PURPLE

 

Our purple Violas and Pansies have bloomed this week, just in time for Passion Week on the Christian calendar...

At last we have a hint of Autumn in the air, and I think the flowers appreciate it too, after our record-hot Summer..

Today is Holy Thursday, and we had a gathering of friends from our Garden Club, who came for a morning tea.

Everyone was interested to see our new house, admire the garden and make suggestions.  

I was very excited when our first Camellia of the season burst forth on one of the trees in our front Courtyard.  There are five Camellia bushes and all are covered in buds.  

I wonder if they will all be pink, or whether some white might appear on some of the trees.  This is the fun part of buying a house with an existing garden...

Wishing you all a Happy, Healthy and Holy Easter

From the Red Cardinal

Cristo crucificado by Diego Velázquez, 1632

THE OSCARS AND UPDATE ON THE CARDINAL NEST

 

Hello

I don't know where I've been lately, but perhaps moving house in my dotage has been rather more taxing than I had anticipated.

We are working hard at integrating into our new community, doing unexpected house repairs, and keeping up our usual commitments.

We have introduced five new roses into our flowerless garden, and I love them all.  The soil here is completely different although we only moved 8km, and it seems the roses love it as long as they get Lots of Water..

We have been to a couple of Queensland Symphony concerts, last night to hear/see Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E Minor and Mahler Symphony No. 5....Wonderful!

And I have joined a local choir.  Long-term readers of the blog might remember that I sang with a choir of Ladies of a Certain Age (in fact, two choirs back then).  These all disbanded in the Covid era and I am happy to report a new mixed choir has begun rehearsing just a five minute walk from our house.  While I have continued to sing with my church choir, my voice has become very rusty but I am doing vocalising exercises whenever I remember and things are improving.  We have a few local 'gigs' coming up soon.

I have found a new doctor at a local Medical Centre, and we are catching up on a lot of routine checks which did not happen last year during the relocation time.

It was a relief that all my blood tests came up fine.  Not so nice was I have had a low grade cancer burnt off my leg.  All those daily walks wearing shorts make this a real hazard in this climate.  I am now trying to accustom myself to wearing long pants to walk.

In other news, I finally sold my two enormous chandeliers which I brought from our previous high-ceilinged heritage house, only to find they were too big for the downsize house.

We then found a pretty new (smaller) one for our entrance hall:

The electrician said there were 78 strands of crystal glory!

It has considerable sparkle power, and I love it...

This little love seat lost a leg during the move, but it has now been fixed by a generous friend.  Now it will be recovered some time soon.

You all know I love a pink rose, and guess my favourite Oscar dress:

Anne Hathaway, looking wonderful...

and a close second, our own Rose Byrne.  Both ladies are incredibly chic..

Because pink, naturally...

Our own Nicole Kidman never fails to wear something stylish and new..

Pink with red can be stunning...

Excellent drama here..

Another beautiful green gown...

I like the green, but is it a pair of sleeves, a coat, a wrap, whatever.

Nice fabric and worn with panache..

A fairytale finish.  Every little girls want a dress like this, including my tiny granddaughter (who is about to turn Four!).

Hope you are all well, and I hope to be back soon.

XXXX

RED HOT

 Hello

We finally have a few more flowers in our new garden, despite three months of record-breaking hot weather conditions.

We water nearly every day, and on days of 34c plus temperatures, I water the roses twice - a litre in the morning to see them through the heat, and another hosing in the evening.

They have rewarded us with some beautiful blooms:

I continue to love our Mini Magnolia.  This giant flower was on the top of the tree.

The leaves look nice in a vase, which is handy because most of our pot plants have died in the heat!

With some of my stitchery friends, I have started an online challenge:

to make little fabric collage/embroidered booklets inspired by our favourite books.  It goes for six months, one book per month.

I decided to do something Gothic, and rummaged through my collection of precious fabric scraps.  These survived the downsizing and came with me in small plastic tubs.

Reader, I chose 'Jane Eyre'...

and this is my cover.  The embroidered lady is cut from an old doily, and hand-stitched onto the background of collaged fabrics.

My personal rule is not to buy any new fabrics or trims, just use my stash of scraps, recycled items, and a few hoarded buttons, keys, and other bits.

My friend J painted this gorgeous floral bunch, and gifted it to me as a house-warming gift.

It is quite large, and fits our house very well.

Speaking of Gothic, did you see Margot Robbie at the World Premiere of 'Wuthering Heights' in Los Angeles this week?  She stars as Catherine with Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff.

And both of them come from Queensland.  We are very smitten by this!

What an incredible dress.  She looks amazing.

And wait, here is another dramatic look today, in Chanel at the Paris premiere:

Next week, Margot will be in Sydney for the Australian premiere, and I look forward to seeing the next amazing look...

I would also like to go and see the movie.....

The Red Cardinals watched Jacob Elordi as Frankenstein on Netflex on Saturday night, and enjoyed this re-telling of a novel we studied back in the day.

Vale to Valentino, the master of a dramatic red gown.

I put out my catalogue from the exhibition we had here in Brisbane at GoMA in 2010.  It was one of my first assignments to conduct the guided tours and I loved it so much.  There were about 100 of his most famous outfits, including the little lace mini worn by Jackie when she married Onassis.  The red gowns were spectacular.  He would have loved to dress Margot Robbie - she is fearless with fashion...

This is where we cool off when the temperature approaches 40c as it did on Sunday.  

and when it is cool enough I am sitting here...

I made a simple Summer dress recently, and am sewing some cool rayon pants and loose top.  My sewing diary says I have not made anything since last April, the longest time in my life that I have not sewn clothing for myself...

Life is returning to normal.

Have a good week

XXXXX