Birthday Bear travels to Townsville

The Birthday Bear traveled to Townsville for the weekend to surprise Chris at her birthday party ...

Townsville is a two-hour flight from Brisbane in far north tropical Queensland. 

The job is done....

The job is done, the deck is finished for another year or two....

The last coat is painted

 

A little bare without plants at the moment

Diane inspecting the job

Hopefully Diane will have time to put the plants back soon.

Repainting our decks

Diane's been in my ears for some time saying the decks need repainting. After leaving it on the 'back burners' for some time, we decided the long weekend would be a good time to make a start. So we went and hired a floor sander and got stuck into it. We're about half-way through the job.

The floor sander does a great job

The fiddly-bits have to be sanded manually

The hand sander is ideal for that

Then we washed the sanded areas

First the back bridge is ready for painting

As I said, we're not finished yet but hopefully will be by next weekend.

More to follow.....

Model Train Expo Brisbane 2009

It's a long weekend here in Queensland. I saw in the papers that there is a Model Railway Expo. Well I thought! Somewhere to go. However my better half was not at all enthusiastic to go, so I phoned my mate Martin, who is building a model railway in his den. He was working this weekend but was quite happy to have a couple of hours off to come along. So I picked him up at his workplace and we headed to the RNA Pavilion where the show is held. I was under strict instructions from Diane: "Don't buy anything!!" 

Martin is enjoying the exhibits

Lots of great exhibits

Steam trains, bridges...

more bridges..

.. an Australian Outback scene

Even the London Underground is present

...or overcrowded trains

Me, drooling. "I know dear.. I'm not buying anything...

How quick is this...

This cartoon appeared today in the Courier Mail, the Queensland Newspaper inferring to the Swine Flu situation.

Note:
For our overseas bloggers, We, in Queensland refer to southern states visitors as 'Mexicans', you know the song...  South of the boarder, down Mexico Way

More drawings of Riggisberg

A couple more sketches from our ancestral village Riggisberg in the canton Bern in Switzerland. I sketched them from photos published in the History Book 'Riggisberg-Rüti'

The Village Church with the Stokhorn range

in the background

Käserei (Cheesery) ca. 1940

 

Eisenhandlung (Iron Monger) ca. 1940

I'm having great fun practicing what my daughter Carol-Ann taught me when she visited us from London with her husband David over the Christmas break....

More to follow soon....

Our old house in RiggisbergSwitzerland

Last Christmas, when our daughter Carol-Ann and her husband David visited from England, we spent a few days with them on the Sunshine Coast. Carol got us to pencil draw things, so now I've tried to put what she taught me into practice. Here is a picture of our old house in Riggisberg in Switzerland. (See second last post for pictures)

My first attempt at pencil drawing

The shop was the local barber shop run by my uncle, standing in front with my father and grand father.