The winter really hit us this week.

Idont have pictures of snow or hail but the cold wind and rain that hit us over the last week was our first real blast of winter - and those in the South Island and in the high country of the North Island did get snow and closed roads.

It has been a couple of weeks focussed on several of my quilting projects - eg I spent one whole day preparing the sample for the Lone Star block demonstration I am going to do at our Guild meeting this weekend. I went out and visited the Guild Quilting retreat weekend

 although it was only a flying visit. I made the Auckland Guild Block of the month, a rather nice wonky star on a blue background, and I have been putting together the yellow and blue floral scrap quilt - lots of pieces - but the effect is quite good.

I made a batch of Lemon Honey and Apricot and Lemon Jam... - they use a lot of sugar and eggs but dont make an appreciable dent in the lemon supply!

Folloiwng up on one of my resolutions I visited a couple of friends at their homes, good idea to get out and have some good company when the weather is awful. 

Went to the movie Maiden - this was the name of the yacht entered in the Whitbread round the world race in 1989 with the first ever all women crew - despite all the forebodings and predictions they did extremely well, winning two of the legs and had no major disasters - was a really good movie. 

The Auckland quilting Guild day had another good speaker this month - she was a quilter of long standing and great creativity who had done a lot of judging in her time and her hints were really good - and her two example quilts were fabulous.

The Silk Road to Golden Samarkand - the detail is really interesting

Detail - can you see Chairman Mao?

Paris City of Light - gorgeous.

One was called "The Silk Road to Golden Samarkand" and the other was Paris - City of light" .

I have a tendency to cook, bake and try to do some practical stuff in this awful weather but I confess I have found a few good programs on Netflix and also read quite a few books - the e books from the library and the free audio books from the library are getting a thrashing!

I have been asked to review a research paper that has been submitted to one of the Engineering Education Journals and as it is right on the topic I wrote my book chapter on i said i would do it but I am needing to do quite a bit of background reading to be sure I am up to date with current research - not much of it on this topic of Disciplinary cultures, but I spent an afternoon at the University getting access to the research literature. I am quite enjoying getting back into it!  It may not be earthshattering or groundbreaking but apparently 76 people have cited my Journal of engineering Education paper so that is a bit of a feather in my cap.

My little Tui has had a problem with her teeth - apparently despite my best efforts a couple of the little teeth int he side of her mouth have gone rotten and when they went to take them out they discovered she had major infection of her tonsils!! never dreamed dogs could get tonsilitis! So she is resting today with lots of loving cuddles after her surgery to take out four teeth yesterday. Soft food it is! for a few days.

I better get back to my Sanskrit homework - it requires very concentrated attention!