Princess Shakes Her BON BON...

Hello Dhaaarlings...

As you know Princess is not often one to go out to see a live concert but darlings tonight... Well last night now... as you see I've just arrived home from a night filled with latin rythyms and spectacular bon bon shaking...

I have just witnessed a most marvelous performance by none other than

"Ricky Martin"

I Know! I can hardly believe it myself and it all happened so quickly...

A dear friend of mine let me know on friday that she had Free tickets yes freee... as she knew somone that knew someone that was organising the show and travelling with Ricky and would she like some tickets...

And I just happened to be asked if I'd like to join her.

Ah.... like I need to think for a long time about that?

We were about three rows back from side of stage right and had a perfect view of Ricky shaking his "bon bon" among other things and grinding along with his boy dancers... I believe that there were some scantily clad girl dancers on stage with him but I hardly noticed any of them...

The audience was full... and I mean Full darlings.... of 40 something women  all squealing, gyrating, grinding and dry humping along to his tunes all hoping beyond hope that they were "still in with a chance"...

Hate to disappoint girls... but Enrique Morales wasn't fooling me...

As for the Guy in the seat in front of me who persisted in standing and salsaing his way all throughout the performance much to the chagrin of his "Girlfriend" who sat po faced throughout... Lets just say he was very lucky to have been "Built" and posessed very nice jiggling arse... that was in my face for most of the show...

  

It was just a spectacular night and I enjoyed every minute of it... even getting up off my seat and having a little salsa with everyone else at the show...

Oh and did I mention it was free? 

To Post... or... Not to Post...

Hello Dhaaarlings...

Last week whilst out and about snapping some shots of tulips in the local gardens I couldn't help myself and started taking some shots of old buildings in town...

This one happens to be the old original post office... No longer functioning as a post office, the beautiful old "Second Empire" style building now assumes the role and functions as the Tourist Information Centre...

The Old Post Office with it's clock tower and belfry stands directly opposite "The Shamrock Hotel"

Another building styled on Second Empire design.

The clock tower plays the Westmister Chimes (Badly... I think the bells need a good tuneup) marking the quarter hour, half hour, three quarter hour and then chimes the full tune on the hour and then lets fly with a single bell chiming out the hour it is on about... for example 10 bells = 10 o'clock. 

 

The side entrance to the post office is no longer used and has been gated off... but I think it still looks pretty amazing for an old girl...

 

The streetlamps as far as I can gather are the originals and up until taking some shots hadn't noticed they are adorned with crowns on top of the lamp itself...

And the rather substantial bases have been adorned with fanciful looking creatures that appear to have the head of a lion... dragon wings... a snake like body and appear to culminate in what looks like a horses hoof

There are four of these things around each lamp base.

 

Lion heads also feature prominantly on the walls along with the arched windows and intricate masonary work and sandstone carving.

There are also male and female heads carved over the door archways (I have no Idea who they are meant to represent) and some intricate carving above the doors and the dome of the portico ceiling

More lions on the columns, and finally the balustrade near the stairs...

So there you have it ... Princesses excursion to the GPO...

Next time I visit it I'll try to remember to take some photos of the inside of the building with it's original service desk still in situ along with some of the original postal boxes. It also houses regular local artist exhibitions in one of it's galleries....

An Unanticipated Excursion... Or... What Princess Did While "The Empress" Got Her Hair Done...

Hello Dhaaarlings...

How lovely of you to come back so soon... I guess that you have all been very very good then? Because I'm about to share with you some very pretty snaps of my very recent yet very unanticipated excursion to the parkland and gardens in the centre of Bendigo.

I've been working on resizing and sewing some curtains for the new offices at the oppertunity shop that the Empress and I volunteer at.

I had planned to deliver the curtains to the store and then come home until the Empress announced that she had made an impromtu appointment for the hairdresser's that afternoon.

Usually I drop the Empress off at her appointment then sit and have a little nanny nap wait patiently in the car until her wind-swept and interesting look is removed and she re-emerges tranformed some time later... into a vision of utter beauty...

But... on this occasion I decided to do something a little different...

Every year the local council manages to spend a fortune on their floral garden displays... and every year I plan to take some photo's and post them here on my blog to share with you... the results of my rate money...

And... Every year I usually remember my intention when it is too late and  I see the council workers removing the last of the dead and dying flowers from thir garden beds...

But this year it is a different story!

Here are the results...

So tune up your ukulele darlings....

and come and "tiptoe... through the tulips.." with me...

The white building in the distance is the conservatory... and I believe it is the original building dating form the late 1800's when Bendigo was at the centre of the Victorian Gold Rush.

It is used for exhibitions by various gardening and art and craft clubs throughout the year and in between its use by these clubs is festooned with displays of tropical and sub tropical blooms and plants, or filled with chrysanthemum's during the annual National chrisanthemum show

The gardens are a popular tourist spot and get heavily utilised by the locals with festivals and performances.  

This is only a part of the central city gardens and I will organise some more visits in other posts if you would like to see more of my beautiful city...

And there are also the Botanical gardens which are in the process of being refurbished back to their original design after many years of neglect and modern intervention... A visit there might be nice for another post...

As you might have guessed... the Tulip is the main theme... and in past years there have been much larger displays and many more beds. But given our drying climate and warmer winters in recent years the displays had been scrappy looking when the tulips bloomed and as a result the numbers of blooms colours and flowerbeds have been either reduced or planted with other blooms... or hardier perennials and shrubs.

The Rose Garden continues to grow in size every year and I noticed a new arbour had been installed and planted with climbing rose... I'll be retrning in a few weeks to investigate the rose garden further when there should be some lovely colours...

This year... in comparison... we have had a very cold and wet winter and a much slower onset of warm weather in spring

 which has I think resulted in spectacular blooms...

Tell me what you think darlings...

Oh... And I actually remembered to call in an pick up The Empress on the way home...

A Garden Renewed... Or... The Day the Gang Came Over for a Makeover...

Hello Dhaaarlings...

Today was the day darlings that the gang arrived over for

a garden make over...

And in three and a half hours Princesses'  backyard was transformed from being an unruly overgrown branch strewn weed infested catastrophe that was this...

Into this!

Tthe transformation is quite remarkable and has lifted my spirits consciderably!

We have a manageable back yard once again! One that we can walk around in without tripping over a branch or log in...

One that we can actually see the garden survivors in and do some planning for replanting...

And a lawn that can now be mown without feeling like you are cutting silage or making hay!

During the week we had some terrific wind storms resulting in

this!

The right half of the photo used to be an archway that held up  a climbing "Blue Moon" rose one end and a "Bridal Pink" Climbing rose...
Sadly the archway fell over in the very strong winds but fortunately the rose bushes were  undamaged but required the instillation of a new... stronger archway and eventually... after much sweat... bloodletting swearing and the occasional little prick.... they looked like this...

And in another week or so should be looking a picture as both are covered in masses of buds... yippee! The "Blackboy" Climber on the lefthand side archway is already covered in buds and some are starting to bloom! the perfume frome these are divine....

So, my Darlings...  That's the latest from Princesses Patch...

Come back next time and I'll update you on further gardening exploits and if you are very very good... I'll even show you pictures of my recent excursion to the local gardens in the city to try out my skills at tiptoing through the tulips...

Yes... I did say Tulips Darling...

Till then... You know what I'm going to say....

Bottoms Up!... Darlings...

 

Another Monthly.... October.... Good Grief!!!

Hello Dhaaarlings....

 

Where on Earth did that last Month go to???

Tho truthfully it's is probably one that I'd rather care to forget...

 

as far as I know... The Debutant Ball went off swimmingly but following that  I sort of fell in a heap... and life got a little crazy!  

{via}

Over the past couple of months I've slowly and incidiously slipped back into a nasty case of depression... Not a full blown relapse but close to it...

Everything has been a struggle and I've really had to push myself to keep going and get things done. I'd felt the gradual decline and noticed that my sleep pattern had gotten all out of whack again... so had taken the liberty of increasing my dose  of meds... I'm on a maintenance dose so figured I'd up it by one tablet until I could get a referral back to a local shrink...

It had been Three years since I last saw him and figured... It was time.

So... to cut a long story short... He doubled my dose... Said he was astounded at how productive I'd been over the past 3 years with costuming and managing with Mum's and my own physical ups and downs but added that he thought that I was probably due a holiday than anything more substantial and was surprised that the depression hadn't recurred before now.

Review in 3 months...

The mood is slowly improving and the motivation is coming back.

Now that the weather has improved I've been managing to get back into the garden and have finally been able to tame some very unruly bushes...

The garden beds are being gradually weeded and starting to look like someone loves them again...

I have a group of volunteers coming over at the weekend to help get rid of all the  dead branches left over from pruning the fruit trees... we  had planned to have a bonfire in the back yard to get rid of them but faced a hefty fine from the local council if we did... They have a no burning off policy anywhere within the city limits... Unless you have  a permit and then live on greater that 10 hectares of land... So that was our plan stuffed...

I have managed to get them cut into 2 foot lengths as out only acces from the back yard is through a small gated pathway...

School returns from Holidays in a week or two and than it will be back into costume making mode mode again...

As for holidays I'm planning to get away to a cousins beach house for a couple of weeks but I've set myself the goal of finishing the costumes for Beauty and the Beast first...

In other News...

The Empress and I remain busy supporting our friend through her chemotherapy treatments... She has been coping very well with it all for the past few months but over the past few weeks her mood had become quite flat... I think as the relaity of what she has been through and what is happening to her is suddenly hitting home and to top things of last week had a mild stroke... Which put her into hospital for a few days...

Fortunately I was with her when it happened so was able to get her to the clinic to be assessed and admitted.

She has a history of stroke over many years starting in her teens and a major one 15 years ago. this one has affected her speech and she is having great trouble finding the right words to express herself...

As if Cancer tretment wasn't enough to manage...

My light relief at present are visits from my 3 yearold nephew..

The other day he called by with his parents on the way to pick up "Misty" the family cat that they thought was a girl cat... hence the name... until "Misty" grew up to be a boy cat... of which as it turns out they had had taken for neutering...

I said to Nephew..."So your off to pick up misty form the vets, I didn't know had been been sick?"

And got the reply... "He's not Sick Uncle Princess... He's just having his nuts cut off!"...

That kid really makes my day!

Until the next progress report darlings...

Bottoms UP!

I'm looking forward to doing a bit of this beachside!