Getting excited

Although we all love a real Christmas tree for us there are 2 downsides: in Australia they last for about 10 days before going brown so you can't put it up until very close to Christmas, and christmas trees trigger Tom's asthma.  We had a busy day on Saturday cleaning the outside of the house, most notably the table tennis table, putting up the outside christmas lights and decorating the tree.

Whilst I was out shopping this beautiful white tree caught my eye - it's looking stunning in a corner of the kitchen.  You can never have too many twinkly lights.  

  
We had an afternoon at the Rivers catching up with Kate who is over from the UK.  I put my new flower shaped platter to good use.  It's made of bamboo so very practical for outdoor entertaining ;) And please admire the superior food styling skills of my friend Cath - she knows how to put together a platter.  

Ted and I went for a walk to our local beach and saw this turtle being released back into the wild.  She was found 7 months ago by the little girl in the photo, washed up on the beach choking on a plastic bag.  The girl and her mother rushed the turtle to the local sealife sanctuary where they nursed the turtle back to health.  Such a lovely story and a good reminder of the need to stop using plastic bags and straws.  The sealife staff said more and more turtles are being brought to them but not all of them are so lucky.