sunlight, and lo and behold... a garden...

But we CANNOT grow vegetables! We have tried everything, tomatoes of course, and lettuces, capsicums, silverbeet, all the salad stuff that I love to be able to pick fresh. Each year we would try a new tack, figuring all the tree roots were a problem, we bought and planted big tubs of things. We moved the garden; into the sun, out of the sun, face east, face north, but nothing would work.

The plants got a start, we've even had quite large tomatoes at different stages; but then everything wilts and dies. The tomato plant leaves go yellow then brown and fall off. The fruit falls off and the plants die. So we gave up!

But this year, because I have no landscaping to do, and I find it hard to sit idle, I have been thinking about ' what if I grew things when it wasn't so hot?' - and so I germinated a couple of seeds and got them to 'transplant' stage, and then I didn't know what to do next. Somehow it didn't seem right to put them out in the cold hard ground to fend for themselves; so I put them into a pot and out where they get sun for plenty of the day - but, nope, they haven't done a thing, not a single extra leaf, and they lie down quite a bit...

And so about the glasshouse/greenhouse... I am almost convinced that I have to have something like this for my 'salad' garden. A place where I can grow through the months that aren't really hot - but I don't know which one I need; glass and/or clear plastic? or shadecloth and sun protection? I've been doing some research, and watching eBay for a bargain, but not knowing what I want makes it hard...

I've ordered a book - hopefully it will help me work it out...

mother's rose

2008-06-16T17:29:00.000-07:00

Mother's rose has a new bud!

The first one since I transplanted the bush..

I was back living in Queensland when my mother passed away in 1997, at age 92. There would have been about sixty people who attended the funeral, much to everyone's surprise, I think. Lots of family, some I hadn't seen for years, and locals, mum was pretty well known and befriended in her community, although she had been non-compos for the last 5 years or so, and hadn't been in contact outside the house, so yes, we were surprised that so many turned up.

We had decided that the afters would be held at my place, and my sister and I, luckily, had put together a pretty good spread, so there was lots of food for everybody.

My friend and housemate Noel had entered into the spirit of the day and had placed lit candles around appropriately. He had also bought and planted a rose bush, for the occasion, and that became known as mother's rose.

I don't think he actually knew that my mother was famous for her ability to grow roses. Her small house was surrounded by these really large rosebushes, and she loved the big smelly red roses... so how Noel had come to choose this particular rose is a bit special anyway. But that rose has been amazing, there is hardly ever a time that it doesn't have at least one bloom - and it hasn't been coddled, planted right in the way of one of the car parking spaces in the front yard, it has been pruned more to suit the space than to consider it's needs.

A few months ago, I finally decided that the rose had to be moved. I have bought and planted several roses in a new garden at the back of the house, and wanted to have 'mother' in there too. So, I did the right thing, cut lots of branches to propagate, and trimmed the whole bush almost back to bare branches. And dug it up, and replanted it with lots of TLC, and my fingers crossed.

The propagating hasn't gone well - out of about 15 cuttings I have about 5 left that look promising. They all looked promising in the beginning, but, not knowing what I was doing, I think I killed them off with the wrong treatment. Oh well.

It wouldn't put out a bloom if it wasn't still alive.. would it?

more synchronicity: choirs everywhere...

2008-06-15T02:14:00.000-07:00

I was over at Lindsay's Lobes where he wrote about singing with a parish church choir. Took me back a bit, I remember mum had us all in the local choir when we were young. She was very like that, we were into everything going and she was always taking courses in one thing or another.

Choir practice was held on the first floor of a local hall, a large open space with dusty wooden floors - we could sing our hearts out. The walk home after practice was always a musical journey with a stop for icecream at the local shop.

I think that's where I first found out I cannot sing, but that was okay, I learned to open and shut my mouth at the right times, and nobody seemed to mind.

Next I was having an email discussion with a friend, and she happened to mention that she was going off to choir practice that night.

And now I've been watching the ads for tonight's Battle of the Choirs, on channel 7. Apparently inspired by the success of the Choir of Hard Knocks that got so much publicity last year, people are flocking to join choirs!

Good on them, I say - I wish I could sing, they look like they are having a lot of fun.

Catch up on One Year

2008-06-12T18:30:00.000-07:00

Visitors to my other blog last year (yes, it's been one year) might remember that I spent a lot of my time landscaping in the garden, much heavy work and planting, sharing the space with a pair of scrub turkeys who eventually raised 2 babies.

Well, he came back again last summer but this time we weren't so friendly and had him removed off into the hinterland bush. Cost a LOT! Anyway, now we have the 2 babies they produced checking out the backyard, probably scouting out for their nest for next summer.

Synchronicity: we tried again to grow some edible produce, just basic stuff like tomatoes and lettuce and peppers, with the same dismal failure. At the moment I am trying to get some seedlings up and running to try glasshouse growing in winter. But I haven't got a glasshouse yet - cruising eBay in the hope that a nice cheap one will come my way. They are a special seed type supposed to tolerate cold climates. We'll see.

Well, the blog's had it's first visit from an old blogger chum remiman - very exciting, and I went to see what he is up to. (I am about to do same for all of the blogs on the list - got to get the links up-to-date, soon) - anyway, what should he have on his blog but a lovely healthy looking tomato plant. Of course, he is on the other side of the world, in New York, so I guess it's their summer starting.

I've been keeping busy with study, finished the Editing & Proofreading course, and have just completed an Autobiography & Journaling course with the lovely people at U3A. I guess that is what has started me 'writing' again. I am sure some of the tools I picked up from the course will make their way into my blog blah's...

Just started playing around a bit in 'facebook' - one of the young blokes in the department where I work asked me to be his 'friend' and I said, "why not? yes okay" - and so I became his friend, then another asked, and another, and now I have about 30 friends on facebook. And I have to confess, it's good fun - I am amazed at the people popping up out of the woodwork - not just from my online past, but from different places and times in my life! (Mardi, if you are reading this, promise, I am being very careful..).

If you've got this far - well done - I'll stop now...

Della

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2008-06-07T00:49:00.000-07:00

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