Sophie and Lady

Most of you know that we have a gorgeous Labrador named Sophie.  She is 13 years old now and has slowed down immensely.   Poor Sophie has a problem with her spine and struggles with walking very far and has other difficulties too.  Despite this she is still a very happy dog, enjoys her short walks and still has the appetite of a Labrador but we know she is in her twilight years.  We had been thinking of adopting a rescue dog for some time and I particularly wanted another Labrador but it seems Labradors get rehomed very quickly. 

Sophie

 So the lovely dog we've ended up adopting is a Labradoodle named Lady.  Lady is 9 years old and has been a breeder.  Her owners had no more use for her and were going to have her put down and then a lovely person came to her rescue.  Lady's rescuer had many dogs of her own and couldn't really keep another one so that's where we came into the picture, answering an advertisement for her online.

 

Lady

 Lady has the sweetest nature and is very gentle.  She gets on well with Sophie although is a bit pushy when it comes to getting attention.  She isn't the slightest bit interested in our cats and they are slowly getting use to her.  Lady has only been with us for a week and has settled in beautifully.

 

Besides adopting a dog I have been very busy in the garden, mowing the grass, whipper snippering the weeds and doing the edges, weeding, pruning and tidying up.  In among all the hard work it's so nice to have some spring roses in the garden, enough so I can bring some inside to enjoy.

 It is nice to have some crafting on the go as well and I'm slowly working on my Sanda Paul of Cherry Heart  Spice of Life blanket.  The colours I'm using are more vibrant than shown in this photo and the yarn I'm using is from the Stylecraft Special DK range.  I love this yarn, it's so soft and very economical.

 It was a nice project to work on while we were driving to get Lady which was a 3.5 hour drive.  On the way home Lady was sitting on my lap so no chance to do any more.

 I'm currently working on a sneaky crochet Christmas project which I'll share in another post.

Anne xx

Spring flowers

I thought I'd sneak in a quick post before I head off early tomorrow to Western Australia.  We have had two weeks of unseasonably warm spring weather and not much rain which I hope is not a sign of things to come.  Spring flowers are popping up and opening out everywhere and the first roses of the season should open while I'm away.  I went around this morning snapping these few blooms that caught my eye.

 

I love Lunaria and have always wanted to grow some in my garden.  I bought a packet of seeds years ago, lost them and then rediscovered them last year.  Although the packet was over 10 years old I thought I'd sow seeds into punnets to see if they would germinate which they did.  Now I have these pretty flowers in pink and white.

Foxgloves never cease to give me visual pleasure.  I love the spotted throat of the flowers and the way those bells flower up the stem.  The first time I heard of foxgloves was in the Poldark series of books which I read as a teen.  Demelza would gather bunches of foxgloves growing wild in Cornwall and when I discovered what they looked like, I couldn't quite believe something so beautiful would grow wild near the coast.  But of course I saw it with my own eyes in 2012 when we visited that very beautiful part of England.

 A few years ago when I was going for a winters walk, I came across a very tall shrub with bright and deep pink flowers.  Not much flowers in winter here so I was delighted to find a plant in a local garden flowering so beautifully in the depths of winter.  My great grandmother would often walk by gardens and take a little piece of a plant overhanging the fence and strike it for her own garden.  I figured I should follow her example and struck some pieces of the shrub which I believe to be Salvia wagneriana.  My little shubs are small yet but hope they will grow to be as tall and beautiful as those in my neighbours garden just a street away.

 This Azalea is blooming prolifically.  I've only a few Azaleas in the garden now as the others have sadly died.  Perhaps it's time to invest in a few new plants for next winter/spring.

 

 The apple tree is full of blossom this year, I hope that might mean a good crop of apples as long as we can keep the parrots away from them. 

  This next photo is not flower related but definitely worth talking about.  A recent grocery shopping trip resulted in an over abundance of Kent pumpkin and as I didn't want it to go to waste while I am away in Western Australia, I searched for pumpkin bread recipe on the Internet and found this one  and doubled the recipe.  The amount of mashed pumpkin I had only came to 1 1/2 cups whereas 2 cups was required for two loaves.  I also adjusted the sugar amount to 2/3 cup instead of 1 cup per loaf.  This pumpkin bread is light and fluffy and full of spicy flavour.  So the next time you have and excess of pumpkin on your hands, give this recipe a try.

 Anne  xx

Waratah Bay

Earlier this year hubby and I were lucky enough to become the owner of a small caravan that good friends of ours were unable to use anymore.  It has take us a little while to get thing organised and the weekend before last, we were finally in a position to take it away for the first time.  We chose Waratah Bay which has a nice caravan park and not too far from Melbourne, just a couple of hours drive.  Coincidentally we celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary the same weekend so that made it an extra special get away for us.

We had a wonderful time, met lovely people who were happy to share tips about travel and had a number of enjoyable walks on the beach.  Here are some photos from our time away.

Snacking on nice cheese with a glass of wed wine.

Walking down to the beach from the caravan park.

Waratah Bay with Wilsons Promontory in the background.

Exploring the rocks.  Wilsons Promontory zoomed in the background.

We had this beach to ourselves on this walk.

These little crabs turn around in circles to dig themselves a hole to hide in.

Just over the other side of the sand dunes is this lush farm land where very fat cows were feeding.

 

This Banksia was was growing on the foreshore.

Shallow Inlet, Waratah Bay.

There were a number of pelicans flying around. 

Walkerville South, just around the corner from Waratah Bay.

On our way back home to Melbourne we drove through more lush farm land which is also home to these wind turbines/wind farms.

I have been keeping busy with projects such as these two crochet blankets in the making.  I am participating in the Spice of Life CAL with Sandra Paul from Cherry Heart and thoroughly enjoying the process.

And to make sure I don't get bored I'm also doing this blanket which is the "As-we-go-Stripey blanket", pattern found here

To throw a little social life into the mix, hubby and I went to a wedding this past Sunday which was lovely and the weather was perfect.  It certainly was nice to have an excuse to glam up a bit and wear a nice frock, shoes and put my hair up.  This photo was taken in our back yard.

I'm off again to Western Australia on Sunday to visit Mum and my brother at the farm.  I'm vert fortunate to be able to visit so frequently.

Anne xx

Late summer

There are still some lovely things flowering in the garden late summerlike these roses which smell divine.

Some Johnny jump up violas I planted from seed.

Prepping peaches for making an upside down peach cake tomorrow.

 Aren't the colours glorious!

I hope you are having an enjoyable weekend.

Anne xx

A quick catch up

Hello.  Although I've been absent from the blogging world for a few weeks, life has been busy with different things.  I've been spending a lot of time in the garden and happy to say that some seeds sewn have germinated in their punnets.  Some of the seeds were over six years old so it's especially pleasing they've germinated.

We've had some vege pickings from the garden including red onions, leeks, lettuce, spring onion, sugar loaf cabbage and  bunching broccoli.  We also have a few bulbs of garlic.

 

I spent a good 15 minutes one afternoon watching this baby Currawong having a drink at the bird bath in the back yard.

Hubby and I went out for an impromptu dinner with friends and I had what was possibly the best meal I've ever eaten.  Spicy crispy skin Atlantic salmon with sweet potato, wilted spinach, roasted parsnip and a creamy lemon sauce.

  

Stripey has been enjoying our lovely sunny weather and took a nap in the cat mint after chewing, licking and rolling in it.  He managed not to squash the spring onions too much.

The garden is still doing beautifully and full of flowers.

This is the first Buddleia I've planted and the perfume is amazing.

I'm off to Western Australia again tomorrow morning to spend two weeks with mum and then she is flying back to Melbourne with me to have a holiday and spend Christmas and New Year with our families living in Victoria.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post and continuing to follow my blog despite my absence at times.  Enjoy your Sunday.

Anne  xx