You wouldn't want to be anywhere else ...

If you will be within flying distance of Brisbane on Saturday 4 July, you would have to have rocks in your head not to be beating a path to the BrisStyle Indie Designers Market. To read all about it, hop over to the BrisStyle blog where you will see what all the excitement is about. I am a little behind with my sewing schedule and am getting a tad anxious, but breathing into a brown paper bag every hour or so seems to help. Quality, not quantity - that's my motto (or at least it is until I build up my stock again).

We returned to Brisbane on Sunday after a week back in Sydney helping out while our daughter recovered from the birth of Daniel. Thankfully our tiny little grandson is coming along very well and should be home from hospital in another two weeks.

Looking after two very lively children - a four year-old and a two year-old - is quite a challenge at our age. I take my hat off to all those devoted young parents who cope so magnificently with raising their brood. My only advice is that you forget all the difficult bits as time goes by!

Despite the miserable weather, we were delighted to be able to catch up with friends and also our Daughter the Artist, who is frantically painting away for an exhibition in a gallery at The Rocks in August. Obviously deadlines and anxiety run in the family.

Sharing the Love

Two lovely BrisStylettes, the talented artist Amanda of Twinkle Star Art and the incredible Helen of Ruby 2 Go Go, have honoured me with this award. Gosh girls, I am blushing.

Now this award is bestowed on blogs that are "exceedingly charming" and passed on to eight other humble blog recipients from then on.

These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.


7 things about me

1. I hold the record at my old school for being the youngest student enrolled, at the age of three and a half. Now this was way before pre-school, prep, or any such classes. The reason was that my brother, 18 months older than me, commenced school at the age of five and I was devastated to be left at home. So the head nun advised my mother, "Let her come along for a week and she'll soon get sick of school and will want to stay at home." I left twelve and a half years later.


2. I won a competition when I was 14 by naming the most items made from leather. I had picked up an entry form at the Royal Easter Show and over the next couple of weeks made up a list of around 400 items - yes, I know, I needed to get out a little more. But with a first prize of fifty pounds (shows you how long ago it was), I was determined to win and buy a horse.


3. I was horse crazy in my early to mid teens, as can be seen by what I had planned to do with that prize money mentioned above. The only problem was we lived in a beach area with a back yard not large enough to swing a cat, let alone a horse. My alarmed parents suggested that I use the money to take horse-riding lessons in lieu - such wise parents.


4. I spent nearly a year in Toronto, Canada sharing a house with four bachelors. OK, one of them was my brother, but what a fun year that was.


5. After I got over the horse-crazy period, the stage struck period set in and I joined a Little Theatre group in Sydney. This was before NIDA and many well-known actors trod the boards there before they made the big-time. I was not one of them.


6. My brother taught Russell Crowe at high school and, much to his horror, became something of a minor celebrity himself when Russ won his Oscar. They even sent out an American TV crew to interview him at school.


7. I am a grandmother of seven - my greatest achievement.

Now I know that I am supposed to pass this award on to eight charming bloggers, but most of them have already been tagged, so instead, please visit the blogs I have listed at this right-hand side of my blog - you won't be disappointed.

I have also received another award - One Lovely Blog Award - from the multi-talented Rebecca of Edward and Lilly, for which I am most humbled and grateful. Why are people so kind to me all of a sudden? I don't have an incurable disease or something that I don't know about, do I?

Excuse me while I chain myself once again to my sewing machine.