 This afternoon, after I had picked my neice up from school, we decided to work in the garden where we are building a castle…
It started with a tempory retaining wall that I built and she thought that it looked like a castle and I have wanted to build a castle ruin in the garden but hadn’t decided where, so we cleared the space, marked out a circle and built our castle wall…It also is only a tempory structure because I used the bricks that I bought for the paving under the pagola and to have the walls the hight I want the bricks will have to be mortered to make them stable but we put 2 seats, a table and some plants inside, and it makes a lovely little nook to sit and look out onto the garden from.
Holiday Snaps Day 4
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Mine is the 3rd birthday I have blogged this month and that is less than half of my families October births.
I had a lovely afternoon visiting Sharon after which, with my niece, I mixed up a batch of cement for my castle (there is a castle update in the draft copy), I have been told how to mix it from the cement powder and sand rather than the premixed bags I have been buying and I just wanted to do a batch to see if it would work for me and it did.
 I also spent a lot of time on the phone with family and friends. The image is my present from a friend who knows me well, knows that it is a long time since I had a pair of dressmaking sized scissors, it is ridicules to be cutting fabric with tiny scissors but whenever I do visit the Scissor Man, it is always the new embroidery scissors that I leave with…Maybe now that I have the proper scissors for the job, my embroidery scissors will stay sharp longer but I now have no excuse for not making the new curtains for my lounge…And with the scissors, a transplanting trowel, just the best tool for getting long rooted weeds out of the garden.
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 Earlier this month I told you about My Mission, Cold weather has limited the time I can spend outside and what time I have spent has been work below ground so there isn’t much to show for my efforts, I have dug out the foundations so that I can waterproof them with pond sealer and concreted the step outside the door, I will do a castle update when I have something more to show…In the meantime I have recorded my mission on my sampler.
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My Mission is going well, on Tuesday Greg my tutor and the ABC 666 producer came out to my place, as it turns out my mortar is fine but there is a few extra things which Greg talked me through that will make sure that the upper part of my castle walls will be strong and safe…the edited pre recorded segment went to air this afternoon and it sounded great.
Greg also showed me how to split a brick using a bolster and hammer…I was pretty happy with my first attempt.
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My life seems to go from the sublime to the ridiculous, after being sick for so many weeks I am now just about recovered and hoping that I havn’t taken on more than I can handle as I have a buzy week coming up…I have my brother and family (3 young children) visiting and in the mean time My Mission has been accepted.
you can read about the Mission at abc 666 radio afternoons.
My Mission is to learn basic bricklaying and how to mix strong mortar so that I can finish building the Castle in my front garden…When I heard the mission challenge on the radio I thought what a great opportunity that would be to learn the basics of bricklaying so that I could be sure that the upper part of my castle walls would be strong and safe and even though I was still sick at the time I felt compelled to reach for the phone to call in my mission and to have my mission accepted is very exciting.
I am not the only one that is excited my niece, who has helped me building the castle is also very excited and is having the day of school so that she can come into the radio studio with me when our Mission is introduced live on air.
To Listen in via live streaming…Log onto ABC canberra local radio (the live streaming button is 3/4 of the way down the left hand side of the page) at 1.30pm Australian Eastern Standard Time on Friday 4th July 2008…Use this time Date Converter to work out what time that is where you live (Select Australia -Australian Capital Territory – CAnberra from the convert from drop down Menu and your own location from the convert to drop down menu)
There will be a pre recorded progress report at 1.30pm on Wednesday 9th of July.
And a live to air wrap up of my mission at 1.30pm Friday 11th July.
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School Holidays and my neice came over to help lay the bricks for our castle…first you spread the mortor and then put the brick on…we are not very good brickies but we are having fun.
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14 bags of cement later and our castle floor is coming along nicely but we need to buy more concrete mix to finish it.
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Some time ago I showed the castle ruin that I am building in my front yard, what I showed was a tempery structure to get the effect, I love the effect but I didn’t position it wisely, I left enough room to park my car but everyone else has bigger cars and with my son home and wanting a car space it is time to move my castle…And time to build the permanent structure, we have now got the ground leveled and the concrete purchased for the floor.
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Several months ago I started to build a garden edge from small peices of slate but put it on hold when the mortar dried crumbly, I reasoned that the problem was that my cement was old and stale so I bought another bag of mortar and last week I tried again, no joy the mortar dried crumbly…I talked to a friend on the weekend and he gave me a tip and in so doing reminded me that cement needs to be WELL Mixed and not just stirred till it is all wet, the tip was to add a couple of drops of dishwashing detergent to the water before adding it to the cement…I don’t know wether it was the detergent or the extra mixing but something worked and although my mortar is still not real good it is a lot better and I have finished the short bit of wall that I was building…Just goes to show the value of a little knowledge.
To Blend the wall with other things that I have done in the garden I added small shards of china to the wall and left gaps like little caves where I can put tiny objects.
This was a trial run to learn how to work with cement/mortar so that I can make my castle ruin permanent…
Holiday Snaps Day 17
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 The car is somewhat dusty because the road to West Point is a dirt road…This morning the Kids wrote Bye Bye Mumzy in the dust on the back window…They didn’t want me to leave and I didn’t want to leave but my bags were packed and it was time to go, they dropped me at the ferry terminal for the trip back over to townsville…Bye Bye Magnetic Island.
I had arranged to meet Patti, a crazy quilting friend, and she picked me up from the ferry…We had coffee and scones before heading off to look at a few shops and doing a bit of a tour of townsville, she took me up to the Castle Hill lookout where I took the photo looking over Townville to Magnetic Island.
We went to a restaurant for lunch and I ordered a Calamari Salad…Umm interesting meal, The Calamari served on a bed of lettuce was nothing special but when I got under the lettuce I found the most wonderful hot baked potato and sundried tomatos in an oil and vinegar dressing…YUM so yummy that even though the Calamari itself was a bit ho hum, I will remember the dish as one of the nicest that I have ever eaten.
After Lunch Patti dropped me at the bus stop, fortunaly we were early as I was just in time (I had the wrong departure time) to catch the bus to Ingham where my sister in law and Nephew picked me up…
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