Hello, it's me again. Quinoa, the feisty but adorable mutt. Today I'm going to tell you a bit more about my home and the characters that I interact with on a daily basis apart from my immediate family.

So as I said the last time. I live in a house with a large garden. This is great as I get to run around and stretch my legs whenever I want. Although we live in a city, the garden attracts a number of foresty types. I think it's because there are so many tall trees around with a large number of fruit trees.

There is a whole tribe of squirrels around the place. They have made their homes in the taller trees and run around the place like they own it. They love eating the centres of the heliconia flowers that line the fence. I chase them whenever I see them. Firstly cause I love a great chase and secondly cause sometimes the flowers aren't enough and they try to steal my food! So I have to keep on my toes and keep them on their toes too.

They usually run up a tree, but sometimes they do daft things like run inside an open door. That happened yesterday and it  created such a fuss over nothing. The squirrel ran in the front door and across the house into one of the bedrooms. Lil T says it was fortunate she saw it happen, otherwise the squirrel would have been inside while she was sleeping. Lil T is scared of squirrels. And mice and rats. Anything small and fast. She runs up to the highest place, like the top of a table, and starts shivering. This is what she was doing while Mizz M chased the squirrel out.

I don't get it. A squirrel is not scary. Not like thunder and lightning. But Lil T is really calm in a thunderstorm. There is no understanding people.

Anyway, getting back to the story, my dinner bowl also attracts a flock of bold myna birds. When I chase them away they fly up and perch on a tree until I'm not looking and then fly back to snatch up my food.  Sometimes, I don't bother chasing them. Especially, when it's the middle of the day, and it's hot and I'm sleepy. I need my beauty sleep to keep staying adorable.

There is a huge monsoon drain that runs along two sides of the house and there is a family of monitor lizards that live in there. I've seen them when I have gone to investigate rustling at the fence line. Some of the older ones are huge. They are longer than I am. The bigger one's can't come through the fence but the smaller ones do. They forage along the plants on the hedge eating snails and other insects they catch.  I chase them too.

One of them is missing a foot. It wasn't me. Scouts honour! He doesn't have any problems running or climbing, despite the foot, because I still can't catch him.

We get snakes too. I know they are around but I haven't encountered one. I keep getting warned by everyone to stay away from them. My brother, Misty, died after being bitten by one and everyone is worried the same thing might happen to me.

Sometimes we get monkeys walking along the fence and running along the overhead wires. Not sure where they come from. They suddenly appear and go away again and you don't see them for a long time. They can be quite insolent. One time, one came and sat on the fence and watched me have a bath. What's a dog got to do to get some privacy around here?

Then there are the five koi fish that live in the pond. They are pretty but not overly bright. I try to talk to them but their conversation is limited to floating up to the surface and blowing bubbles. They share the pond with orange sucker fish. These fish, that are also known as council cleaner fish, keep the surfaces of the pond clean by eating up the algae. This lot are quite good. Not like the earlier bunch who would only eat the koi's food. But I've noticed that some of these are starting to do that too.  If Lil T catches them at it, they are in for it.

For the longest time - like all my life actually - the house next door had only people living in it. Recently, they got a dog. I've mixed feelings about this. I like having the doggy company but I have been top dog in this stretch all my life and I don't want to share the space with the new kid on the block. So sometimes I'm nice and sometimes I bark my head off to tell him not to get too comfortable.

Lil T says I'm confusing him. What does she expect, I'm confused myself. She's nicknamed him Nemesis. Appropriate because he's big and black and very nemesis like. She feels sorry for him because she thinks he was brought in as a guard dog rather than a pet. I don't see him getting pats and snuggles like I do, so she could be right.

She talks to him though the fence and pats him when she thinks I'm not looking.  He sits and watches her playing with me. I kind of feel sorry for him too, that he has no company.

There is also Sophie who lives across the street. She's another dog. Friendly but very naughty. She runs out when the gate is open and has to wait for her people to come back before she get's let back in. Sometimes they forget and it starts raining. She has to howl to be heard above the storm for them to let her back in. I see that she is inside more than she is outside  these days. Maybe she's wised up.

That's about it for the neighbourhood. The people who live in the other houses nearby are not really noteworthy, so I'm not going to mention them. I hope you have a better idea of where I live now and you enjoyed hearing about my 'friends'.  

He's happy the end of the work day is here. This grinning fellow can be found on one of the terraces of the Prambanan Temple in Central Java, Indonesia. 

Prambanan is interesting as it's an 8th century Hindu temple and evidence that Indian and Hindu influence had spread as far as Java during that time. 

The temple complex is made up of numerous shrines and three large temples each dedicated to one of the deities in the  Hindu trinity - Brahma, Vishnu and Siva. 

Many of the temples were severely damaged in the 2006 earthquake that affected Central Java. When I visited in 2008, there was a Japanese consortium that was working to restore the temple to its pre-earthquake state.

They had clearly spent some time documenting the damage that had occurred and shared it with visitors using these signs.

I took this picture to show how much work there was left to do. These piles of stones came from shrines that had been shaken to the ground. The consortium obviously spent time neatly grouping rubble from individual shrines together, so they could be rebuilt at a later stage.

A number of the temples and shrines were closed as it was too dangerous to go inside. The statue, above, was in one of the temples that was open to visitors. I believe it’s Vishnu.

Despite the scaffolding and rebuilding work, it was a fascinating place to visit. I would like to go back and see it again, once the place has been restored.

Chair makeover inspiration anyone? These are 16 of the most inspired, creative and innovative projects I've come across online. 

I've restored a chair or 3 in my past. I'm about to embark on a new chair restoration project and was looking for some inspiration. I learnt that reupholstering is only one of the many (and probably the most painful) ways to restore a chair. And that all chairs can be  repurposed, no matter what the condition. I just couldn't keep these ideas to myself and had to share them. I've grouped the projects together for their noteworthy traits.

You will never look at a broken chair the same again

I mean it. I think broken chairs left out for council pickups are going to become hot property after you see what can be done with them. Sparkles of Sunshine (Pic 1) turned her's into a pretty and comfortable place for her little dog to rest. 

Thrifty Treasures (Pic 2) just repurposed the chair legs in her project and made an awesome ottoman. Lastly, in Pic 3, why have legs when you can fly through the air - cut off the broken legs on this chair to transform it into a swing hanging from a tree.  I could totally do this on the jacaranda in the front yard. Teri, the creator of this piece, doesn't have a website but I found it here. 

Meaningful repurposing makeovers

You know how you have maps and ticket stubs from all the cities and places you visit on holiday? When you come back home you don't have the heart to throw them out and they just take up space. Pillar Box Blue (Pic 1) decoupaged some wooden kitchen chairs with maps of places she had visited. Cleverly meaningful and a great talking point. 

Having reupholstered chairs myself, I totally appreciate what Slip Covered Grey (Pic 2) has done here. You can't tell from the picture, but she has written the story of how the chair came to be in the family on the backing beneath the upholstery, leaving a wonderful surprise for the next person who restores the chair.   

Gold star creativity

These projects had me staring at the screen in delight and marveling at the amount of creativity there is out there. Shawn D (Pic 1) turned four kitchen chairs into a bed! And it looks so simple. Hello Life Online (Pic 2) turned a simple dining chair into a pretty awesome desk chair by just adding castors. Such little twists with such great outcomes.

A little goes a long way

I get carried away by colour and I admit I may go a little too far sometimes. The lesson I learnt from these three projects is that I need to be a little more restrained in future. 

Dwell Beautiful (Pic 1) uses the gold accents...well beautifully. The chair would not be as lovely if it had been gold all over. 

Tasha, from a Designer Trapped in a Lawyer's Body (Pic 2), fell in love with a chair but couldn't afford the hefty price tag. She sourced the fabric and decoupaged a wooden chair with it. The fabric design is lovely but can be overwhelming in large pieces. I think the project Tasha choose was just the right size to showcase the fabric beautifully. 

I stayed away from these types of chairs as I think they are old fashioned. Freshcrush  (Pic 3) however, uses the two different fabrics and paint in her wingback chair very cleverly. The effect is modern and fresh and I so want one now!

A lick of paint

I never believed in painting furniture but these projects have me itching to try my hand at painting the chairs at home. 

Designers Sweet Spot (Pic 1) spray painted velvet armchairs and added metal trim to completely transform her old chairs. Franny (Pic 2) chose to paint the wooden parts of her chair that must have been covered by fabric previously and retain the original stained portions too. I think the combination of stain and paint is just awesome.

The next two projects are from Paint and Pattern's blog. The clubchair (Pic 3) uses a combination of paint and stencils while the stenciled chair project (Pic 4) uses paint, stencils and silver foil.

Simply genius!

The next two projects are just genius in their simplicity. Pallet furniture is the craze right now and Funky Junk Interiors (top picture) made a beautiful sofa using 2 pallets. Simple to make too!

Cheries Forget Me Nots transforms the ubiquitous white plastic outdoor chair into pretty furniture. Would you believe these started out originally as a stained white chair? 

I miss the things I used to eat when I was growing up. There are so many new things to try now and so the tried and true recipes get shoved to the back of the line. Today I decided to go retro and made rock cakes. I have a very sentimental attachment to this cake, as it was the first cake I learnt to cook.

Back when my mother was introducing my sister and I to baking, we learnt that there were two main methods to cake making. The creaming method where you beat the butter and sugar together until the mixture turns a pale yellow colour or the rubbing in method where you rub butter into flour and then gradually add the other ingredients.

Rock cakes use the rubbing in method. It's lightly spiced and chockful of currants and mixed peel. Even now, while I'm writing this, I can smell the wonderful aroma of cinnamon, nutmeg and mixed peel wafting off the cooling cakes. It brings back memories of childhood, messing around in the kitchen and eating these cakes in the garden. I truly believe that the sense of smell is tightly linked to the memory centres in the brain.

I'm not sure why this is called a cake as it's more of a biscuit. Even more puzzling is why they are called rock cakes.  I suspect it's because the cooking process is similar to concrete making. You add sand and cement (butter and flour rubbed together then mixed with sugar) stones (raisins and currants) and water (egg and milk) to make concrete bricks. As you can see from the picture below, the dough does have the same consistency and texture as mortar.

Or is it called rock cakes because the baked product does indeed look like little rocks.  I remember one smart alec, telling me they are called rock cakes because you break your teeth on them. I didn't think he was funny then, don't think he is funny now.

The cakes aren't hard at all. They are cakey and crumbly and really delicious with a cup of tea.  If you let them get brown, the cakes are more crisp, more cakey when they are a lighter gold.

The recipe is from a venerable book of my mother's. The pages are yellow and curling and the cover has fallen off. It has some good recipes though and I look forward to rediscovering them.

Retro Rock Cakes
12 oz flour
A pinch of salt
3 tsps of baking powder
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp of mixed spice
6oz butter
5 oz sugar
3 oz currants
1 1/2 oz of candied peel
1 beaten egg
A little egg to mix

Grease baking sheet and dredge it lightly with flour. Sieve the dry ingredients and rub in the fat. Stir in the sugar, currants, mixed peel and mix well. Make a well in the centre and stir in egg and enough milk to make a stiff mixture. With a teaspoon and a fork, place mixture in rocky heaps on the baking sheet and bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes.