Festive dwellings!

Here are a few of the houses decorated for Christmas on Celtis and Callitris St.[gallery ids="4994,4995,4996"]But none are as festive as The Man Grotto!

The Man-Grotto.

Christmas comes to Celtis St.

So.....last year was my first 'hot' Christmas and it did not feel right at all.What I didn't realise was that Queensland was breaking me in gently.....last year the heat was nothing compared to this year. There was I telling everyone how I was coping so well with the heat but....it was not a normal summer.I have spent the last fortnight feeling 'sticky' from when I get up to when I go to bed....apart from those few days we spent up at Frogknot where it was, actually, much more pleasant. It is hard to sleep at night as it has been around 25 degrees through the night....and we have had to sleep with a fan blowing on us.Summer has only just begun......but back to Christmas.....I brought a tree back from Frogknot.....which I cut myself........I did feel bad chopping it down but it was its own fault for growing in a perfect shape!It now stands proudly in the living room upstairs bedecked in silver and already I am feeling slightly more festive....but the festive decoration does not end there.....Pop back tomorrow for pictures of......'The Man-Grotto!'

Retail therapy.

Yesterday Dulcie decided she wanted to go shopping for clothes.We took her to Garden City.........She bought 3 new tops and 2 pairs of shorts.I asked her if she was interested in the garment above......she just scowled at me!

Our Weekend.

We had a good weekend at Frogknot.We were a little fed up at first as we discovered two wet patches on the wall outside at the back where rain had been running down the walls and later on the first evening discovered the pipe under the sink was leaking....not like last time, where it had been gnawed through by rats, but because the back wall is shrinking and putting pressure on the plastic joints. The roof seems to be bowing more and we found that ants had colonised one of the poles...though they had apparently got rid of the termites that were there first.It was all a bit depressing and really, it is only a matter of time before it all starts to go badly wrong.Dulcie and I did not sleep brilliantly the first night. It rained a few times during the night but I didn't hear any creatures knocking about.On Saturday, Will cleaned out the stove flue and then we set about raising the verandah roof above the wet patches. We were successful and in the few further rain showers we got during the day we found that no water was dripping down the wall now.We had a game of cards to keep Dulcie amused and then Will pruned the fruit trees and I removed all the old, rotting logs Will had laid years ago to mark out future garden beds. It made me feel better and the place looked tidier.We managed to stream 9 News for Dulcie at tea time and she sat glued to the Ipad for 45 minutes.We both slept better the second night.

We left on Sunday about 11.00 ish. I drove us home.  Will brought back some tadpoles from the dam to put in our pond bath....I brought back some branches to decorate the Man-Cave for Christmas and I also brought back a small tree for a Christmas tree.Brisbane was hot and sticky....it had been so lovely and cool up at Frogknot.