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| Here's what the current "Box" looks like. | Here is the size comparison of the two countries on the same scale. | The Farewell at the Higgs' house. | You know who. | The Farewell at the Nepalese restaurant. | We knew you would be needing these during the Irish Summer! | Just wait until you see what people wear in the Winter. | It fitted in but only just. | Re-arranging the contents of the cases. | Baggage checkin. | Heading for the coffee lounge. | Just before you boarded the plane. | That was your plane at Adelaide Airport. | Bon Voyage. | Return to HOME PAGE. |
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| A day out for Grace. |
Coffee at Mawson Lakes. | The Mall's Balls have returned after cleaning. | Look who's reflected in the Mall's Balls. | A possum one night at our place. | Mum took a picture of a parrot in Blackwood when we visited the Ferris's at their old home. | A stormy day at Waterfall Gully. | Mum in between showers. | They began at the front on July 26th. Sheets of cladding (with bricks) are being screwed on piece by piece. | Two men cut the sheets to size in the carport. | This is how you look full screen. It was a few days ago when we spoke before. | This is a nice pic of mum watching you on the screen. | You can also see the small pic of us. That's how we keep track of whether you can see us. | Mum took this pic of flowers in our garden this morning (July 20th 07). | This was my big achievement for the day. I managed to bore holes into the wall and get this TV frame bolted firmly. Then we lifted the TV onto the frame and screwed it all together. The DVD player you gave us is ready to connect but I have to get slightly longer leads first. The TV actually swings out and can be turned in any direction. But so far, it's OK against the wall. We can see it clearly in bed. | Return to HOME PAGE. |
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| Spot the new cupboard. | It'a new cabinet from IKEA. It took a morning to assemble from a flat pack. | Mum in the main street of Hahndorf on Sunday August 5th 07. | Dad in Hahndorf on Sunday August 5th 07. We went out for a drive in the hills. | We also went to your house to deliver some letters that were Brett's, delivered to us because of the address/name mixup. | Here is what the roses looked like on Sunday August 5th 07. | The buds have burst into leaf. | This one is more advanced than the others. | Sunday August 19th 2007. I decided it was time to make a sketch of someone on a big canvas, using charcoal as the drawing medium. Look at what happened when I decided to put my thoughts into practice. This is the stretched canvas on a wooden frame that I bought Friday. Sunday evening, I pressed drawing pins along the edges at 45mm spacings. I wound a long strand of cotton thread back and forth around the pins to make a grid. |
I selected a nice picture and did some work on it using Photoshop. I printed off a small copy and drew a pencil grid onto the printed image. The grid was in the same proportion as the one on the canvas frame. I simply copied the small grid patterns onto the large grid.The face began to emerge from the canvas. I wasn't at all confident at this point but I pressed on. | I did the easy stuff first - the outline and then the ear. I found this to be quite tiring so I worked out a new strategy. | I lowered the frame and then sat down. The toughest parts of any face are the eyes and the mouth. I took a long time working with these but they also began to emerge over time. |
My first attempt doesn't look too bad from a distance, don't you think. | The
closer view shows me that this sketch needs lots of work in many places
but the overall effect is that this developing image is clearly Sharon
Ann Higgs. At this point on Sunday evening I just stood back and started laughing at what I had done. I was amazed at the result so far. It's a bit like being in that Rolf Harris TV program where various artists generate amazing images. Here I was doing the same thing and , remember, this is the FIRST TIME I have ever done anything like this!! I was absolutely amazed. What do you think, Alicia, Sharon and Matt??? I have much more to do and will continue to work on it. |
This is the finished cladding on the upper storey taken about lunch time just as the workers were leaving. I inspected the job and thought it looked to be well done. I paid them the agreed amount. | A closer look at the front. | The view from Cliff's lawn. | Lachlan calling me up to say he had lost his camera. He was in an internet cafe somewhere in Fulham near where Brooke lives. | This
was a second call a couple of hours later and shows a rather
sad-looking Lachlan becoming resigned to the loss of his camera. I saw
that Braden was on-line at the time so I asked him to speak to Lachlan
too. He did this and let me know later in the evening. However, I received a call at 2:00 am from Lachlan that seemed to offer some hope. He said that a camera bag and camera had been handed in at the railways. At the time of writing this, I had not heard whether he got his camera back or not. |
I
decided to stop working on your portrait at this point because I'm not
sure what else I could do to it. I would like to do some shading on the
face but I might make it look too smudgy so I stopped it for the time. Eunice came across to say hello and I showed her the sketch. A little later, Joanne returned the dish that had the crumble in it. Both thought the sketch was pretty good. |
There's me new brother! He looks a bit like me, don't ya think. | For
my second try, it only took two hours of charcoal to get to this stage.
I was pretty happy at being able to do this. I didn't know I could do
this sort of sketching. It's not perfect but it looks very much like me, I think. |
Guess what... I bought a new vacuum cleaner for the kitchen floor. I got sick of the noisy other cleaner so I went out today and bought a cheap cleaner that can be carried around with a strap. It's very quick to clean the floor and it has far better "suck" than the other one. And it cost... $30.00. Can't complain about that. | Return to HOME PAGE. |
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| This is a panoramic scene "stitched" together from a dozen images. It's in the Adelaide Hills. I have placed it here for you to see and remember that South Australia is beautiful also. | This is what the Moon looked like back on August 28th. It was eclipsed. | On Fathers' Day morning I decided to draw Braden. (On a small canvas this time) | Just like before, his face started to appear. | Not quite the same as the image I was copying... | ... but kind of scruffy and wild. Not my intention. It's the way he "grew". Alicia, you're next. My charcoal is ready. Watch this space. And Lachlan, you will be done after that!! |
Over at Braden and Megan's we had a superb meal of meats and salads. | Megan has only a few weeks to go. All's well. | The required pose. | This is how you looked to me on Skype. | My camera was not working hence the small black rectangle. | Here's a photo of me and my father at about the same age - about 16. Can you see the resemblance? | The package as it was picked up from the PO on Sept 11th. I don't like the blue cross on the address. It seems to suggest that it's not correct. I peeled the label back and could read the address that mum used. It was correct - 150 Howth Rd, Clontarf... etc. If you're in apartment 16, then what's wrong? | The back of the package. | The date stamp on the cancelled stamps. | Dunno what this means. When it arrived in Dublin?? | This was stuck on because, wherever the package was sitting, it was "Not called for" whatever that means. I remember you saying that you made lots of inquiries. Surely someone would have said the package was sitting on a shelf waiting to be picked up. And what about the small paper reminder dropped into your mail box. Maybe the package was too big to fit but not a paper reminder!! | Just one of the Aussie stamps but it shows the date again. We know it left safely in the Australian system. | Return to HOME PAGE. |
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