Hello Summer!

1st December marks the start of Summer here in Australia, and we've had such topsy turvey weather of late, who knows what it was going to be like.  But it's been a fantastic warm day today, not too hot, just perfect.

Molly has decided that sleeping behind the row of hydrangea bushes is the most she is doing today.  Shhhh don't tell Mike!   He goes nuts when she lays in the garden.  But crawling through from the other end I could see she has quite a gap there.

True to his form Lucky has been my little shadow, sticking close by as I put up the Christmas tree.  Yes, I bowed to the pressure of peeps on Facebook, seeing all their decorations going up.  I must admit I have completely pared down the decos this year.  The tree is up, Santa is hanging on the front door, a few little bits a pieces around the lounge room and I've called it done. 

This year has been fun, I have my Santa on a dolphin from Clearwater (thanks to Myra in out DD exchange at the get together, bring something akin to your area).  I have my boot from Texas.  I have the stripey lighthouse from St. Augustine.  I have my skeleton from San Juan Capistrano from the Day of the Dead Celebrations.  Added to lots of memorabilia we have collected over the years.  Our tree has become a memory of all things from both our lives.  Together with our Christmas angels who were the first to go on the select branches - a star with my mother-in-law, my dad and my grandparents.

Plus I've started wrapping.  This year my colour scheme is black, white, silver and bright green.  Courtesy of a photograph in a magazine I saw.  I couldn't get black/white striped paper but I've got a great swirly designed paper to mix the colours together.  I've also got some glittery card from Spotlight which I've cut out circles (a la baubles) with the use of a glass for a template, and they are my gift tags.  I *think* my shopping is done, I'm just checking my spreadsheet and trying to find where I've hidden everything to wrap.

We are lucky with the Menagerie. They show no interest in the tree and/or pressies which go straight under when wrapped, other than to look with supposed disinterest.  There was the year if the great fish bite disaster quite a number of years ago though.  I had decided to wrap dried fish bites for Bo Bo and pop them under the tree. Errr cats have a great sense of smell right? Let's just say she found the fish bites, together with unwrapping some other presents in the process single-pawed!

Hmmm which one is mine...

Mike went out chasing the yellow stuff today, I made sure he took the sunscreen, although knowing him he won't have put it on his face and he'll come back as red as a berry.  I went out for a 6km run this morning, nice and early before it got too hot.  My ad hoc shorter runs whilst I was on holidays has meant I need to get the kms back in my legs, so slowly does it.  I got home to shower and make breakfast and saw that the kettle was full to the top.  Checked the cupboard and yep, he forgot to pack a thermos of coffee.  Me thinks if he comes back without any gold, he may be a tad grumpy tonight!

Edited to add: no gold was found!