It never rains but it pours

Melbourne's weather has not been very kind of late. Yesterday's deluge hit the city HARD

I was listening to the radio reports yesterday about all the flash flooding the heavy rain was causing.

Well, we had our own flash flood....in my Mum's garage!

MONT says he only went to the garage to see how it was holding up, but almost got washed away when he opened the door.

Wouldn't have been such a problem, except we've been storing a WHOLE lot of furniture in there that came from my late Aunt's house...as well as some of our own, like that (used to be) lovely cream sofa.

This was what it looked like outside where the drain was obviously blocked!.

The Plumber's been called to use one of those drill/probe/snakey things to try to sort out the blockage. Hope he gets here quick!

There's still water pooling in there this afternoon. Looks like the weekend will be spent emptying the garage and moving furniture so the place can be dried out...and then we'll have to decide what has to be "turfed" and what can be saved.

Getting ready for Christmas - Candles

Our family Christmas get together is just a few days away now - panicking much yet?

This year I got the idea of making a special candle feature for the table...and I wanted either brass, copper or black.

I went with black as soon as I saw these little candle holders at K-Mart. For $6 each

I bought four of them with the idea of having a very long feature in the centre of the table, but then realised the piece would have to be done in two
separate units to accommodate the outdoor umbrella we have that slots through a hole in the middle of the table.

Mont had some pieces of timber in the back yard, that would be perfect

He cleaned them up and then cut them in half....now, how to attach the candle holders to the wood.

I suggested some little staples that I could spray black. 

He suggested cutting off the bottom cross-bar piece and then slotting the little legs into holes he drilled in the wood.
I wasn't sure because I was worried they would wobble and not be strong enough to hold the candles upright.

                                                             Now all that's left to do is give the wood a coat of dark grey stain, stick the little legs in their slots and see how they go