The House(s) of Fran_mart

When the Muffin Girl last visited she brought along some things she had made in her holiday care craft sessions.  One of the was a dinosaur made from stuck together polystyrene beads.  Being very original I decided to call this Dino!  Yesterday Dino went to explore what was going on in the vegie garden.  I should point out that last year we did very little in the vegie garden as we waited for the fences to be rebuilt and the watering system to be repaired after the fire. The lack of water continued until a couple of weeks ago but we have now got liquidity from the pipes, if not from the sky so some stuff has been planted.   I took Dino to check it out.  Here he is positioned next to a broad bean: they have taken quite a while to germinate but are now up and doing.  Garlic is also sprouting nicely. The strawberry bed was hopeless last year as most of the plants were burnt.  However I am finding a few and have re-dug the bed and mulc...

Unlike the old song this one doesn't live down Drury Lane. She came to visit us this afternoon and having heard how popular muffin making was with some other small people the makings had been acquired.  The early stages of the process were all action, so no photographs were taken. Here are the muffins in the oven, looking very like chocolate muffins.  After a period of muffin cooling - I think SP and I went for a walk during that stage of the process - it was time to decorate the output.  Of course a small amount of testing was needed. Considerable experimentation was needed to get a good range of colours and employ Pollockian techniques in decorating the muffins. Apart from being good fun they tasted nice at the end!

We decided to take Arabella (aka Small Person #1 or SP1) to the National Gallery of Australia today, having heard good things about the kiddies play area that had been created where the shop used to be. Before getting in there I thought this image of the ceiling of the underground car park was quite artistic. For whatever reason SP1 didn't seen at all keen on it and we moved slightly to the adjacent Ramingining Memorial where she had great fun identifying the various wildlife represented on the log coffins. We then ducked back into the main foyer where this '73 Rolls Royce Corniche (aka to Arfur Daley at least as a Roller) was looking suitably shiny.  It was used by Reko Rennie to make a road movie! In the triennial exhibition itself they had a movie, on three screens of the Roller's outback trip. It was a total hoot!  Excellent music and great imagery.  The Roller wasn't so shiny by this stage. I find this image very tricky as it seems to have movem...

The day began well with the return of Tawny Frogmouths. I initially thought this was Dad and the 2 chicks,  However on Boxing Day they adopted a slightly different position which led me to conclude it was both adults and a single chick.   Given that one of the chicks was a complete Gumby in leaving the nest, it is not surprising it had trouble dealing with a continuing existence .  While not resiling from the Gumby call, while collecting the washing today I found all 4 of them.  Mum was perched on another branch (actually a bit of fallen timber) somewhat lower down and I hadn't spotted her in the first check!  Really good news. Our first engagement for the day was visiting Ingrid, Alex and Arabella.  Arabella is very keen on drawing things so we had taken along lotsa equipment for her.  I must buy some equity in a wrapping paper manufacturer!  I can't remember what Frances was being painted as ...  .. but know I was a leopard...

We had arranged to go for a family walk in Canberra this morning and even though it was only -4 o C we headed off.  As we drove in to Queanbeyan it was still -2.5 o C when we got to the road 'works'.  (At least the bogans were present this morning, although opening a thermos seemed to be the main activity.) On getting to the objective of the walk (the Boundless Playground) it was still very cold, with a good serve of hoar frost on parts of the equipment. Some comments were made about feeling cold so a fleece was transferred across a couple of generations. Near the playground is the Workers Memorial.  This obviously doesn't apply to anybody involved in the project on Captains Flat Road since they are not dead (the usual requirement for a Memorial) and are rarely observed working.  The Carillion with a misty Lake to the right.  More misty Lake.  Several years ago I was involved in organising a cycle race in which the recumbent riders got bo...