:: 52 weeks of happy, 3/52 ::

Here are four of many happy moments from my week.

1.  Roasting a chook in the slow cooker on a stinking hot day (no hot kitchen with the oven on), with French Tarragon from the garden, paprika and garlic.

2.  The Pandorea (Australian native climber) in the garden room flowering for the first time.  It's been planted for about four years.

3.  Spending a wonderful day at the Australian Open Tennis yesterday and watching amazingly talented athletes like Novak Djokovic and Radek Stepanek play a fantastic game of tennis that was SO entertaining.  Five rows back gave us an incredible view.  Thank you to my sister and brother-in-law for the opportunity to go.

4.  Eating home grown beans fresh from the garden.

Just as I lined up this photo, Stripey decided to sharpen his claws on the wooden garden edging.  So cute!

Wishing you many happy moments in the coming week.

Anne  xx

A change of plans

Hi everyone, how are you?  Today I had planned to go to the nearest large shopping mall to make some purchases for travelling overseas.  Unfortunately circumstances prevented me from doing that, so what to do with the day?

When the weather is hot and dry (34C) it seems to be the perfect day for washing and when it was hung on the line, I decided to sit in the garden room for morning coffee and a little hooky time.

View from garden room.

I love this time of year as the backyard is an extra living space.  The windows and doors are open to let the fresh air in and since hubby installed a front wire screen door, we have a beautiful cross breeze through the house.

While sitting on my chair enjoying the garden, I realised that I have so much to do to bring it up to scratch.   It needs digging over, composting, mulched, weeding, tidying and more plants added as some of the perennials are looking rather sad.

Content with the fact that it was too hot to garden today, I got on with my experimental crochet inspired by Lucy over at the gorgeous blog Attic 24.  I really shouldn't experiment because my crochet knowledge is not that good.  This is what I ended up with.

It's wonky, smaller at the bottom than at the top although I swear I didn't add anymore stitches and I measured my starting chain around the tin I wanted to cover.  I thought it would be fun to add some beads and rather than waiting for Lucy's tutorial on how to attach beads to crochet, I thought I'd be clever and try it myself.  Although the result is rubbish, I had fun.

All is not lost though because I had success with Lucy's idea and here is the proof.

O.k., I did deviate with a scalloped edge thingy but I think it will pass.  I decided to line my tin with some fabric as I wanted to use my new container for storing my hair clips in my bathroom drawer.  No sewing involved here.  I just had a small square of fabric which I pushed into shape in the tin, popped the crochet cover over the top, pulling it down the sides of the tin and trimmed the excess fabric at the bottom making sure I didn't cut the crochet.  Easy.....LAZY!!  :)

Not only do I now have a nice clean and relatively tidy bathroom cabinet drawer (you should have seen it before), I have cute little container for my clips.  So much nicer than the plastic thing I was thinking of putting in there.

Well it's time to get the washing off the line, herd the one remaining chook out of my garden and think about what we are having for dinner tonight.  I hope you are all having a lovely day.

Anne  xx

Ivy heart

Some time ago when I was weeding the garden, I found a piece of ivy which I dug out as it is considered a weed where I live.  I also know what it can do if it gets away, it tries to smother and strangle our tree ferns and that would never do.  While digging around some more, muttering about weeds, grubs, earthworms and speaking nicely to my flowers, I suddenly had an idea what I could do with the ivy and an old wire coat hanger.

Ta dah!! 

There is a little way to go before I start pruning for a better shape, but we are on the way.  See the plants in the left foreground, they are self sewn primulas from last winter.  Don't you love it when nature does something wonderful?  Have you anything growing in your garden that is self sewn?  I'm sure the wonderful people in the northern hemisphere are checking their gardens daily for signs of spring.

Have a lovely day,

Anne  xx

This morning I went out into my garden room to have my coffee and someone had been very hard at work making this.

The web was attached to one of the chairs but I didn't have the heart to move the chair and destroy this spider's hard work.  I was intrigued to see the zig zig line down the centre of the web and wonder if this is for extra strength.

The day has been beautiful, warm and balmy and no thunderstorms for which I'm very grateful.

  These lobelia have self sown in the garden room.  I love it when nature takes over in a nice way!

While I was sitting drinking my coffee, I couldn't help but look around the back yard full of flowers, sunshine, a dragonfly or two and be grateful to live in a country that has freedom.  Freedom to own some land and a house.  A country that has stability and enough food to eat and so many more things.  It was nice to just sit and appreciate, taking some time to enjoy the environment.

Look at that beautiful blue sky.  In the centre of the photo is a tree fern which I imagine would be over a hundred years old.  We have been living here for over 20 years and it was quite tall when we moved in.  Our roofline can be seen in the bottom left hand corner.

Here is another tree fern.  Not quite as old, but nonetheless just as beautiful as the other one.  About five years ago I saved this particular tree fern from being smothered to death by ivy.  It took about 2 years of constant pruning and pulling out roots to get rid of it as I didn't want to use poison in the garden.  A Japanese maple is growing underneath

While I was out taking photos, I was joined by our other cat Bungee (you mostly see pictures of Stripey) and he leapt up onto the garden seat to get in on the action.

Here he is dazzling white in the sun.  At the vet he is listed as a domestic short hair, colour, white and champagne.  A bit exotic for a cat don't you think?  :)

As well as enjoying the outdoors, I've spent a bit of time in this.

This is what I call creative bliss.  I've been working on some things the last couple of days and as this table is where we eat, the family has been consigned to eat on the couch.  Ooops!!  We have a study which is filled to overflowing with all manner of things creative as well as an electric piano, part of a set of drums in storage, a filing cabinet, a table which is supposed to be a craft table (general dumping ground) and a number of plastic storage boxes crammed full of things that need storing.  One day I hope to have this room under control so I can go in there and craft to my hearts content without disrupting the household.

Tomorrow I will be announcing the winner of my 100th post give away.  Thank you to everyone who entered.  You've still got time to enter if you wish. 

One last thing, (can't shut me up), Miss G. and I will be going away for a few days during the week to stay near the beach in a friend's beach house.  Miss G. really needs a break after a hard year of study and I need the sea.  I find the sea air agrees with me very much.  So we will have about 4 days of walking on the beach, sleeping, watching DVD's, drawing and sketching (me), novel writing (Miss G.), reading, reading, reading, late breakfasts, sitting in the sun (hopefully no thunderstorms) fish and chips and definitely  NO COOKING!!  For those that might be concerned about my eating habits (mum?), it won't be fish and chips every night.  :)  I hope I can take some lovely photos to share.

Until tomorrow, have a lovely day/evening,

Anne  xx

Update on reusable fruit and vege produce bags

Hello everyone.  I went grocery shopping today and tried out my new produce bags.  They hold fruit and veges very well, seem to be strong enough with 2kgs of apples in one bag holding well. I've made seven bags so far and including a couple of smaller ones for things like snow peas and beans.

There is a slight drawback to using your own bags though as I found out this morning.  Legally the supermarkets cannot weigh the produce in a homemade bag because it will include extra weight.  Even though I said I was happy to pay the extra 25grams worth, supermarkets will be fined if they are found to be doing this.  So at the present time, the person at the register has to take the produce out of the bag and weigh it separately to the bag.  This is time consuming if you are in a hurry and the man waiting behind me was very annoyed this process was taking extra time.  It's a bit tricky balancing 2 kgs of apples on the small scales at the register.  :-)

The lady at the register was lovely and wasn't bothered at all and even brought the problem to the attention of the produce manager at that store.  He is going to bring the topic up at their next management meeting.  So perhaps things might move along in a positive direction when it comes to providing your own produce bags.

On a completely different note, yesterday was the first time this spring I've been able to eat my lunch out in my garden room.  I had company as you see, however she was only interested in my sandwich and nothing to do with loyalty at all.

 

This photo is rather washed out because the sun was shining so brightly.  The garden room is looking a bit sad after winter, however with some new flowers in pots and a bit of a tidy up, it will look much better.  At least I washed down the table from all the winter grime and mould that had accumulated.

A few things are starting to poke their heads out in the garden too.

Snapdragons.  I've always loved snapdragons.

If you look hard you can see bees all over the echium.  Once again the bright sunlight has washed out these photos.

Roses finally in bud.

A glorious foxglove.

Pink and yellow aquilegia with a dark flowering euphorbia on the left of the photo.  The grey  leafed plant in the lower left is campion and will soon be flowering in rose and white.  It's wonderful seeing my garden come to life again.

I hope you are all having a wonderful day,

Anne

The garden room

I love gardening and as I started this blog in winter I've mostly posted about ungardened moments.  However, spring is upon us in the southern hemisphere so it's time to start thinking about what awaits outside.  We live on a block of land that is roughly 1/4 of an acre in size which gives me lots of room to play with plants and garden decoration.

For some time I have yearned for a garden room.  Not a closed in room with brick walls and windows but an illusion of a room in the garden.  When hubby asked me last year what I would like for my birthday, I said a garden room, so he made me one.  It is still evolving into what I would like it to be, but I'm enjoying the process.

Here are some images of what took place in the process of making this lovely space just for me.  First we had to sand down the garage wall and repaint.  Facia and guttering have since been replaced.  As the land is slightly sloping, hubby had to dig out soil and level the ground.  This was a lot of hard work for him.  A layer of sand went down and then pavers arranged and cut to size.

I put some chairs and a table on the unfinished paved area so I could imagine what it would be like.

Next holes were dug for posts.

Poles are now in the ground and the top beams in place.  Between the stages of the photo above and below, hubby had a trip to the local hospital emergency room with a cut to the top of his head after something rather sharp and heavy fell on his head.  There was a lot of blood as with all head wounds and three stitches were required.  I'm pleased to report no lasting damage occurred .

Top bracing beams on, facia and guttering replaced.

At this stage I'm starting to get very excited and can't stop myself from putting plants and decorations in already.

I've planted Australian native climbers near the posts and hubby has installed a bamboo screen roof sun shelter.

Lattice added to one side of the room to give the illusion of privacy.  :-)

Voila. Structure complete.  Decorations and plantings ongoing.

Since the above photo was taken last year, the climbers have climbed, more decorations have been added and the bamboo roof shelter needs replacing thanks to a brutal hail storm earlier this year.  Have a look at these hail stones.

We had some damage with a broken bedroom window, smashed laserlite roofing over the pergola and hubby's car was unfortunately written off it was dented so badly.  The broken window was fixed the same night as the storm and the car has since been replaced.  We are just waiting for some fine weather to replace the bamboo roof on the garden room and laserlite on the pergola.  However the pergola is going to be totally remodeled to provide more shelter in winter so we would have needed more laserlite roofing for the new plan.  Thank goodness for insurance!  I'll post an updated photo of the garden room when it's looking it's best. 

Thank you to my lovely hubby for making me such a wonderful space to sit in summer to have a cuppa, read or just enjoy the sunshine and garden.

Anne  xx

A little bit spoilt

Yesterday I was a little bit spoilt.  The reasons why are not important, what I was spoilt with IS!  I was given this beautiful book from a VERY good friend who knows I've entered the exciting world of knitting and crochet.

How am I to choose which bag to knit first?  

This one?  It's got a cute flower on it and it's oh so pretty.

How about this one?  It's so glitzy with those furry ruffles.  I can imagine this bag in purple, yes, definitely a loud, bold purple.

I like this one too.  These are some of my favourite colours but I can equally imagine a bag like this in aqua and orange or hot pink and purple.  Even better black, red and white, the colours of my footy team             ST. KILDA.  Then I'd have a bag to take to the footy.   Interjection here:  GO SAINTERS!!!!!!!  Good luck for the Grand Final this Saturday.

 

 For those of you who have been reading my blog for a while will know how much I love owls.  Can you imagine my delight when I found this fellow sitting on my kitchen bench when I came out for breakfast.  Squeal!!!!  I couldn't stop hugging him.  Yes it's silly I know, I just couldn't help myself.

He's going in my garden room.

 

I love dragonflies almost as much as I love owls and these solar dragonfly lights (there are ten in a row) will be going on the outside of my garden room.

I also have the absolute delight of looking forward to going to a big book store with a voucher and some money to buy a few books.  Top of the list is Bazaar Style and then I think it will be a book on crochet.


Thank you so much to my family and friends who spoilt me rotten.  :-)

 Anne