Mandy in Oz

Well, we've moved Miss B upstairs.  This entailed a truckload of work, moving all of her accumulated *stuff* out of the large downstairs room and also removing all of my art/craft/gym gear from the upstairs room, so that she could fit up here.  The *exciting* bit is that we'll be doing some renos downstairs, so that I can have an art/craft/gym studio.  So far, half of the floor is ripped up and I have a sweet tree mural chalked in on the feature wall, all ready to start painting.  Prepare to be bombarded with photos, over the next few weeks :P In other news, I finished an oil portrait of Sookie the wonder dog, that I've been working on for a bit.  It's so hard to tell when you're finished....I'm still not entirely sure, but you have to stop some time...right?  right??  Might post pics of it in my next blog post. In lieu of pictures that are actually related to this post, please enjoy some really cute pics of the very sweet cat that adopted us, Pri

Is absolutely gorgeous, when you live here.  Still balmy, yet without that intense humidity that summer holds, for those in the subtropics.  I've been lavishing some much needed attention on my gardens in the last few weeks, and they have repaid me very well indeed. After weeks of relentless rain, my roses, which have been languishing for quite some time, have really put on a show.  An added bonus - I finally discovered what *that tree* is - for the first time in the four years we've been here, my Golden Penda is in full bloom - the Rainbow Lorikeets love it!  Apparently these trees have non-invasive roots (phew!), can grow to 20 odd metres in the wild (they're a rainforest species, native to Australia), but generally grow to a maximum of 10 metres in cultivation.  Looks like we'll have quite a lovely shade tree, in a couple of years time :)