Wishing you all a very Happy Easter from the Easter Bundy 😊❤️
easter
The year that was.
January
A relatively quiet month punctuated by time spent cuddling gorgeous shelter dogs waiting for their forever homes. Bundy celebrated his 9th birthday and unbeknown to us Australia Day was the last time we took Maxi to the beach, she loved splashing around in the surf and afterwards would sleep for hours.
Bundy ready for Australia Day
Maxi girl at the beach on Australia Day
February
A python and lots of cute puppies plus a lunch date with friends by the water. A short, sweet in stinking hot month.
Puppies at the AWLQ Shelter
Python at the shelter
Lunch date with friends
March
Maxi’s 15th birthday is celebrated, Easter fun and games with the fur kids and a new car.
Maxi girl celebrates 15 years
Me and the new car
Easter food
Easter Maxi
Easter Bundy
Burleigh Heads at Easter
April
Sadly, we said goodbye to my father in-law who had been unwell for a couple of years. Even though he had been married to my mother in-law for a few years he was entrenched in our family and is greatly missed.
May
A much anticipated trip to Scotland. Traveling with a group of artists on a paint-along with my art teacher for two weeks was an amazing experience and provided me with lots of inspiration for my art and further travel in the UK.
Rainy day in Edinburgh
The Great Hall, National Portrait Gallery Scotland
Art teacher doing a demonstration
Seaside village of Crail
Crovie at sunset
Macaroni Cheese for lunch
Unison pastels being prepared for sale
Art studio, Gardenstown
Fellow artists in Scotland
June
Always lots of dogs waiting at the Animal Welfare League, I love my Sundays with them and it is hard not to fall in love with all of them.
Mitzy
Buster
Squishy
Pig for adoption
July
Commissioned to do a portrait of Rumpole the chocolate lab in pastel, stalked by a pigeon on our morning walk and an art class focused on drawing birds. Finally winter seems to have arrived bringing with it some spectacular sunrises and the fur kids are loving their new blankets.
Rumpole, my first commission
Stalked by a pidgeon
Keeping warm in their new blankets
Glorious winter sunrise
Pastel art class – drawing birds
August
The weather starts getting warmer and Hubby celebrates his birthday with traditional fire making and drinks with family and friends. Walks with Maxi are getting shorter and she happily shares the rug with Bundy.
Two black dogs
Bundy making the most of the warmer days at the end of Winter
Birthday cake
Hubby ‘making fire’
September
Losing Maxi broke my heart, such a vibrant and happy girl. Gone but never forgotten.
Happy days
Fun at the beach
Missing you
The last photo of our beautiful girl
Our Maxi girl
October
After losing our dear old girl, time with friends was especially important.
Grand final night in the park with friends
Annual catch up with a dear friend
Bushwalking with a friend
November
The festive season started early at work, our team heading to a winery for a long lunch to celebrate a good year with good people. There are always dogs waiting to be adopted and every Sunday I take photos of them to raise awareness on social media in the hope that it will assist in finding them a family faster. I also finished another commission, Honey the cat, sibling to Rumpole.
Charlie
Lunch with my amazing team
Honey the cat illustration
December
A quick trip to Newcastle to visit my brother and his family as well as meeting my new niece. So nice that the two families live in the same city, makes it easy to fit in quality time with all of them. Christmas was perfect, good company and good food. Now I am in need of a break, some quiet time at home after a busy and emotional year.
Flight to Newcastle
My gorgeous new niece
Christmas in the park with friends
Bundy the elf
Christmas decorations
Christmas Eve with a very good friend. We have been friends since we were 7 .
Christmas Eve in Surfers
Bundy at the beach Christmas morning
Happy Easter from two black dogs
Tomorrow is Easter Saturday, our little home will be overflowing with guests and the bowl of chocolate Easter eggs on the sideboard will diminish rapidly. It has been pouring down with rain since Wednesday afternoon but it didn’t stop me from trying to get the obligatory shot of our two black dog wearing bunny ears. Bundy will gladly follow a treat and sit on wet grass, posing for the camera, Maxi was not so obliging.
Wishing you and those you love a very Happy Easter, from me, Maxi and Bundy 🙂
Wishful thinking
Another hot and humid day is looming, summer is definitely making her presence felt after several years of wet summers and lower temperatures. In an effort to cool down I am thinking of colder climates and wishing I could click my heels and transport myself and the doggies to the beautiful Lucerne in Switzerland. We were in Lucerne prior to Easter in 2011, the days were lovely and mild allowing us to fully enjoy all the delights that the old town had to offer.
Market day
Cast iron door stops, too heavy to pack in my suitcase
Easter decorations and wares on display
Easy to see the Italian influence with the cold meats at the local markets
DIY Hot chocolate
I love the local architecture
View from Mt Pilatus
Cold but happy on Mt Pilatus
Cable car ride down the mountain
Flowers coming to life, halfway point between Kriens and Mt Pilatus
Maxi on the mend
Thank you so much for all the good wishes and virtual hugs, it means alot to me and if Maxi could read I know she would be really chuffed.
A really sucky start to Easter
Easter has not started well for us, what was going to be a weekend of gardening and family has now turned into a waiting game. Our dear old Maxi girl has a pain in the tummy, not the normal gastro bug she gets from a change in diet or swimming in dubious water but the kind that requires strong pain relief, ultrasounds, a night (or two) in hospital and possibly x-rays. Needless to say we’re very worried and so is the vet. It isn’t pancreatitis and nor does she have growths or tumour, but her intestines, bladder and bowel are full and there isn’t a poo in sight. Maxi isn’t the type of dog to eat just any old thing, however we’ve had some disturbing incidents of late whereby the dogs have discovered both cooked and raw bones in the yard. Our dogs aren’t allowed bones because Bundy guards them ferociously so someone we don’t know is either throwing bones over the fence deliberately or our neighbours are putting too much oomph into their throws when they give their dogs bones. I prefer to think that it is the latter, whatever the cause, we remove them as soon as we find them.
At 13 years of age, surgery to remove an obstruction is not something we want to put Maxi through. Apart from this incident she is in such good health that to consider the alternative breaks my heart, it is not somewhere I want to go.
As you can guess, I’m not the happiest of campers at the moment so please forgive the melancholic nature of my blogging of late and thank you for the love and support you’ve shown me so far.
I wish you all a Happy Easter xo
A quiet, relaxing Easter this year
Easter 2011 was celebrated in Varenna on Lake Como with a large bag of chocolates purchased in Lucerne, Switzerland, the weather was perfect and we spent our time in this beautiful little village cruising the lake and wandering through narrow streets and well tended gardens.
In 2012 my husband’s little sister and boyfriend came to visit and we drove inland to participate in an early morning Easter egg hunt at the family home of my other sister-in-law. With three little boys and three slightly larger ones there was plenty of action in the form of backyard soccer, water fights using Nerf guns and wrestling. Later in the afternoon we played poker under the shade of a huge tree and enjoyed a glass or two of bubbles, a fire was lit as the sun set and the little boys were hypnotised by the flames. It was a beautiful time spent with our family, lots of laughter, good conversation and tasty home cooked food.
This year we’re staying home, hanging out with the dogs, doing a bit of gardening, some cooking, hopefully take a few photos and there is a huge list of chores to complete, but I’m not complaining. Since November last year I have been acting Director for our unit during a period of uncertainty and change, although the experience has been mainly positive and relatively problem free, my head was starting to hurt and I was desperately in need of a good chunk of downtime. My acting role ended yesterday, next week I start a slightly different job and I’m looking forward to the challenge but most of all, I’m ecstatic to have a few days off to do the things I love and to have the time and energy to get my hands dirty.
What are you doing to celebrate Easter this year?
Easter in Varenna
Summer is coming to an end, in about 6 weeks we will be celebrating Easter and it will have been 12 months since we were in the small, serene town of Varenna on the banks of Italy’s Lake Como. I am still processing all the photos I took and attempting to collate them into appealing, memorable photobooks using Blurb’s BookSmart software, it is taking forever because I am easily distracted by looking at destination websites that relate to the photos I am working on. At the moment the photos we took in Varenna are on my screen, pictures of the lake and the towns that reside on its shores and it got me thinking, I haven’t really posted many photos of our stay in Varenna and now is as good a time as ever. See, easily distracted 🙂
Varenna and the Hotel Eremo Gaudio was our home for 5 nights, we wanted to avoid larger cities during Easter and it was a good excuse for taking a relaxing break from the constant moving and sightseeing. Varenna is a small town, the shops still shut in the afternoon and the majority of visitors at this time of year appear to be Germans and Italians. Our hotel is on the edge of town, it has spectacular views of the lake and next door is a cemetery, from our balcony we can also see the gardens of the Villa Monastero. Breakfast is provided, it is a feast of cereal, bread, boiled eggs, cheese, meat spreads, fruit, yoghurt and pastries, you can dine outside on the terrace or in the breakfast room where most guests ate on cooler mornings.
During the day we would walk along the esplanade, eat gelati and enjoy a glass of wine with lunch – usually a panini with salami and cheese. We did venture to other towns, catching the ferry across to Bellagio and Menaggio where we could do some more walking, eating and drinking, it was very relaxing. One day we caught the train to Milan, we walked from the station to the Duomo, it was a long walk and we didn’t realise that in order to see all the designer shopping we should have turned left long before we reached the main piazza. Milan is probably a really great city to explore, but with limited time we only caught a glimpse and we were happy to get back to our quiet little village.
While in Varenna we dined at the Albergo del Sole Restaurant and the Victoria Grill when we had tired of picnics of salad, sausage, cheese and crackers. The food was good and simple: veal, steak or lamb and a side of grilled vegetables which was greatly appreciated plus half a litre of wine for 6 euros and it was very drinkable. The town seems empty at night, that is until you head out for dinner or a drink and you see other tourists and hear the different accents and languages, I think we were the only Aussies though. The nicest coffee we had was at the Villa Cipressi, the restaurant was closed but they were happy to serve us coffee, sitting outdoors we were able to watch as a storm rolled in over the lake, thankfully missing us completely.
Enjoy the photos 🙂
Lucerne and Mt Pilatus
I want to share a few of my photos taken during our short stay in Lucerne, Switzerland during Spring 2011. All of my photographs can be found on my smugmug gallery but not everyone can be bothered looking through hundreds of images.
One of the most photographed sites in Lucerne (or Luzern) and possibly Switzerland, is the old wooden Chapel Bridge, a covered wooden footbridge across the Reuss River.
The markets are a real treat to see on a sunny day, the river is lined with market stalls and at Easter time there are many stalls selling gifts and decorations to celebrate the upcoming event.
In addition to wandering around Lucerne’s old town, we took a trip up to Mt Pilatus via the bus and cable car, the views are spectacular on a clear day or so I am told, it was cloudy most of the time with temperatures of minus 3 and 4 degrees Celsius.
Every now and then the sun would come out, blue skies would appear and the temperature would rise making our day on the mountain even more spectacular.
At night the city was just as beautiful, the streets were crowded with people looking for somewhere to eat and tourists with cameras took prime position on the bridges to capture the reflection of the lights on the river and lake.
Two Black Dogs 