I see the Bridge!

Australia Day and the great ball rescue.

 

 We had a low key Australia Day as it was so very hot, though were very patriotic and spent most of the morning doing the most wonderful map of Australia jigsaw puzzle that I got from the Australia Geographic shop. It was great it had big pieces and a poster version so we got to learn about all sorts of places and the children didn't even know they were doing something educational. Sometimes I am so clever...hehe

In the afternoon we headed down to the beach ( as one does ) for the children to swim and then to watch the fireworks. I had previously given the children two blow up beach balls that look like this.

 

Now I had warned them that is was quiet windy and they wouldn't be able to play volleyball with them as they had been at home but they insisted. Youngest (and smallest) child was immediately in the ocean with hers as we had barely sat down and one wiff of breeze and it was off in the current bouncing along.

Paniced child is then swimming with all her might into the middle of the ocean, getting further and further out to sea as we were all screaming for her to come back and let it go.

She was screaming...like heart breaking screaming 'MY BALL MY BALL'' as she was swimming back to shore and then was sobbing uncontrollably on the beach as the ball continued on it's journey. This is what the ball now looked like.

 

YOu might have to click on these photos to see the ball.

Now those heart wrenching cries must have been too much for one young Aussie man who jumped into his boat, took off from the shore and went to rescue the ball which was not an easy task as it was so light and floated away when he touched it or a wave came past. He perserved however and retrieved the ball, much to the delight of Mary Monday who would not have her photo taken as whe was too devestated and I was laughing too hard.Here he goes.

 

 

What an Aussie thing to do...Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi! Oi! Oi!

It really made our day and the fireworks were lovely, the balls watched them from inside of the car and somewhere in the distant the cry of 'you should have listened to your Mother' could be heard.

Hope you had a lovely day too...without losing your beach balls.

Kiss Noises Linda

 

 

My visit from some Teddies.

NO I am not talking about the furry kind of teddies, I am talking about the lovely  KRIS and her husband and computer extraordinaries Scott fromTAG ALONG TEDDIES . They came for the weekend and you see more about their visit at my other little blog space ( this is getting confusing) over Here at Lilly Cottage. Be back with more soon,

Kiss Noises Linda Lilly C 

Nothing but the best at Hotel Simpson.

As part of the daily chores around our little cottage is the feeding of our little 'farm' of animals. YOu may remember our huge guinea pigs from the Rosey tea post and in the photos above. Morning and night the cages get cleaned out and they get nice clean beds of paper and two meals a day of fresh fruit and vegetables. I wouldn't call them spoilt because, well they live in a CAGE outside! They do have their own cages and now we only have four it is a lot easier than when we had thirteen ( it took us a while to work out which were the boys and which were the girls...we know now!). However the other morning I had to start thinking that maybe they were a little spoilt when this what was was presented for their 'breakfast', my breakfast doesn't look that good!

Maybe just a little bit spoilt.

Kiss Noises Linda Lilly C.

I was this close to a Pelican or four!

If you saw a woman in sandshoes with a camera looking rather odd out in the middle of sandbank...that would have been me....but I was happy!

Kiss Noises Linda

Spectacular Rosey tea with friends photos.

 

 

 

 

 

OK so maybe they are not SPECTACULAR but I really love these photos that were taken when Rosey and her totally gorgeous family came to morning tea. Of course children need more than morning tea to keep them occupied so we did what we could. I think they approved.

Kiss Noises Linda

Our new boats in the sunset.

Of course you realise, ours are the blow up kind of boats...not that elegant number. Just as much fun I am sure.

Kiss Noises Linda

Flops and Flipflops.

Oh dear! Today we had a lovely friend and her daughter come for a visit and this morning the kitchen was a hive of activity as we prepared for their visit. Darling Husband and Number one son were mixing and cooking away madly. We had Spinach,feta and sun-dried tomato muffins for lunch and chocolate muffins for morning tea...well that was the plan.

The spinach ones turned out beautifully as you can see but something happened to the others ( too much mixture in the cupcake cases but I am not saying anything). They sort of bubbled over and then sunk in the middle and the bits off the side looked remarkably like dog droppings....we had bought lamington roll for morning tea instead.
AFter said morning tea we took our friends 4Wheel Driving up the beach which was absolutely gorgeous. We stopped along the way for a little shell seeking, each of us was looking for different shaped shells it was a lot of fun trying to outdo each other finding the prettiest or biggest or best double shell.

Our lovely friends are from England and my children were besotted with their daughter from the minute she referred to her footwear as Flip Flops.....we of course call them thongs.

They made fast friends and am happy to say we returned home after our drive for our lovely lunch of Spinach/Feta/Sunddried tomato muffins, salad and home made bread followed by dog poo muffins....which were delicious after all....crunch and chewy at the same time....who knew something so unattractive could taste so good.

Hope you have had a lovely day,

Kiss Noises Linda

Spoilt rotten.

 

I know when I see a title like that one I start to cringe as I just know I am going to feel jealous of something, but I am sorry I just had to use it this time. These are some of the cutest things I received over the last few weeks. I have always like elephants and this was my year for elephants I tell you, I have more to share later and I have already told you about the elephant book over at Lilly Cottage I don't know it just has something to do with those eyes and their eyelashes...too gorgeous.

NOw for some reason I have to load the photos first, so from top to bottom, the first gorgeous elephant with a birdy on her back ( it must be a her, she is pink) is a gorgeous creation from Sarah from Papercraft studio. I chose her for my very own...love her creations.

The little trio of peg people is from the darling Rosey from Agapanthus and Goldsworthy and she created these especially for me and gifted them to me with a whole heap of simply gorgeous gorgeous gifts. These are very special though as they are something she had never done before....that girl is talented.

The last two photos are of a Fur Real Elephant (called Zambi) that my Mother bought for me for Christmas....it is very cute and blows kisses and trumpets a storm. I do love elephants but think I got the elephant as she loved it and couldn't work out which Grandchild to give it to....so now I am the cool one with my own elephant...oh I wish!

Be back soon,

Kiss Noises Linda

  

As pretty as a Rose.

 

Not quite roses but still pretty all the same. These gorgeous blooms were already in flower when we moved into our little island cottage and with a little bit of TLC and I mean just a little bit, they are looking pretty gorgeous...I even quite like the yellow/orange which is a big first for me, I think it has something to do with the fact they are growing in my garden.

The rain that we have had over the Christmas New Year break has made everything lush and green...I love living on an Island! Now If I had some roses and a frangipani tree that would be good too, though my current pre-occupation is with Hydrangea plants. DH pulled out my little plant when he did his complete garden redo, everything got pulled out all that was left was sandy black soil. I was devastated! All is well now and we have lush new lawn and my darling Mother brought me three Hydrangea plants on Sunday. I have managed to kill one a mere 2 days later as I didn't plant them out quick enough as I didn't have a good enough pot and any potting mix ( they sound a bit fussy). The two that have survived have been thrown into a pot that houses a tomato plant, near the water tank. They seem to like it there, lets see what happens.

Off to finish off packing up Lilly Cottage, another two days and it should be complete. Sad but keen to get on with the next step of the journey.

Have a lovely day, Kiss Noises Linda. 

Overcoming my fears..well one of them.

 

I don't know about you but I have a thing about eggs, I am sure there is going to be a baby chicken inside or something ( OK we do have our own chickens and I know without a Rooster that it is not possible to have baby chickens in eggs but still). Whenever I am cooking and have to add an egg to something I will break the egg into a clear glass and thoroughly inspect the egg before I add it. If there is a hint of pink in that egg, out it goes...I can go through quite a few eggs this way...anyway yesterday I faced my fears. Being New Years Day and all I decided to be brave and I broke the egg straight into the bowl......Oh my goodness...and you know it was OK.....and I baked one spectacular cake too.

I wonder what I will conquer tomorrow?

Kiss Noises Linda