HAPPY NEW YEAR

We hope you had a good festive season and that 2012 is a great year for you.

Our Christmas was quiet, deliberately so, but still pretty busy. There were two markets in December so for the second one just before Christmas we went seasonal. Jacque spent a long time making Christmas bunting from her stash of Christmas fabrics. They looked great on the stall.

As you know we had got in quite a few Christmas CDs too. We still have some left, so if we can’t shift them soon, they will make good presents for next year! It really was good to catch up with so many of the people we know from around here, and some from further afield too. There was a real buzz at the market though numbers were not great. That is the same for the whole of Tasmania at the moment, but hopefully, should we survive the Mayan end of the world as we know it, things should pick up. It seems strange to me that such a beautiful, barely populated, but very active culturally, place should have so few visitors. I know that to many people around the world Tasmania is just a small land locked country in the middle of Africa, but in reality, it is easily accessible by air or by car ferry. Get over here! Jacque had recently finished a clay planter called “Rose” and had only displayed it for a few minutes when friends of ours bought it as a Christmas present. It was so new that we hadn’t even had time to take a photo of it, but hopefully Susan, whose East Meander home it now adorns, will take a photo of it in situ for us. The next Deloraine market is on Saturday 4^th Feb and we plan to have an additional, adjoining stall for me to have books, CDs and musical instruments. Should be interesting!

Just before Christmas we went to Jacque’s work Christmas dinner in Hobart. What a treat that was for us, not only meeting all of Jacque’s colleagues and  the Association board, but I also had the chance to catch up with Cary Lewincamp at the Salamanca Market. This is a very large waterside market in Hobart which happens every Saturday morning. I get such delight from standing next to Cary and listening to him playing his guitar (best in the world in my opinion) with the best bratwurst outside of Germany in hand! It was great to hear and buy Cary’s latest album, “Home”. The sound is very similar to an earlier album called “The Sky in Your Eyes” which I once had to privilege to play for Helen Clark, the then Prime Minister of New Zealand, and the queen of the Maori. They liked it too!

We gave ourselves a Bohemian Arts end of year lunch at Burnie, at a fish restaurant which is so close to the beach, in winter it gets lapped by the waves. As the first officer of the flight which took us to Tasmania for our second holiday said “Best fish and chips in Australia” and they were. We still miss Scotland’s haddock and cod, though when we left in ’96 the North Sea was already nearly empty.

A lot of our time over the holidays was spent in the garden. Here are some pictures, although the labyrinth ones didn’t quite join up. It was the best I could do up a ladder leaning against a tree!

The Labyrinth

Fragrant Nook

Towards the "Red Bed"

Esmerelda & I  (I'm on the right!)

 

Next month I will rearrange the blog so that we have a page for “Home and Garden” to show you more of where we live and what we spend a lot of our time doing.

We are also getting around again, and enjoying Tasmania. On New Years Day we went to the north west corner which we had been saving up, and had a look at Smithton and Arthur River. They are again beautiful though I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so agricultural. It was really nice to meet Mandy in Fabric Parcel, a new fabric and quilting shop in Wynyard. Yesterday we had a run into Launceston, firstly to check out the Esk Market, and as the rain stopped at lunchtime, went to City Park to have our lunch and listen to the Chordwainers. They are a musical group who play leather instruments, creating a quite medieval sound but with their own ethnic slant. City Park will be hosting musical events every Sunday lunchtime throughout summer. It is a lovely spot to sit and picnic. As the rain still held off we went to the lavender farm at Bridestowe, for their open day.



Bridestowe Lavender Farm



An added bonus was to sit and enjoy some live music there (which we didn’t know was on!). Two of the quartet (called Underwood) were Kate & Daniel so it was really good to not only listen to their lovely music but also to catch up with them. We didn’t need to go to the Cygnet Folk Festival as the best music was up here.

Finally, thank you to everyone who responded so positively to this blog, and to all who sent us Christmas e-cards and letters. There were a few delightful surprises! Happy Hogmanay to you all.