Saturday, September 18, 2010

WORLDWIDE SPIN IN PUBLIC DAY 18 September 2010

What a lovely way to celebrate Spin In Public Day2010.    
 I live in Kilsyth, an outer eastern suburb of Melbourne Australia. My husband has Alzheimers Disease, so I very rarely leave the house alone. So how was I going to participate in "SIPD"? To make things worse, the weather looked as though it was going to rain.

So I went down to my local shopping centre and did some handcarding in the car park !!!!! This caused some amusement amongst the shoppers, especially as we have a retirement village nearby and we are a very "sedate"suburb.   I carded some lovely BRIGHT pink, orange and lime green rovings.

Then I ended up at our local bakery (Allan's Bakery Kilsyth - http://allanscakes.com.au/ ) and whilst carding there, enjoyed coffee and delicious blueberry pancakes.
Allan's Bakery do the best decorated cakes I have seen - modern and tradional). 
 
What could make for a better day ....... my two favourite thingies ....... fibre and food ........ hehehehe

Friday, September 17, 2010

FIBRE FRIDAY - 2 BASIC COLOURS AND ??????? and SPIN IN PUBLIC DAY

WORLDWIDE SPIN IN PUBLIC DAY

This day is always held on the 3rd Saturday of September.  WILL YOU BE PARTICIPATING ???????


I did last year ...... yeah spinning on my nature strip ......

....... not too sure where I will be tomorrow - perhaps in front of my most favourite local shop ....... Allan's Bakery !!



These 4 skeins were made from a base of 2 colours - orange and green. Then for each skein I added one or two other colours. By doing this, I ended up with 4 distinct coloured skeins.


I ran the colours through my drumcarder in no order, but tried to keep the colours togetheR.

The four skeins were plied with the same black yarn.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

ONE WEEK SINCE HURRICAN BEN

Yes, it has been one week since our our heater installation debarcle.  This photo shows some of the dust left AFTER the tradesman left.

This is part of  an email sent to AGL - and to be fair to AGL I have omitted surnames.

One week has gone by since Ben **** came to install the gas heater. Apart from ourselves, our family and friends have been appalled by:

• Ben's incompetence - especially cutting the live wire without turning off the mains power

• his inability to communicate with us regarding the amount of dust involved and the need to cover furniture, electrical items and other items

• no apology from him regarding the dust covering expensive Nikon camera, computer equipment, TV, video equipment and others

• his failure to leave our home in the same state as he found it when he arrived to do the installation

• for sternly telling me "THAT WE WANTED IT FITTED!" when I said that I was cross about him not covering the furniture

• his apparent lack of respect to us as customers of AGL Assist

• his apparent lack of respect to the company he works for

Ben Lombard is NEVER to come to our house in the future to service any of our gas units.

I am disappointed that AGL Assist Bayswater did not endeavour to send Ben back immediately to clean up his mess which was left, nor to check if the gas heater was working correctly. In fact Jack and Pat only came on Monday afternoon to check on the heater, after my telephone conversations with Nicole and Christine from AGL.
And I am disappointed with AGL Bayswater for not contacting me since last Friday (not even acknowledging my email/photos sent to you). A courtesy call would have been appreciated.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

LIFE'S UPS AND DOWNS

CAMILLIA CORNER

I feel so much better having vented my anger and frustration in my last posting ....

.... so here is a lovely photo of one of our camillias.

.... they have been really beautiful this year.

No wonder our house is named "Camillia Corner". 

WHAT A MORONIC TRADESMAN !!

Last Wednesday we had a new gas heater installed as the old one had 2 large cracks in the Heat Exchange thus leaking carbon monoxide (the same thing that killed the children at Mooroopna earlier this year).  We were extremely lucky.

Pictured is my new Nikon D90 camera with macro lens attached covered in red brick dust. Why????? Well the new heater was 5cm too small to fit in the fireplace. Our moronic/stupid AGL Assist (Bayswater) tradesman had to chip and grind at the red bricks inside the chimmney.

I was on the phone at the time when he started and when I went into the lounge room the whole room was absolutely thick with chocking red dust. I cried when I saw that NOTHING had been covered.  By this time it was really too late to cover anything.  However, sheets were thrown over the computer table, TV and the dining room table.  My camera was taken outside and dusted down.

I could see that the tradesman had a difficult job to install the new heater, but that does not excuse him for not covering furniture/computer/TV.  I was so furious with him ..... if he was so DUMB and perhaps couldn't be bothered, why didn't he ask ME to cover things.

When he finished grinding, I told him that I was furious that nothing had been covered.  He tersely told me THAT I WANTED THE HEATER INSTALLED and that he had warned me what he was going to do!

YES, of course I wanted the heater installed asap, but HONESTLY I DID NOT realise the amount of dust that would have been generated.  Perhaps he thought that I was just a stupid housewife and that I would not "mind" a little dust covering everything.

BOY WAS HE WRONG ....... !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

He was here for just under 4 hours and explained to me in two minutes how to turn the heater on and off.  Later that evening when I turned the heater off I could still hear the fan going..... He didn't tell me that the fan switched off once the unit cooled down.  Thank goodness for the instuction manual !!! (By the way, our old heater was approx 25 years old and very basic).

The next day, right on 9am, I was in contact with AGL Assist (Bayswater) expressing my disgust at the tradesman's lack of good sense.   ....... and again on Friday .....  I was aked to send photos via email to them.

I have the whole unfortunate installation documented and on Monday morning will be ringing AGL Assist H.O. with my complaint and emailing the photos and documentation.


HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATE

The dining room table was also covered with dust ...... yep ....... and everything on top of it. The morning of the heater installation I had set the table for a formal birthday luncheon for the next day ... lace table cloth, cutlery, crockery and serviettes. Well, the lace cloth had to be soaked to get the red dust out, cutlery and plates washed and the flowers thrown out.

Curtains had to be washed, but the drapes have to be drycleaned. My hand felted large floor mat will have to be washed (I made this at the Handweavers and Spinners Guild of Vic a couple of years ago). A few years ago I won one of Isobelle's handwoven floor mat at a Guild function. It has always looked so lovely in front of our heater. Now it is in the laundry waiting for a dry, sunny and windy day to get the dust out of it.

ONE DROWNED MOUSE .........

NO NO NO not the four legged variety ..... After the tradesman went, I was left to clean up HIS MESS. I was wiping the dust off my computer equipment - I was wiping the "mouse" when my hand shook and it fell into my hot cuppa ....... I drowned it !!!!! Lucky I had a spare one in the drawer.

Monday, September 06, 2010

MACRO MONDAY - ANTS



This photo was taken the first day I got my new macro lens.

Ern and I are both well, although Ern had another fall - the left side this time. He sure has good bones - no rib or hip fractures ......