R2BC

:: The annual craft fair at Fremantle Arts Centre (above) was on yesterday.
  It looked wonderful, and there were lots of colourful stalls, but OMG, some of the prices! And so much jewellery. I went prepared to buy lovely things for Christmas presents, but just enjoyed a browse in the shade of the lovely old trees with my best friends Dace and Jools.

:: I am reading escapist literature: the first of Joy Dettman's Woody Creek novels. Thoroughly engrossing and well written, set in a Victorian (as in Australia) timber town in the 1930s. Well-drawn, believable characters; lots of dark deeds. Do not be put off by the naff titles (Pearl in the Cage, Thorn on the Rose and so on), or the equally naff cover art.
There are three or four books in the series, so that's a fair whack of my summer reading sorted. Books one and three are on the Kindle and book two is a print copy I found at home and used all winter to prop up a coil heater which had lost a foot.
:: I am going to teach myself to make coiled baskets like these:

They were on display inside the arts centre, made by Aboriginal women who had been taught the craft by an African master basket maker – absolutely stunning.
:: I didn't do any Christmas cake making yesterday because I was having too good a time and the day just went.    

Reasons to be cheerful, part 3

:: We have assembled all the ingredients, even the St Agnes, and there will be Christmas cake mixin'n'bakin' in the morrow.

"Mixing" with the Adorables.

:: We went shopping at the Re Store this morning, and I wore my op-shop dress and felt like a real nonna. Which I am, of course. But I looked the part in my black frock. Especially as I approach my fabulous new almost-spherical shape -- attributable entirely to menopause and a desk job. Luckily, I had dealt with the moustache earlier in the morning.
:: Three weeks from today, Lily gets home. 
:: I have not one but two (2) brand-new pairs of thongs. I wore my new best, going-out ones ($7) to the shops this morning (which helped the nonna thing I had going no end), and now I'm home and I'm in my new everyday thongs ($3.50). Life is special.