Happy New Year 2025

To end the year with interest …

All about WHO

A wonderful end to 2024 doing what I love most.

Playing with Harley.

Darts with Adoring Husband.

Watching Kyrgios and Djokovic play their singles tennis matches.

Watching BBL cricket.

Cooking for the team.

Let’s see what 2025 holds for me.

I want to feel more empowered and make better connections with like minded people.

I’m dusting off the camera and pumping up the tyres on my trike.

Swimming more laps in the pool.

Making better choices regarding my food intake.

Choosing ME and fulfilment.

I hope 2025 brings everything that you want, hope for and dream about.

Nite all.

Penultimate

This is the weather approaching us as I write …

It’s funny because even though this was forecast, there was nothing on the BOM this afternoon, so BGWLBH watered the garden!

There doesn’t seem to be any lightning and thunder accompanying this weather - oops, spoke too soon - I hear thunder in the distance.

I hope we don’t get blacked out again because the temperature is still hot tonight and it’s very muggy and humid. It would be difficult to sleep without the aircon or a fan.

What a great day of sport today!

Australia defeated India in the test cricket which puts Australia up 2-1 in the series with one more match in Sydney commencing on 3rd January. Today was a great win for the Aussies.

Djokovic and Kyrgios won their doubles match in the Brisbane International tournament.

I spent the day in The Bay with BGWLBH driving all over town to get all the bits and pieces that were on our lists.

Considering it’s school holidays, The Bay was not as busy as I expected. There were plenty of car parking spaces available, the queues at checkouts were short and the traffic was inconsistent - sometimes congested and sometimes sparse.

The weather was oppressively hot.

Harley was happy to see me and we got to play for a while without him jumping in the pool, which meant that he could come inside straight away instead of having to spend 2 hours drying off outside.

Adoring Husband forgot that it was his turn to cook so I generously allowed him to use my frozen spaghetti sauce. Spaghetti Bol for dinner.

I have fresh fish for tomorrow night.

Now it’s time for me to sleep. It will be lovely falling asleep to the sound of rain on the roof.

Nite all.

All Worn Out

It’s hard work watching cricket all day!

Admittedly, I was woken by exploding thunder at 2am which was closely followed by a blackout so the noise of the storm and heat and humidity made for an uncomfortable and less than sound sleep.

I get out of bed, change into my swimmers, make a cup of tea and take it, along with Harley, out to the pool area.

I chuck the ball a dozen times for Harley before stepping into the water myself. I swim 16 laps, throwing the ball between each lap.

I get inside just in time for the cricket to start but I poach a couple of eggs to put on toast first, then plonk myself in front of the telly, still a little damp from my swim but not wet enough to hurt the lounge.

I do a bit of searching to figure out what channel the Brisbane International tennis tournament is on, and discover that today is mostly women’s singles matches. While I do enjoy women’s tennis, my priority is Djokovic and any of the Australians playing, especially the Kyrgios comeback match.

I came to bed at 2pm for a catch up nap but that only lasted for 30 minutes.

Right now, I’m sitting up in bed watching Bouzkova (ranked 26 in the world) play the Australian wildcard Gibson (ranked 140 in the world). Gibson has put up a good fight but Bouzkova has just defeated her in the third set.

Brisbane Heat lost their BBL 20/20 match to Sydney Sixers. Ugh.

There’s an Aussie male playing tennis right now, against Goffin (Belgium). It should be a fairly even match but I plan on falling asleep to the sound of ball on racket.

I cooked nachos for dinner, using turkey mince with chilli con carne seasoning. It seemed to go down well.

Now it’s time for me to sleep.

Nite all.

In Between

This morning was time spent in the pool! 

As hot as it’s been lately, the air conditioned lounge room has been comfortable enough to not even consider swimming.

What a waste of a beautiful pool.

So, this morning, instead of getting dressed, I swapped pyjamas for swimmers, grabbed a towel and dipped my toe into water that, surprisingly, had a bit of a chill to it!

I spent about 30 minutes swimming laps and throwing the ball from one end of the pool to the other for Harley. He would run to the end that I was swimming towards and drop the ball, then run to the other end for me to throw it. That way, we both get plenty of exercise!

I didn’t want to overdo it on my first stint in the pool. I’ll work my way up to 50 laps over the coming days.

We’ve been glued to the Boxing Day Test Match for the last two days, followed by BBL 20/20 matches.

The tennis has already started in Perth and the Brisbane International starts tomorrow (29th Dec) so I’m excited to see Djokovic play.

It’s such a great time of the year for sports.

We are still eating leftovers from Christmas so I haven’t had to cook for five days.

Tomorrow will require time in the kitchen, so I need to plan for that.

Only three more days til new year so I’d like to do some extra cleaning in my ensuite and wardrobe to start the new year fresh and clean. We’ll see if I can unstick myself from the sports channel.

Adoring Husband has been using his new mini chainsaw, trimming trees around the pool area.

We haven’t had a game of darts yet! Must do that tomorrow!

The pavlova is almost gone.This is the ‘before’ pic.

Now it’s time to sleep.

Nite all.

Testing Cricket

A great day AND night of cricket!

The Boxing Day Test began today at the MCG.

The debutant, 19yr old Konstas, played an exciting and successful innings of 60 runs off 65 balls and Australia have established a good first innings total of 6/311 at close of play in front of more than 87,000 spectators!

As soon as the final ball was played for the day, the first of the double header BBL matches played between Sydney Sixers and Melbourne Stars began. Sydney Sixers won easily and spectacularly.

Immediately following that, the second match began between Perth Scorchers and Brisbane Heat. I think it will be close, but the Scorchers are playing at home with a massive supportive crowd so they might have the edge.

All up, it will be around 12 hours of cricket on the telly today.

I had a one hour nap this afternoon and 30 minutes with Harley outside, so I watched more than ten hours of cricket. I’m exhausted!

Delicious Christmas leftovers for dinner. I added a fresh coleslaw and freshly baked chicken plus slices of watermelon.

No trivia tonight. Cricket was my priority.

Now, I shall fall asleep to the sound of bat on ball.

Nite all.

Happy Christmas

A quiet, peaceful Christmas for we three (4 counting Harley).

A couple of my gifts …

I enjoyed three phone calls (one was a FaceTime) with my kids and they are all doing very well.

There was plenty of good food, me lazing in front of the telly while Adoring Husband set up his new dart board under the carport and tomorrow he’ll be using his new chainsaw in the garden while I drink tea out of my new Border Collie mug.

My tummy was a little better by this afternoon so I could comfortably eat dinner.

We played trivia after dinner and I watched Die Hard while AH slept in his chair.

Not a lot different to any other day really.

I hope you had a Merry Christmas and made happy memories with your families.

Nite all.

Christmas Eve

I have been very unwell today.

I dragged myself out of bed at 6am to attend The Gypsy’s birthday breakfast at Arkarra Tea Gardens.

Breakfast was not an option for me and I chose a tropical frappe instead.

It was very peaceful and quiet. Even at 10.30am when we left, there were not a lot of people around so I guess everyone was at home in ‘preparation mode’ for Christmas.

We had a lovely, joyful 3.5 hours chatting about life.

Heart of Gold picked me up and she had just returned from a big trip to Western Australia, so she had lots to share.

The Gypsy had just returned from a ten day retreat, so she had lots to talk about.

I’ve been nowhere and done nothing so I had to live vicariously through them.

By the time I got home, I was exhausted. Two nights of poor sleep didn’t help. I fell into bed and slept soundly for two hours, but then woke up and threw up, returned to bed and slept for another hour.

Thankfully, BGWLBH and Adoring Husband were keen to do most of the work for dinner so I provided minimal supervision until dinner was served and I retreated to my bedroom again.

They made a beetroot, cranberry and red cabbage coleslaw, a spinach and roast pumpkin salad, a potato salad and a garden salad to have with the Christmas ham.

I watched Love Actually with my Melbourne family at 7pm (our Christmas tradition), but I watched it on my iPad in bed and alone. Very comfortable and peaceful and by then I was feeling a little better.

I still had a couple of gifts to wrap and put under the tree, which I managed to do after the movie.

Now I think I can easily fall asleep again.

Nite all.

Morning Productivity

I don’t know where the energy came from, but I was feeling motivated enough to get shit done this morning.

It started in the pool area while I was playing with Harley.

Adoring Husband was working in the garden, mowing and blowing and generally making a lot of noise, but he stopped while I played with Harley because he knows it’s my quiet time.

I decided to lend a helping hand by cleaning the leaves out of the pool and weeding the back corner under the soursop tree.

After I finished playing with Harley, I decided to give the fridge a complete cleanout and clean the interior and drawers. It took over an hour, even with AH’s assistance emptying out the containers of old food.

From there, I took my clothes off the line, folded them and put them away, which triggered my need to tidy up the floor of my walk in wardrobe.

By then, I was done.

Far too much productivity around the home for this little old bird!

I baked a chicken and vegetables for dinner and made a mixed berry roulade for dessert.

Tonight was a BBL match between Brisbane Heat and Adelaide Strikers. It’s close.

It’s not even 9.30pm and I’m all curled up in bed.

Time to sleep.

Nite all.

Weekend Bliss

I bought a box of 24 Bowen mangoes for $28 on Wednesday.

They are the sweetest, juiciest mangoes full of flesh - just as I remember them as a kid.

Today, I cut the cheeks and bagged them for freezing. I had eaten 3 whole mangoes prior to today and I made sure I gnawed the remaining flesh from the skin and the seed of each piece of fruit today. 

All the juice was dribbling down my arm and dripping off my elbow - THAT’S how a mango should be eaten!

There were 12 ziplock bags to freeze.

We finished off the passionfruit/mango cheesecake that I baked yesterday.

It was a lovely day with no rain, a nice breeze and plenty of sunshine, so I did all of my washing, including my large travel make up bag, my fold up shopping bags, a hand made bag, an old ‘Roz’s Happy Place’ bag + 3 loads of clothes.

My beautiful linen sheets that I’ve used on my bed for 7 years have finally given up the ghost. The fitted sheet is now threadbare with a couple of small tears, so sadly I have to toss it. Also sadly, Lorraine Lea no longer stock them, BUT, happily, I found a website that sells the same linen in the same sage green for almost half the price that Lorraine Lea sold them!

I’m happy now.

The cricket has been on ALL day.

The women’s ODI match in Wellington NZ between New Zealand and Australia. Aussies won.

A BBL match between Hobart Hurricanes and Perth Scorchers. Hobart won.

Right now, Sydney Sixers are playing Sydney Thunder. It’s close!

Time for bed.

This is me!!

Nite all.