KENDALL Koala loves to travel. She packs light carrying only a fresh supply of gum leaves and, for rugged environments, her gumboots.

She's happy enough travelling solo but what she'd really like is a bunch of travelling companions. She'll be travelling to Nepal in August and would like many, many koala friends to join her there.

I GOTTA stop apologising for these late posts, but again, as the end of the month rolled around, I was nowhere near a computer and definitely nowhere in cooee of a decent mobile connection.

Bliss. ;)

In NOVEMBER:

I WENT TO… on a weekend road trip, and it was sooooo worth the long drive from the NSW Central Coast to the state's Central West. We stopped to visit an old friend and and her darling new bub at Ballimore, near Dubbo, and then drove onto Coolah, with a day spent in Coolah Tops National Park. It was a classic road trip. Thermos tea and cut sandwiches out of the Esky, a Pub Squash at the Ballimore Inn, pulling up at the only motel in town (fan on, enamel sink, squeaky beds with velour spreads) and enjoying a schnitzel and chips and cold ale at the local pub before an early start to bushwalking the next day. It was all wrapped up with milkshakes and a 'slab' of Vanilla Slice at the country bakery at Merriwa on the way home.

I ATE… Nothing fancy. I had to restrain myself after last month's culinary adventures.

I OP SHOPPED… a linen top and jeans, a mid-century pottery vase and gold brocade dress, circa 1960s. I love the monthly car boot sale, and it's on again this weekend.

I MADE… a start on a summer knitting project, courtesy of hours spent in the car during the weekend road trip.

I READ… Kate Llewellyn’s newest book, A Fig at the Gate. I am a fan of Llewellyn's diaries of love, loss, gardening, cups of tea and her examinations of friends, lovers and the anyone she chooses to muse on, from the bloke across the road to taxi drivers.

I also finished Patti Smith's Just Kids. I've been reading this on and off for months but finally sat with it and read it to its end. I loved the writing, but picked and picked at it not really feeling I had the head space to surrender to the writing and telling of this story. Finishing it feels like parting with something important. M Train? Who's read it?

The final read of the month was Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic. I actually listened to it as an audio book. So satisfying to garden and listen to Gilbert read this one aloud. Plenty to muse on.

IT'S a wet weekend across Sydney and my home of the NSW Central Coast, and there's nothing worse than the combination of a wet weekend and school holidays.

Those days are well behind me, but it doesn't mean I don't remember. I do. Vividly.

It seems right. It's been an unsettling year and we're looking forward to ending it on a high with a gathering in our home on Christmas Day.

This year will be all about what each of us can bring to the celebration. My Mum has a list of treats she and my Dad will bring. My sister and I have been planning and ordering the cold meats and fruit. We picked up a spare bar fridge from our eldest this weekend and have decided it'll house the pavlova and trifle. Others will be responsible for filling the Esky with their favourite tipples.

There'll not be a lot under the tree and what's there will be things people have asked for. There are few surprises but that's OK. We've had a year of surprises. Some have rattled, some delighted; many have bound us together in ways none of us could have imagined.

Cards will soon be filled with messages from the year past and well wishes for the year to come. Friends will celebrate around our table or at events organised to bring far-flung folk together and many will part with gifts we've made to share, a cutting from from the garden or a bunch of fresh herbs. It's the way the season should be.



I'm looking forward to this Christmas. I really am.

Ta da! The final pieces were on show at Sturt on Friday. If that's winter school, I've done it ... and am back at work tomorrow. So much for a school holiday.

DAY four of the basket weaving course and I am nursing a pinched nerve in my neck and my hands are claws. And yup, those there teeny weeny baskets on my work table are all I have to show. Don't talk to me about it. Gah. If hopsital patients made to do basket weaving as therapy weren't infirm when they went in, they sure were by the time they came out.

MY hands and the tendons in my forearms ache. I will never, ever, ever look at a basket - any basket - without bowing my head in awe of its maker. I'm doing a winter school and learning how to make baskets using native fibres. All I know, thus far, is not to mess with the mentally insane, or infirm. They have really, really strong hands.

HOW hot was it yesterday? Hot. Sticky, sweaty, burny hot. So what did I do? I spent six hours in the garden and have the tan marks to prove it. You can spot gardeners. Their tan lines stop where their boots and gardening gloves start.

I saw this woven thing-a-me-jig on Gardening Australia on Saturday night and used the prunings from a hibiscus to weave my version of it - a fence-like contraption I plan to grow things over. Cost me nothing but my time and a wee bit of heat stroke.

Gardening Australia is on Twitter. That's cute, right?

And what about my new trug? I hauled it out of a council clean up. I know, I know, I am one of those people. Hey, cost me nothing save a police profile and neighbours who pull down their blinds and slam their doors when I walk past.

WEEKENDS are busy. They're the only time I get to squeeze in all the things normal people do during their lunch hours or evenings. I worked a full week of meetings and heavy executive stuff, then juggled extra hours on Saturday and Sunday. I then backed up with another full week - working most of my lunch breaks - to keep on top of the load. So this weekend has been a game of catch up. A truncated game at that because weeks ago I booked myself into a friend's screenprinting workshop. She wanted to get back into running workshops from her studio and I wanted to book a block of creative play time.

The two prints above were what I managed to pull alonsgide some much needed chatting, communal eating and more chatting ... you get the drift.

It was lovely and well worth a frantic Saturday - so frantic I had a brain fritz mid afternoon. I know. I know. Heat, exhaustion and an overloaded schedule equalled meltdown. Hayley, of Little Pinwheel, admitted this week in a post to her own meltdown and yesterday I knew just what she meant. So, like, Hayley, I admitted defeat and just plodded through the making of a meal, packing my bag for today's workshop and the usual of shower, teeth and bed.

It worked. Today things seemed more calm. My mind seemed more open and, despite the niggles of a summer flu coming on - yes, yes, my body is giving me more than a gentle nudge - I started plotting a couple of creative projects. I'm going to need your help though. I'm keeping a list of things I need to source online and over the next few posts will ask for your tips on where you order your craft supplies from. I'm after macrame cord, sewing patterns, screen printing gear ... oh it's going to be good.