I had a lovely week with my sister visiting the Garden City, in time for the Ellerslie Flower Show. Every year we try and catch up, usually near my birthday in March. We live approx. 8 hours apart, so its lovely to have this time together.
It was awful to see the amount of damage still to be cleared in Christchurch. Some of the streets in places were like driving on a rollercoaster. Up and down, but still drivable. It bought tears to my eyes to see the wonderful old Cathedral in ruins.
Every one of these chairs represents one person who died in the February 2011 earthquake. They are placed in a vacant lot near the CTV bldg that came down, killing 115 people.
(Click on the above photos to enlarge)
We spent 5 days touring around and two days shopping, and managed to see so much, including the ChristChurch Botanic Gardens. Some of the trees are well over 100 years old, and have the most beautiful trunks.
The Herbaceous Border at the Botanic Gardens was developed in the 1920’s and is said to be the longest HB in the Southern Hemisphere
To make this post a bit quilty I took all these pieces of fabrics with me to make up into hexies.
In other words I hardly did anything. I didn’t cut up a single strip!
These hexies were already cut, and I just glued them!
Ah well, I had a great time, and that’s all that matters.
Thanks for dropping by
Since I last posted. I was going to post a photo of what I had done at our retreat, but never got back to doing it. Then DH and I drove to my Son & DIL and grand children’s place for my GD’s 8th birthday. Whilst there my DH had a heart attack. Fortunately for him it was not a massive pain and drop down on the floor kind of HA but when he was finally admitted to the hospital, they told us it was a big one. It seemed to happen slowly over Friday night and then after we arrived home, on the Saturday night. By then I made the decision to call the Ambulance. I had to run down the drive ( 100 metres) in the dark waving a big torch. We live in Rural Auckland, and in the dark the paramedic couldn’t read the number on our gate. He was admitted at midnight on Saturday, and had the most wonderful care and attention, from all the staff in the North Shore Hospital. He had a stent inserted into one side of his heart on the following Tuesday. Home on Thursday, but will have to go back in a fortnight to have another stent put in the other side of his heart.
Looking back he had been feeling a little breathless over the week or two prior to this, and just told himself to ‘toughen up!’ This has been such a shock to every-one, as my DH is quite fit – walks four hours around the golf course ( no cart for him ) and he is not over weight. Even his GP was surprised! The hardest part for him he said, was feeling scared.
I have a couple of photos of the birthday presents I made at our retreat for Jenna.
Tada! ....Presenting
'Lemonita'
…..aka. lemon eater! ‘cause that’s what these furry creatures do!
She is a puppet, with a tail filled with rice.
My Australian friends love them, but us Kiwi’s really can’t stand them as they endanger our wildlife! but…. in saying that she’s pretty cute! The children loved her.
I 
also made this skirt which funnily enough was called Jenna’s skirt on the pattern.
Birthday party in action!
Next day, brother and sister out on the water
A week or so ago I made a little bag for putting threads in when sewing.
Well, I'm on the count down now, until Christmas. The month of November seems to fly for me, and before you know it, it's the 25th December. :-)
Thanks all for dropping by
