Gotta love these 3 day long weekends! Although my Friday opshopping was off, I spent the weekend feeling it was Easter, and the garage sales were less than thrilling.  

Today, we took the remnants of the wheelbarrow collection to give to someone who creatively re-uses all sorts of things in her garden.  I took a few photos while I was there.  Who thought geraniums in washing machines would work?

I decided that having a teeny walkway through the veranda to the back door was becoming tiresome, so I went into a fixing sorting moving frenzy (apart from the bits where I drank tea and ate passionfruit sponge cake while reading the new Terry Pratchett).

I decided to finish one simple project - a small table from an old metal stool base and the top of a jarrah lazy susan.  I hate varnish.  It goes cloudy and chips and behaves badly but takes ages to get the bits off which haven't flaked off.  I was very pleased with the result though, the Danish oil gives the wood a much richer look.  

In order to actually get to the bits and the tools I needed, I had to move the old pine meatsafe in the way.  And that meant stabilising the dodgy back leg.  It wasn't all that big a job and I haven't done the cosmetic surgery yet but a bit of a wipedown and some fairly rudimentary archeological carpentry and it is out of the way and being useful.  I think I'll schedule the cosmetic surgery for Xmas holidays, when I have more time.  In the meantime, a friend scored the cute chest of drawers formerly occupying that spot.  See, I do give stuff away.

I also used some of the containers gleaned over the past four weeks for planting, and after watering this evening I snapped some pics in the evening light.  Very gardeny.

 Really, my small Canon camera is still doing OK.  Yesterday, I went with a friend to the Harvey Norman camera sale.  There's two hours of my life I'll never get back.  Still, we met a nice lady in the queue ( I kid you not).  They offered us coffee after waiting for an hour, but were greeted with a cry of damn the coffee, gin and tonic or nothing!  What was frightening was that we, and the nice lady, were the queue.  Still not quite sure why we had to wait 2 hours... and then, the woman at the till didn't want to walk from her till to the other one to accept my friend's (considerable) outlay of cash.  Since I had time to spare, I had time to notice that most of the prices were in fact higher than the local Dick Smith store, where I had been in the morning.  AND got served immediately.

I'm glad the Queen had a nice holiday.  She's had some bad years, and I'm sure she's a nice old lady, she's obviously quite fit and works hard.  Old (German) family, done a lot for the hat industry, and so on and so forth and I think her father was a good man doing a very hard job at a difficult time.

I think that in 2011, however, it's a bit of a stretch to think that anyone would actually expect a woman to curtsy, and the whole bowing and scraping thing really needs some thought.  If we accept that someone is born to be better than just about everyone else, then we accept that all people are not equal and that they don't have the right to be treated equally.  It's a short step in stilettos over the lawn to the bad old days. We can be dignified and respectful without making asses of ourselves.

It's over and the reviews are in....

It's over, let the process of grieving begin.  I so miss those piles of junk, little groups of treasure waiting to be discovered.

Although this year wasn't quite as bountiful as years gone by, the good stuff was there, the gems twinkling brightly. You just had to look that bit harder.


My usual companions had departed for the land of Oxfam and the Antiques Roadshow, but my new apprentice quickly mastered the philosophy and theory, the grid search, the patience and the emergency location of fast food snacks for sustenance.   Add to the mix a 4WD with a roof rack and (mostly) dry weather.

This year, a glut of microwaves and televisions, washing machines and lots of fridges. The mini stereo has been replaced, I presume, with i-everythings and there were a few radiograms and lots and lots of speakers.  So much chipboard and plastic.  Lots of kitchen and bathroom reno's, by the looks of things. Plastic outdoor chairs. 



Hardly any furniture, other than beds.  Perhaps the tighter times?  So many children's toys, prams, highchairs.  I remember spending so much time choosing those items, and yet being so glad when I didn't need them anymore.  Of course, I passed mine on to others and didn't send them to landfill. Do people not think of sending things to op-shops?

The highlights:  obviously, the 32 inch HD LCD TV, and a late find - the Apple computer in working order.  I feel slightly guilty that the evil empire has finally gained a toehold in my life.

The old pine meatsafe and the English cabinet are just lovely and I am so looking forward to getting them back into shape.  Keen for the footstool from the club lounge and desperately sad that the suite was just too much for someone with no storage space.  I hope someone who appreciates it found it in time.

I love the tin of old bits and pieces, keys and goodies, the tin trunk, the Stanley plane, the woodvice, the old tools and the working jack. The yacht sail, the tin meatsafe, the bases for some interesting tables.  The antique fishing rods.






And for others, the skateboards, the wheelbarrows, the old turned lamp, the sockets, the soft tarps,the lifejackets, anchor and other boating bits. So many suitcases, mostly the 50's/60's airtravel funky ones in blues, green and fire engine red - although they do look rather good in the only room previously without a pile of suitcases. 


Now, to make some walkways between the piles of stuff.........

Pictures, words.

 

Sometimes, the photos tell the story.  What can I say?  

This is something I finished this week.  Now I have to try to find a path through  all my new treasures to find some clothes to wear to work tomorrow...

ooh, I do love a good rummage

First of all, Spring here is pretty amazing.  This is a view of Emu Point from Bayonet Head and it's all pretty spectacular.

As you may be aware, we are in the middle of my favourite time of year, when the girls go a-gathering.  And so we have.  Worryingly, the sheer amount of junk which people are putting out appears to have decreased.  It's either that people have stopped consuming and tossing out, reducing waste and living a more green lifestyle, or (much more likely) that the notices about the collection are confusing and the collection's too early in the year and at the wrong time.

 

There have been the usual furphies doing the rounds about who the junk actually belongs to, when it's discarded by the former owner and placed on public property - ie, the verge - for collection.  I would have said that the more critical question is what the contractor does with what's collected.  In the past, separate trucks went around, one for the reusable recyclable stuff, and one for the unsalvageable.  Nowadays, sadly, it all seems to go into a crusher-type garbage truck and straight to landfill.  Do not pass the tip shop, do not reduce waste. 

  

Anyone picking up stuff and giving it another go around is doing their bit for the community by reducing landfill.  There.  I feel much better.

With my usual collection compatriots enjoying the European Autumn, I started slowly and small this year with my neighbour, but a friend with a 4WD and I spent a happy 6 hours today combing the allotted areas in a grid pattern.  Obsessive?  Perhaps, but the haul was impressive.

I've been able to replace my wheelbarrow (from a couple of years ago, sadly no longer able to carry things) with a more sturdy model.  My baby will be going to live on a farm (literally) and be planted out with flowers.  2 wooden sunloungers, one for me, one for aforesaid neighbour. Oh, the suitcases.  I'm liking the 50's/60's streamlined models this year, very groovy.   I got some rusty containers for my tomatoes and some gloriously rusty but robust garden edging.  A meatsafe ( including the hooks still inside), with a very original hinge replacement.   You may be sensing that I like rusty rustic stuff.

 

 Wonderful picture frames, some old, some not.  A horseshoe.  A dome tent.  An old cutlery box.  A kerosene lamp base.  Wooden frames for a project which is beginning to take form somewhere in the back of my mind.

The sheer serendipity of it is stupendous.  Roll on next week!       

why do I feel like I should leave feedback for the ATO?

I've successfully completed my annual interaction with the Tax Office, on time and using their downloadable wade-through-the-online-tax-thingy thing.  It's not easier than taking a shoebox of random paper to the accountant, but it is cheaper.  The golden eagle of federal fundgathering has returned the part of my income not urgently needed to prop up the national economy in double quick time - well, when they said they would - and I'm strangely left with the lingering feeling that I should leave them feedback.  AAA+++ Tremendous taxing, will call again? or  Thank you so much, I love my refund, exactly the right size, will tax with you again? 

I spent my Saturday night tucked up in bed, watching extreme fishing on iview - note to self, are those Apple chappies somehow tied up with the ABC?  Should I be watching it on an iphone or an ipad? What if they find out I wasn't?  I wonder if they'll patent an iviewviewer? Yes, it was every bit as glamorous as it sounds, I truly am living  the dream. Wait, it gets more exciting - after this, I'm going to watch last night's Dr Who.  

After extreme fishing, I finalised my new tome - Imaginarium.  It's a collection of my scratchings on paper, some of which have been included in previous posts.You can sample it here.  I've been completely absorbed in jewellery making for a week or so and the kitchen is dripping with diamante.  No meal goes unadorned. I'm on the proverbial roll and as long as I don't need to actually cook, I'm ahead.

As we browsed the verges and trawled the trash this weekend, we were moved to ask - on what planet are those ear spacer things considered attractive?  We caught sight of a particularly unattractive youth with his earlobes brushing his shoulders, his pants looking like a sudden attack of gravity had caught him on the hop, and the pale skin and vacant expression of someone who spends his days trawling pay TV for something not too challenging to his intellect.

I can understand that there is an intrinsic beauty and art in good tattoos, although I maintain that they look pretty gross on older, droopier skin and I don't believe they seriously enhance the look of a ballgown.  

I can see that piercings can be amusing, and their advantage over tattoos is obviously that removal of most piercings doesn't mean that a plastic surgeon's kid can sign up for another school camp in France.  If you believe that sticking sharpened steel through some parts of you makes you more attractive, then hold that thought while I find a meat skewer and I'll give you a makeover.

But seriously, how does having earlobes a foot long with massive great holes in them enhance anyone's presence?  I suppose the holes may come in handy, for carrying things perhaps? Somewhere to tuck a wallet at the nightclub?  So those with shorter hair can still do the kind of flick that girls with long hair do?  What if their earlobe flicks too far and hits them in the face? Does it reduce wind resistance? Is it some sort of JaJa Binks envy?