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

BIRDS AND GOWNS

 

This week, I am pleased to report, I finally managed to get a few pictures of our local lorikeets..

I hear them in the trees along our back fence every morning...

But they are very shy, and I have not been able to get close at all (unlike the very cheeky birds we had at our previous address)..

This time, I stood in our doorway, and put the zoom lens at its furthest point, and this is what I got.  A bit blurry, but they are lorikeets at their finest - feeding, chatting, and singing, decked out in their colourful plumage..

This week, the Golden Globes were presented in Hollywood.

I had not really looked at the gowns, but had a request from a lovely blogger and follower, Kay of Georgia Girl with an English Heart.  I forget how to make a link, but do check out her blog, it has lovely music and musing about life in beautiful Georgia.

Thank you Kay for giving me a nudge, and I went right over and selected a few for comment:

As usual, I rarely know who these ladies are, but I think this is stunning.  More rusty than golden, but with real 50s glamour...

I do believe this is Elle Fanning, looking very elegant in a beautiful crinoline skirt, with a striking and unusual leopard bandeau top... (for the Red Cardinal, leopard never goes out of style.... I cling to a leopard top I made about 17 years ago)

Silver or pewter?  Interesting and asymmetrical..

This is just so baby-blue Cute...

Naturally, I like to show off the Australian ladies:

Cate Blanchett and Nicole Kidman, veterans of the red carpet.

Golden Cate is always Perfection, and Nicole is striking out on her own, and very daring it is.  

This is totally chic, and might be my fave for the night...

Australia's Rose Byrne, who won a Golden Globe for herself in bright lorikeet green with a train.  Well done Rose.

And onward we go to the Oscars...

Be good

XXX

OUR NEW NEST AND RETURN TO CULTURE

 

We have been about 10 weeks in our new nest, and I continue to explore on my daily walks.

Shady trees above the path are wonderful in our current hot weather.

Walking in the opposite direction to the view I showed on my previous post, I discovered this view, one that is very familiar to me:

It is the McPherson Range, on the border between Queensland and New South Wales.

I know these mountains very well, as my childhood home was in that region.

It is a faint picture, as the mountains are 147km away (and I was facing into the Western sun)...

On the very left of the range is Mt. Lindsay, a place we sometimes visited to listen to the Bellbirds.

The highest peak is Mt. Barney which my brothers liked to climb from time to time.  

I could not see this view from our previous house, but we are very high on our new plateau...

This was my birthday rose, and we planted it in early December.

It is thriving, despite some days of 36C heat, and now has eight new buds.

Some days I water her twice a day, a litre each time...

We have good drainage, but on some hot days, it drains a little too fast!

We have now finished unpacking over 100 boxes and our home is starting to look good.

And we have found time to resume some cultural activities.

I loved the film The Choral (as life-long choristers ourselves), starring Ralph Fiennes as a community choir conductor in England during WW1.

Beautiful choral singing, as they perform Edward Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius.

I have been to a children's version of The Nutcracker ballet, with the Australian Ballet Company: as the guest of my only granddaughter, Little Miss Three and her Mum.  It was a treat to introduce her to the world of dance, and she sat entranced, holding her magic wand and waving on command of the narrator.

This week I return to GoMA as a tour guide, after time off to move house, and the Christmas break...

There is an amazing new exhibition, Presence, featuring work by Olafur Eliasson, an artist of Danish/Icelandic heritage.

He combines art and science in a fascinating suite of works evoking the land and light of Iceland:

Beauty brings a rainbow into the room: a spotlight shines onto a fine mist of water in a darkened room.  As you move closer, you might or might not see rainbows, depending on the individual eyes.  I can only see shades of brown but my husband can see green and blue.

This is only one of many extraordinary works taking you into another world.

Our mini Magnolia continues to give us one or two big white blooms each day.  I love it!

I hope you are having an interesting January, and are coping with the heat or the cold, whichever applies...

Have a great week

XXXXX