What a Night

It was all over in about ten minutes but in that time it terrified our dogs, flooded the gutters, leaked all over the kitchen bench via the skylight and in doing so flooded and ruined my dinner. Overflow from the gutters near the front door caused a pool inside the door which happened to be opened at the time. Oh boy, what a mess. I don't think we have any other leaks but I might have to get someone to come and check the roof, particularly where we have skylights. It stopped just as quick as it had started and this was the view from my front door. I had to take the photo from inside otherwise I probably would have ruined my camera as water was still dripping everywhere.

I can hear a siren now - whatever vehicle it was just went flying past our place. I hope people weren't out driving in that storm as visibility would have been bad. Far better to pull over and wait it out.

My Mother's Lemon Cheese Cake

I feel like I've just found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow !!! I want to share with you a recipe my mother used to make many years ago - 40 years ago to be precise ! This is the BEST cheese cake I have ever tasted and I've been searching for the little piece of paper its written on for ages now. Tonight, while browsing through an old binder I found it, so do yourself a favour and try this .............

Lemon Cheese Cake

Ingredients:

1/2 lb Nice biscuits

5 oz Margarine

1 pack Philadelphia Cream Cheese

1 lemon jelly

3/4 cup water

1 small tin Carnation milk

1 lemon

3/4 lb Castor sugar

Method:

Crush biscuits and add to melted margarine. Place in dish and put in 300 deg F oven for about 20 minutes.

Mix cheese and castor sugar.

Mix jelly, water and juice of lemon

Beat milk then gradually add cheese mixture and lastly jelly.

Refrigerate.

I told you this was an old recipe so you'll need to do the conversions to metric - sorry !!

You can leave me a comment if you do them and that'll save me the bother of trying to work them out for myself.

Order in the House

In my last post I mentioned the Speakers Chair, a replica of which has been put in an alcove in the Old Parliament House, Canberra for visitors to pose in for photographic purposes. On our visit, John donned the wig and cloak for this shot.

The ornate Speaker's Chair seen in the photograph symbolises the Australian Parliament's links with the British Parliament at Westminster and with British history. It was a gift from the UK branch of the Empire Parliamentary Association and includes pieces of timber from Admiral Nelson's flagship, HMS Victory, and also from Westminster Hall. It was at Child's request that the Chair has remained in its original location at Old Parliament House.

Enough history for today ..... now I'm off to do a bit of knitting !! I am currently receiving kitten blankets for the Canberra RSPCA which have been knitted or crocheted by members of the Knit4Charities group of which I am a member. Only have three more parcels to arrive before I can photograph then deliver. This month I have been making childrens size beanies for Streetswags, Brisbane and next month we will be helping Vinnies Night Patrol, Canberra so I'll be concentrating on beanies, neckwarmers and fingerless mitts for the homeless. Will post pictures here.

Thank goodness for airconditioning - its 37 degrees Celsius here at the moment.

And now for another year

Now that the silly season is over, things are getting back to normal here. Canberra is fairly quiet at this time of the year as many people take time off to get out of town for school holidays, travelling interstate or just down to the coast. Actually, I love January because of the peace and quiet after the rush leading up to Christmas and New Year which is followed by a huge influx of car enthusiasts (and a few hoons) for Summernats which is held at Exhibition Park in Canberra (EPIC) for about four days just after New Year. EPIC is only about 2-3 kms from my place and you can hear the fireworks every night at around 10-ish.

During the holidays I played tour guide for an interstate relative and visited Old Parliament House. It was amazing - if I'd known it was so good I would have gone before. The whole place is opened up and you can go places that were a real no-go zone before they moved to the new Parliament House. We sat on the front bench in the House of Representatives, went into the Prime Ministers office (akin to the Oval Room in US, but this one was square), and dropped in to the Cabinet Room. All very interesting. I had a bit of trouble with my new camera and some of the photos were a little dark as I couldn't figure out the flash settings. I'll post a few of the reasonable ones here but will definately have to go back to OPH sometime in the future.

Of course you'll recognise this as the front door.

When I walked through the door of the Cabinet Room, these two old codgers gave me a bit of a shock - they looked so real. I wonder if you know who they are ?

And here's the rest of the Cabinet Room.

I do have one other photo I'd like to add but I think I'd better get permission from the 'subject' before doing so.

What a Cheek !!

 

A nice thing about Canberra is having plenty of wildlife around the place. How about this cheeky fellow helping himself to apricots off our tree. Its usually a race between the birds and us when the cherries come out but we don't mind them having a few apricots as we always get more than enough for our needs.
Now that I've worked out how to add pictures an easy way, I now have to work out how to add more than one per post. Stand-by to be deluged when I figure it out :)

 

Still trying to figure out the easiest way to add photos to this blog. This is a picture looking up at the canopy decorating the reception room at the National Press Club where my daughter had her wedding.

Yoo Hoo - I'm still here

Didn't realise how long since I've posted here. Guess life has just got in the way and I've been involved doing other things.

Seems its been tulip time - a dear friend of mine who lives in Burnie, Tasmania (Bev) sent me this beautiful picture that she took at Table Cape, which is just next to Wynyard, around 20 minutes drive from Burnie. It's called Van Diemen Tulip Farm and they grow tulips every year and sell the bulbs. They even export them to Holland, believe it or not. They export all around the world. It's quite a big industry because Tasmania has the perfect cool weather for them.

Canberra has also had its Floriade which is held annually from the middle of September for a month. Its a wonderful tourist attraction and no doubt brings heaps of money into the ACT but for the locals, driving anywhere near Floriade is a nightmare.

Not much to write about so I think its time for a few pussycat pics .. this first one is of Madison when she was about 7 weeks old. What beautiful blue eyes - Devon Rex kittens are born with blue eyes but they turn a greenish yellowish colour when they're a few months old.

Here's one with my grandson when she was a little older

Last one for tonight - "so what's the use of an empty shopping bag - where's the cat food"?

Next time Madison gets the opportunity she'd like to show you some pics of her first birthday party.
Till next time ..............