Merry and Happy to All!

I hope you all had a nice time.  We are having Boxing Day here today, another holiday day, with the prospect of tomorrow off as well.

The last couple of days have been quite busy and social but very nice.  First we had to wrap prezzies, with Cyrano's help as is traditional for cat households.

Oh, so helpful Mr Kitty!

Then it was time to go to Saturday Schedules, where I once more sat on my backside while the two vehicles both got a lovely polish.  It was a very friendly and pleasant morning. This year so far has been great with hardly any fires in our area, though other parts of WA haven't been so lucky.  We're still keeping our brigade primed and ready.

Don't know how Gogs stood wearing those shorts!  The march flies were savage.  Long pans have been the order of the day for weeks now.  Luckily I have a very light pair of work pants to wear when outside so it hasn't been too hot, but better hot than bitten to pieces.

It's all very well to love nature, but I don't think even a mother could love these buggers!

   
After that it was Christmas Eve at my Uncle and Aunty's place, where we had a delightful time as usual.  So glad my family is so lovely.  We sat under the oak tree that is grown from an acorn from my Great Grandma's tree.  I took this pic when we'd just arrived as it is hard to capture the tree later when it gets dark.

     
What a beauty it is, and very well loved by my Uncle Greggy.

I didn't craft much this year for Chrissie.  I did make my sister a dragon that she has christened Trifle.

And I made a quick cartoon for our Brigade friend, Angus, who we invited along to Christmas breakfast at the last minute.  Harley is his dog and often comes out with us on training runs, but we don't let him drive!  

It's handy being able to use your art skills to fall back on instead of having a generic box of choccies ready.  :)

I also got my latest book, Land of Giants, ready to send out to my first readers just before Christmas, since I figured they might like to have it to read over the holiday period.  It's a little rougher still than I would usually send it out, but I'm sure they'll forgive me.  I had a bit of a set-back due to one thing and another before Christmas!

Last news, but most exciting, my sis's family has a new dog, another Lab!  This is Pippa.  She is 7 mths old and such a darling.  She is a re-home, not a rescue, and they really lucked out.  What a sweetie!  

    
I'm always happy when a new dogs joins the family.  The more the merrier, in my opinion, when it comes to dogs.  With the proviso that it is only so long as you can love, feed, train and care for however many you have, which for me would be three or so (or maybe a couple more if they are little ones?) so it's nice to have a family that loves dogs too so I can have lots of extras in my life! 




 




     

It's My Birfday!

51 years old!  Does anyone ever think, when they are young, that they will get to be this old? It doesn't feel so old from this side, and yet at the same time it seems like forever.

I'm still recovering from 'the op' and there has been a lot of this going on. 

Cyrano kitty loves this stage of making an afghan.  Think I'll have to make him his own little one for extra happy lap sitting events in between afghans!  It will have to be blue to set his lovely colour off best, though.   

This is my view.

Yes he's purring.  :)

And the inevitable selfie...

Hee hee, funny kitty face!

It's stupidly hot here, of course, but Pilgrim just brought out a video for their lovely song, "For Winter." It is perfect for this time of year for you Northern Hemisphere types!

   
Not much other news.  My baby chookies are growing up. they all have very different personalities to go with their different colours.  Red Rover is boldest and is sooo tall and brightly-coloured, I think she is throwing back to a proper Rhode Island Red.  That's her in front, then Spot, who is still a bit flighty, and Fido who is middle of the road for colour and nature.  Soon they can come out to free range with the big chooks but I want to make sure they aren't too fluttery and peepy to tempt the dogs.

Work on the newest book is going well.  Here's an early rough sketch of the cover art.

  
Lots of action going on there!  I'm further along now, but will save further stages for a surprise when it's done. 

Happy Christmas, or Alban Hefin, or however you want to name the solstice holiday season. Make it good.  Fill it with love and joy.  Do your best to avoid expectations of perfection and enjoy it however it comes.  That way lies happiness!

  (As does getting treats for sitting nicely for mummy to take a photo...)



          

So Close to Christmas.

Blogger not letting me post photos for some reason today so you'll have to make do with a couple of links to music videos.  

Things are a still bit quiet around here, as you might expect, while all around me busy Christmas people buzz around like blue-arse flies, as the lovely Aussie saying would have it.  I get a bit frustrated, but I know it is finite, unlike in the lyme disease days, so I am managing.

I've started work on the cover for Land of Giants more seriously, and am on my way with drawings now.  Not past the dread of the white page yet, but pushing through.  The novel-writing bit of all this definitely comes more easily to me!

Musically, I had a lot of fun yesterday beginning to work out my next song on the Anglo-Saxon Lyre, a cover of this cracking good bit of music by Hauk.  For some reason, Mondream really takes well to metal songs, as do I, and together my lyre and I have got a good bit of it worked out.  Will be a while before it is ready to video, though, so here is the original for you to enjoy in the meantime.  Epic!    

     
Speaking of cracking good music, here is Brian Henke, who can make a guitar do things I never could in a million years. Very different to Hauk, but so atmospheric and beautiful.

Was a lot chuffed to find out that the video of my cover of Damh the Bard's, "Cauldron Born" on the lyre has been added to somebody's playlist. I've arrived.  :D

       

Life Heads Towards Normality.

On the way anyway! 

Mr Cyrano Fitty Kitty has to sit on Daddy's lap a night instead of mine, so he isn't entirely enthused about that.  That's not to say that he doesn't sit on daddy at other times, but he is a kitty of habit and evenings are for mama's lap.

I've had plenty of crochet time, so am moving along nice and quickly on joining up the daisy afghan.  I took it outside so you can actually see the proper colours for once.  Bright, I know!  I'm kind of glad about that, since all the green alone was a little too cool.  I hope my recipient likes yellow as well as green!

Note clever addition of shadow.  Looks like I am sticking my fingers in my ears and doing the waggle at someone!

It is barkfall time for the eastern states gumtrees again.  I'm sure it hasn't been a year!  I wonder if they do it twice a year? Mum's big Lemon-scented Gum is at it again.  I thought this combo of old and new bark with the same wrinkles was very nice.

And while I was getting that shot, Andrew was taking this pic of me. He found my choice of fashion to be daring but attractively piratey.

Well maybe not, but it amused him mightily.  What can I say, I was still wearing the compression sock things they give you to avoid blood clots when you are resting post op, and I'd tucked my tracky pants into the tops to stop prickles getting into the dragging cuffs  as we had a gentle stroll.  Anyone would do the same, right?  Arrrrr!    :D

This was the sky yesterday evening.  It soared and glowed. Truly, how could we not think we are surrounded by miracles of nature every day?

Makes me think of this comment by David Sklar in The Mythic Cafe on Facebook:

"Y'know, people say science doesn't care if you believe in it or not. But that's what I like about magic. Magic cares." 

 

    

   

It's good To Be Home.

Day 5 after my operation and I'm beginning to feel a bit more like myself.  Did a little leatherwork today, tinkered on my lyre last night, things like that.

It was an interesting experience for someone who has hardly been to hospital in her life.  I last had an operation back when i was about 15 and that was just exploratory. A few stops by due to horse-related injuries, and then the one when i reacted to Penicillin the first time at 18.  That was fun.  Since those days I've become sensitized to so many things, and it is a credit to my Gyno and Anesthetist's research and care that I didn't react to a single drug they gave me, which was my great fear going in.  Acute Porphyria is no joke.  It can stay forever once triggered so it is well worth trying to avoid (think of the madness of King George.)

As you can see, like most people I was looking my best post op (Thank you Andrew, Dear One, for taking this.)

Look at me all pretty in matching blue.  :D  Actually I felt pretty good unless I sat up, at which time i got the woozies and felt sick. That has taken a few days to slowly get better.  I mostly dozed and did crosswords, which I found easier than trying to maintain concentration to read.

Actually, I did react to something in the hospital... the food!  I am told it is always pretty crappy there, and i do have food restrictions that make it harder, but really, who still makes food likes this?

One of those white lumps is rice and the other one is 'steamed chicken'.  I have never tried to eat anything so horrible in my life, it wouldn't even go down my throat properly, and that chicken pales to insignificance compared to the grey 'grilled steak' which replaced it, also with rice and veg, for dinner.  I have no idea what they did to the steak before they 'grilled' it... buried it underground for a hundred years perhaps, but it not only made me react, it didn't do Andrew any good when he ate what I couldn't.  Yeesh!  Good health is partly good food, and surely better food would make people heal better?  Luckily we took in lots of supplies from home, so when things like non-gluten-free toast arrived for my breakfast (I knew because it smelled too much like real bread and sure enough it was) I could turn to our own supplies instead.

The best thing about all of this, apart from my lovely hubby and sister who kept me company in hossie?  Going into this thing with my support crew of spiritual guardians.  I could feel them around me as I went into the dark of anesthesia, and on that first afternoon as I was still waking up and feeling so sore and sick, there were ravens outside the window calling.  I kid you not.  My window looked out onto a small garden between wings of the hospital, and outside were calling ravens.  Not coastal suburban birds like seagulls or pigeons, or swallows, or even the ubiquitous magpies, but ravens.  There is one calling outside the cottage right now as I type this.  Hail Odin!

              
  

More music.

Ah well, tomorrow I go in for an operation.  Probably I'll be fine and able to post here again by Friday, but hey, I'm a Capricorn and we always plan for everything, so if I don't come back, let this be my epitaph.  I'll be dancing with the ghosts of the open road!  See you there one day!

  

Anglo-Saxon Lyre: "Fly Free, Carry me."

I must admit I get a bit of cringe about showing off my own songs, but hey, knowing I will be recording my own tunes does keep me improving and practicing them, so what the heck.

I wrote this song for Odin and his relationship with the mighty Sleipnir, but also for anyone who has ever had a special horse, one that the bond is so close with that you feel you can go anywhere together and do anything with a thought.

The lighting effect was pure luck:  I set it up, made a few gaffs and restarted, and by then the sun was down a bit more and bingo!  I love it!

The sound with my new phone is pretty good, I reckon.  I made the usual few mistakes but I know you'll forgive me for that.