Home again, home again ...jiggety jig

A fabulous time was had by all in Sydney...so many delights....bookshops, opera, seeing dear friends and family, wedding talk,wave pool at the aquatic centre and much much more...no wonder I hit a wall when we got home... (Thanks John,for holding the fort while I stayed in Sydney a few days longer)


Good omen..our table no. is the chosen date of Jess & Aaron's wedding Jan 2013

Lots of orders, catch up work and customers to attend to on Thursday and Friday...by Saturday my head was reeling so had a very restful day...(but did manage to do 2 loads of washing and a tidy up of Tom's bedroom...which made me feel a bit better!!)

Tom processes Carduus marianus from our garden

 

Dinner at Peppermint Bay Thurs evening...yum

Saturday evening we took a walk to Burton's reserve and come back via the  back paddock...the Blackberries in our lane are beginning to fruit.

 

So Sunday arrived a beautiful clear day.

After tackling a few chores we decided to take a drive to Richmond..

Had a very pleasant day poking around the area..had a yummy morning tea..

the shops were dismal (mostly not so cheap imported trinkets...) but the buildings and history of the area is quite wonderful.
We all enjoyed visiting a National Trust home Oak Lodge...really fascinating and the convict built Richmond Bridge is magnificent.

(Mind you..Tom will probably tell you the lolly shop was pretty good)
Home to have a snooze then spent time ordering the books in the shop...roughly alphabetical now..and we have a craft,children, poetry, short story, biography, Australiana,Tasmanian sections.

Monday and its a warm one coming up  (27 degrees..a scorcher for here)...nice and cool in the shop.
Lots of orders to do and a Calendula cream to make fill and pack.  Customers drfting in throught the day...sold a few books from the window.
After work we took the kayaks to Randalls' Bay ...really beautiful out on the water...and a cool breeze blowing for John on shore. (Thanks John for getting us to the water..I know you hate the heat)

Home to dinner on the back 'terrace' in the cool breeze ...lovely.

Tuesday and the boys headed to Hobart to do some chores and some Lego shopping....yes more lego!!!.There is always just another REALLY GOOD ONE!!. Tom spends hours amusing himself building all sorts of fabulous creations while we work in the shop... so I guess its his equivilant to 'holiday camp'
Another warm one today in the high 20's...Pretty quiet around town. Quite a few orders to do though which is good....and the Calendula cream is labelled now too!! (another good job when things are quiet).
That afternoon felt quite hot. Tom and I drove to Huonville so I could apply to transfer my driver's licence to a Tassie one..
When we got back the day had cooled off so we opened up the flat and shop doors to let a lovely cool breeze through the building.

On Wednesday we pottered through more orders and Ryan and Dave came over to assess the remaining ' to do' list of finishing off jobs throughout the building.
Tom had a great time roaming about town and ended up at the school playing with a girl (Isabelle) who will be in his class this year..John and I had to go looking for him a couple of times as he was away so long we were getting concerned...but he was just having fun.
Wednesday evening there was lovely light over the hills out the back... I never tire of looking at the wonderful changing colour as the light fades over the hills..

Thursday we made a very early start at 5.30am to head to the midlands to collect seeds...Hypericum, Onopordon and Chichorium.

We enjoyed breakfast at Campbell Town at the Red Bridge Cafe then drove north of Westbury to spend a few hours at the Australia Day Rodeo on a property called Harveydale... It was alot of fun...There  were working dog trials too..

As we haded back we stopped at the Westbury Maze and Tom enjoyed leading us through to the centre..(we snuck through the hedge to exit faster though!!)

We also stopped in at a Second Hand bookshop and John had a poke around...not much there of interest.
We drove south via back roads to Campbell Town and stooped to revive with a coffee break. Tom enjoyed a run in the park. I'm always conscious of the expanse of sky when we are up here...the ever changing cloud formations are amazing..
Continued on our way stopping at Kempton to explore...(too us about 10 mins to see what there was there!!...now we know)

Drove to outskirts of Hobart to harvest Cichorium seeds then on to Hobart and had early dinner at Mure's Seafood..( Tom's favourite place as they do Chicken nuggets and Chips in a basket!!)  It was significantly colder in Hobart compared to up north of the island!!

A good day had by all...but we were glad to be back home and didn't take long for us to be looking for our beds...

Friday was beautiful sunny one ..

As I walked down towards the water I noticed several groups of mainly Asian young people making their way towards Burton Reserve...I followed them and found they were in fact going to work at a fruit packing factory on the other side of the park.. There was much activity and chatter as they all arrived for the day's work..

John was very excited to have found a White Tail Spider in the shop's kitchen sink on Wedneday night. (We have had enquiries re a homoeopathic remedy for their bite).
He began processing this morning...will leave it to sit in alcohol/water mix for a while before potentising. We have been researching info re the most appropritae potency for remedy...an interesting process.
The day was spent doing orders, greeting customers, making a Rose Day cream, adjusting the Children's book section...

Tom did a few rounds around town to see what was happening...reported back that there is painting etc going on at school.

After work , John and I had a snooze as we were both feeling the effects of our long day yesterday..
Meanwhile Tom got busy with another Lego inventon....amazing Alien spacecraft...

After dinner, John got on with filling a Rose cream he'd made today then had a reading sessionwith tom. They are thoroughly engrossed in "The Lord of the Rings"...

I did a circuit walk up to Guys Rd across the Golf course and down the hill back via Port Cygnet...beautiful to be out in the peaceful evening..

Saturday we awoke to mist decending over the hills..

We watched as it moved further down towards us engulfing the view... wonderful

We set out for Hobart  where I did some 'wedding dress' research at Spotlight ...and enjoyed a couple of hours doing the 'girl' shops. Tom and John trawled the Markets and book shops.

The mist lifted to a sparkling day

We met up and had some refreshing fruit salad for lunch ..sitiing in the Parliament House Lawns area under a shady tree.

Made our way home and had a lovely afternoon reading the paper and chilling out...

We will open the shop tomorrow as it is Market day here..

There is also a Car rally event running over the weekend in the area.. (We saw some of the vintage car entrants driving back towards town as we drove home).. Might see some more coming through town tomorrow...

Tom is looking forward to viewing "The Lion , the Witch and the Wardrobe " tonight!!....