MY BIG EFFORT!

Ok!Ok! Time to bite the bullet...this Sunday I am taking a spot at a local car boot sale/market day and will make my first public attempt to sell some jewellery and mail art. Spent today pricing new work and cutting prices on pieces from last year, which proved to be quite a difficult thing to do. Obviously I want to sell my work, but I don't want to undercharge either, because that devalues it.

ABC WEDNESDAY

U is for...................

ULTRAMARINE


Ultramarine is the blue colour pigment obtained from ground-down lapis lazuli and has been a valued rock and pigment for thousands of years. Traditionally, lapis comes from Afganistan, but it is also found in Egypt and Chile, and, in smaller quantities, in parts of the former USSR & Asia. Its primary metaphysical property is as a bringer of peace.

Genuine lapis is very expensive, and as I only have lapis chips, my photo below is not wonderful. However, it gives you an idea of the ultramarine pigment, which is classified as a 'warm blue'. In painting, it is often used to symbolise royalty.


We're getting to the tricky end of the alphabet...what a challenging time for me to have joined! If you're wondering what else in our world starts with U, please go to Mrs Nesbitt's and you'll find a whole list of blogs featuring U!

MUSIC MONDAY

Having only come to the music of kd lang in the last couple of years, I am still very much in her thrall, and there is so much of her past recordings still for me to discover.

"Watershed" is her recently-released record...it seems very personal, with her songs of love, both good love and bad, feeling to me to come from her own experiences. As a listener, I feel quite privileged that she is telling me these stories from her life.

It's music to really listen to, in quiet moments, not 'something playing in the background'.

If you go to YouTube, you'll be able to watch and listen to a trailer about "Watershed."

MOST ROADS LEAD TO......

It's the Queen's Birthday Long Weekend in Australia this weekend which is such an anachronism, considering her real birthday is in April and probably a majority of Australians are keen for our country to become a republic.

However, everybody loves a long weekend and round here most roads lead to Caba this weekend. The Greenback is not a display of an ailing foreign currency but a beach fishing competition, where most of the fish caught are Greenback Tailor. All fish caught are auctioned for charity, but the feeling is that catches should be weighed, then thrown back.

The V8 Superboats race at a specially constructed inland venue at Round Mountain, just down the road, where they also race jetboats.

BUT, if all this sounds like too much excitement for one weekend, you could head down to Ballina instead, where you can fish in less crowded environs and putt about at leisure in your tinny on the Richmond River.

ABC WEDNESDAY

T IS FOR......
........TICKET


The year I lived in London, my friend and I were lucky enough to get tickets for the Men's Final at Wimbledon. It was the year Boris Becker , as an 18 year-old I think, won his first title.

If you visit Mrs Nesbitt's, you will find links to others who participate in this activity, so you can check out what others have posted for T.

MUSIC MONDAY

Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu is a Gumatj man from Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory. Blind since birth, he has the voice of an angel, and writes and sings incredibly moving songs about his country. He was once a member of Yothu Yindi and now fronts his own band, the Saltwater Band.

On his record,"Gurrumul", he sings his stories accompanying himself on his guitar.

If you click here, you can hear Geoffrey, and here, you can listen to the Saltwater Band.

For a true blast from the past, listen to Yothu Yindi sing Treaty while watching a former Australian Prime Minister make himself look like a goose!

BEWARE!!

These signs are on the side of the road as your drive west out of our little village. When I first moved here 12 years ago, most weeks you would see a koala wandering around on the roadside, as there is what is called a koala corridor in the bush west of the Tweed coast. However, since the construction of a new section of Pacific Highway west of the koala corridor, about four years ago, I have only seen one koala. This is what we all feared.....their disappearance.