Month: March 2023

Hi. Jeff and I went for a drive yesterday.
We ended up at Peggs Beach

There is a small area with a rocky platform

And its marvellous!

The details, colours, textures and patterns are amazing

Its a super photogenic area

We spent quite some time fossicking among the rocks admiring all the different natural artistic areas

Let me update you on my current challenges as you check out the rocks!
Looks very much like I need a root canal or say a fond fare-thee-well to my tooth.

I’ve managed to make an appointment with my regular dentist who was kind enough to call me on his lunch break from his conference in Melbourne.
That is booked for Monday so there go my plans to spend a nice day with Jeff. (was trying to fit in a few of those before Japan)

Then… I have a telstra issue (which will probably turn out more painful than the root canal)
A couple of days ago they suspended my email account – compromised password or something was in danger. I dunno.
All I know… sorting it out will be a colossal pain in the lower region of my anatomy

So, I take a deep breath to get in touch with Telstra and make the call.
After several failed attempts of their automated system trying to send me an sms to a mobile phone I don’t possess … I get to a real person
Part way through… got hung up on
Sigh

(These incredible rocks are taking away a little bit of that ‘beating my head on the wall’ frustration)

So I call again. Go through the same rigamarole of failing to get an sms on my phantom phone and got to another person.

Bottom line – without a mobile phone I need to physically go into a Telstra shop with ID to reset my passwords and get my account active again.

I admit I am a fair bit pouty about this as I will scarcely get into basket weaving before having to scarper off – and I was planning on a leisurely time there because its my birthday tomorrow and it would have been a nice thing to do hanging out with the lovely people there. (Jeff sleeping off a nightshift)

Going into Burnie to do annoying boring things like this that wasn’t even my fault has me a bit miffed even though I am well aware its a first world problem and in the words of my Grandpa – “Little apples will grow again”

Given my problematic history with Telstra I have NO confidence that things will be sorted correctly tomorrow, but I have to do something as I need access to email while I am away.

Gosh this is quite the whingy post isn’t it??
I did have visions of swanning about packing and relaxing during this time – nothing that included dentists and telecommunication shops

On the bright side of today… in about 10 minutes I am going to head over to my friends place where I have booked in for a lovely long massage which I am sure will help my poutiness.

I’ll whip up leftovers for dinner so Jeff doesn’t go hungry before work and then maybe play around a bit more with my packing
I’d like to shove everything I’ve collected thus far and weigh my pack before I over do things!

What else positive can I share?
Oh I had a lovely FaceTime chat to one of my Japanese girlfriends who I am planning on going to stay with towards the end of the trip.
So excited to see her and her family again.
I’ve yet to meet her youngest daughter and see their new home.

I am currently stocked up on chocolate and lamingtons so I am going to light the fire tonight and possibly eat a lot of junk (haha… poor tooth)(I promise to brush well)

OKies… thats all the rocks and whining from me today

xxx

Oh dear.
I thought only a few days had slipped by since I wrote a blog post!

I think things might have gotten a bit hectic?
Not sure
As you can see from above, I did my soap workshop. Great bunch as usual… only 4 this time.
Included a husband and wife team which was really lovely!
Everyone was super engaged and keen

Wendy chose to colour her entire batch with the lovely natural Brazilian Clay – and sprinkled in some lavender as a mild scrub

Jaimee played about with some embeds (Some for the kids!) and used the delightful lemongrass and exotic lime fragrance

Her husband Carl was keen to go as natural as possible – also went for the clay to colour and used peppermint essential oil for fragrance.

Sefronia also wanted to keep things natural, so used the eucalyptus essential oil and coloured her soap in part with the very subtle French green clay.

Somehow I haven’t gotten around to photographing the demo soaps.
Its on my very long To Do list which doesn’t seem to get shorter.

I had my last market out at Rocky Cape. It was pretty slow really which was a shame but it was still a lovely day and venue, and I made more $$ than if I’d stayed in bed, so there’s the bright side 🙂
Tomorrow I am booked in to the dentist (sob) as naturally right before I am supposed to leave the country I am having a tooth issue.
I couldn’t get in to my dentist until the 4th but thats WAY too close to take off time so I would be less anxious to get someone to deal with it ASAP.
Fingers crossed it won’t be too traumatic.

I do have a massage booked in for tomorrow afternoon with a friend so that will be a much nicer thing to look forward to!

Hope everyone is doing well
xxx

The weather has turned cooler – not sure how many of the tomatoes are going to ripen…
BUT! I did get enough to make a small side dish of stuffed tomatoes and they were so good!

My cold is getting better quite smartly which is good.
I’ve enjoyed a couple of reasonably quiet days.
I did get into town to put all the market $$ safely onto my travel card.

I am planning on popping into basket weaving tomorrow and then on into town to run a couple of errands before having to make up some demo soap for Sundays workshop (Only 3 people but I am not too worried about that.)

I hope your week has been going well

xx

PS if you’ve not done stuffed tomatoes before:
Cut and scoop out tomato middles into a bowl and mash up.
Mix with chopped herbs of choice (I did oregano, thyme and chives) and added a bit of my garlic salt.
Then mixed that in with some breadcrumbs and re filled the tomato shells, added a scrape of butter and a basil leaf.
Under the grill for around 5 minutes (until toasty)

Hello!
Well, I am home again after quite a busy few days.
Maureen and I chose to go up on the Friday and get set up so we didn’t get caught up in the early Saturday morning madness (You all know how not fantastic I am at mornings so that was sensible.)

Jeff drove up too and helped unpack and set up our tents and stayed Friday – we all went out for gourmet pizza and on Saturday morning, he took off to hike up Mt Roland since Sheffield sits almost at its base.

The shed was huge!
Our idea of creating a little walk in area for customers worked well combining both our stall areas

You can see how we had some stock at the front then people were able to come in and browse the tables inside the area.

Super excited to use my banner for the first time.
I noticed people looking up to read it too over the three days to confirm what it was I was selling (ie soaps not sweets)

I really enjoyed seeing the ‘fruits of my labour’ all out on display.

I had plenty of stock and was able to dive into those clearly marked boxes to top up when the more popular soaps were dwindling on the plate.
(The Japanese Honeysuckle, btw, was the clear favourite at this market! It was almost the first one picked up to sniff and its funny watching expressions as that one always seemed to bring on a ‘wow’ look)(Black Raspberry and Vanilla I think was the second most popular)

I even sold 4 of my gift boxed soaps!

Maureen also had a great time and sold a fabulous amount of her aprons!
I think she almost sold out of the children’s ones!
Her stall is so full of wonderful colourful items. She has some unique materials and they really attracted peoples attention.
It was really interesting seeing what people liked and we’ve got ideas for next year (yes we’re keen to do it again)

We were still setting up at the stage of the photos taken here… then after we were set, people just kept coming in so I don’t think I got extra photos when it was all tidied and ready to go… we were in full swing!

Saturday was steady and quite busy.
Sunday was even busier! The weather was gorgeous and everyone was out enjoying themselves.
At one point Maureen slipped out to see if she could get us a sausage wrapped in bread for lunch- but the line went forever.
So we stuck with the snacks we had (ahem… that Maureen brought along because I didn’t think that far)(Her husband Gerry baked us some anzac bikkies and rock cakes! So lucky!)
Cousin Jeff’s wife, Alana, turned up to say hello! She heard about our snag dilemma and surprised us by returning with a couple! How nice was that? She said her kids were standing in line for the train so she thought she might as well stand in another line for the sausages!
They were SO GOOD.

There was a train for littlies (very cute) and a mid sized train chooffing about the tracks giving people little scenic rides.

I really didn’t get much of a chance to get out and see what was happening beyond the market shed until briefly on Monday when things had quietened down. (We were all about sell sell sell haha)

There was some great machinery out and about – lots of noise, smoke, clanking and whistles.
I walked into town each evening and the big steam machines were making their way to the middle of town to top up on water, ready for the next day.

There was a good amount of stalls in the big shed.
We knew a couple of people and met a bunch of new nice people too.
We did have a couple of challenges. The internet was slow so the payment square Maureen had was a bit testy a lot of the time on the busy days. We were relieved that it wasn’t just us being novices at it but everyone was having issues.
Sometimes we’d take the customer outside to try to get a better signal.
It was awesome Maureen got set up with it as even though we did take mostly cash, we also did a significant amount of sales using the Square.

The second challenge – dust.
Oh my! I breathed a lot of it and it just coated everything. The floor of the shed wasn’t concreted or anything… just a big old dusty area!
They tried watering it Sunday morning but were way too late and were kicking up more dust and mud… and customers were already on their way in.
Monday morning they got in way earlier and watered it down which made a difference for the monday, but the bulk of the people and dust was on Saturday and Sunday!

I suppose my soaps are, in the long run, self cleaning!

Over all we did really well… lots more $$ to put in our Japan fund so that’s very exciting.
I have a heap of stock left over so I have plenty for the Rocky Cape Market and enough to leave at Arty Duck to keep them stocked up too without having to do any frantic soap making to keep up.

I woke with a cold early on the last day which was a bummer… its freshened up today and I am tired and stuffy.
I got home early evening Monday after a big pack up session.
I didn’t bother unpacking the car until today… put the tent flies out to dry as of course it rained on the last night!
I tried to rest but… I don’t think I did and now my eyelids feel hot and heavy.

So glad we went! We’re all keen for next year and even put our names down to snaffle the same spots. I am making promises to myself to get the frantic soap making done BEFORE January next time!

Thanks for all the encouraging words over my 6 week crazy soap making production – it was nice to share what I was doing with you all.

xxx

So, I’ve packed the car mostly ready to head out tomorrow and finally thought I would sit and figure out how to do some essential things on my new tablet so I can blog/email etc while I am in Japan.

Naturally this included a thirty minute hiatus while I updated payment to run the blog for another 12 months, as it ran out today – I guess that’s better than it expiring in the middle of my trip.

Step two… Cut fingernails.

I don’t have a mobile phone and just use my PC at home. This screen Tappy thing is a bit slow and annoying and definitely does not like long fingernails.

I took some random garden photos to learn where they go and then how they upload to the fully paid up blog.

Things really work very differently on a tablet and I am doing a lot of random scrolling and swiping, and let’s be honest – swearing.

If I can just master Facebook, video calling, emails and blog I’ll be content (ok maybe see if I can go all out and work out how to get my Hay Day farm on here haha)

Ok… looks like I’ve mastered blogging. I’ll look forward to relaxing in the evenings and writing posts and sharing photos of the trip.

Xx

Birds nest basket done?
Kinda. Wasn’t sure I’d get it big enough before heading off to Sheffield!

I will save the thread tucking for another time…

Its a really sturdy (if somewhat scrappy looking) thing!
It was fun to do and extremely messy!
Its been raining and cold here so I had to finish it inside rather than out the back.
Yay for vacuums

I’ve taken a nice cloth to line it and quickly experimented with chucking some soap in it to get the overall aesthetic…
Quirky? haha

xx

Well… I got through the box of tomatoes!
The rest went through the food mill and cooked in oven to reduce

Will do as tomato paste for a while. They are all in the freezer

I’ve been working on getting everything together properly for Steamfest.
I’ve labelled all my boxes clearly so I know what is where
I’ve made sure I have all the right tags and signs for the table today – stamping some cute stuff onto the plain paper bags and cutting up the grease proof paper ready for wrapping.
Things are slowly coming together!

xx

Hi …
Since my tomatoes are staying determinedly green, I bought a box of sauce tomatoes.
We were so low on relish
Wow… the box was pretty big! So I did two relish batches (just finished second one tonight)(Thats 12lb of tomatoes and 4lb of onion)

The rest I chopped and cooked which I plan to mooley and make into tomato paste.

I popped over to Maureens yesterday so we could mock set up our tables to see how we’d arrange things for Steamfest.

Above – my fragrance and colour free goats milk soaps
I am hoping to have that new basket finished to display them in. I’ve used some nice moulds for half of them which I reckon look lovely.
Then the plain sliced soap I’ve wrapped in pretty origami paper which looks so bright and gorgeous.
I think this will make a nice display!

xx