In the garden, in the Easter sunshine

After heaps of rainy days we have finally had some gorgeous sunny weather just in time for Easter. Before the school holidays, our school had an easter hat parade which is always great fun to watch. Over 800 kids marching around in the sunshine in their Easter hat creations. I took lots of photos at school but promised the school office I wouldn't publish them on my blog. Such a pity that the world is the way it is. But here are my two bunnies at home before the parade. My big girl wanted to wear one of my sister's and my old dresses from 40 years ago. We used to call it the "stained glass window dress". She loves wearing it. "What's vintage mean, Mummy?".

I finally found the energy and a spare (sort of) $20 to buy some potting mix and extra flower seedlings. We never seem to have enough flowers. While I pottered and potted, the girls amused themselves for a couple of hours making a train out of bikes to deliver flowers.

All aboard the flower train!

I love it when they play outside in the fresh air, using their imaginations. That's how childhood should be.

My hanging baskets have been hanging empty for months and they finally have some new little green babies in them. Now I wish I had planted them up months ago. I'd have lots of colourful petunias and lobelias to enjoy now if I had.

My rock garden soldiers on. Sometimes one shocking pink sun jewel appears among the pale ones. You never know what Mother Nature will give you. We often find new little surprises in this garden that have self seeded - there are baby nasturtiums and sweet alyssum popping up at the moment.

I haven't been to church on Easter Friday for about 20 years. I don't miss it. I find the Easter story unbearably sad. Probably everyone does. Now I prefer to think about more pagan, traditional celebrations to do with new life, fertility, nature, and, of course, chocolate! Happy Easter everybody!

More everyday stuff

Baby hollyhocks sheltering beside the eggplants.

Baby sweet peas. (Sorry...these photos belong further down. I'm having trouble getting my photos to move around. Cutting and pasting doesn't work and clicking and dragging will only move them a centimetre at a time if I am lucky. Any suggestions gratefully received. I also can't get the spaces to appear between paragraphs. They are there when I write the post but disappear when I publish it. Editing does not fix the problem and yesterday I went into my format settings thing and thought I fixed it, but no. As someone who writes for a living, this is driving me completely nuts!!!!!)

Nothing earth shattering going on at our place - just the same old same old. Sometimes that is lovely, but sometimes it seems a bit like ground hog day. But how can you possibly complain about life's ordinariness when you see what has happened in Japan? So.....I am thankful that my little world is safe and ordinary and full of normality and love as well as dishes, children with mouth ulcers (is there a virus going around or something?), doggy doo doo to pick up from the backyard. You get the picture.

So here are a few scenes from our ordinary life in the quiet suburbs.

My big girl wanted to make a little garden on the weekend so transplanted some sun jewels into a shallow pot and decorated it with pretty stones and a little pond. Her friend made one too. I love to see them with their hands in the dirt (well.....in the potting mix). My little girl just played in the soil and made a fine mess in the carport. (It was too hot and sunny to do this on the grass).

I've been neglecting my garden for months. My poor old lavender bush was surrounded by weeds and one of my no-dig vege patches was completely overwhelmed by weeds and is now a vege garden no more. So I headed to the beautiful garden shop at Carseldine on the weekend with the girls and bought some flower seedlings. I do love growing veges but have been hankering for flowers. I have hardly any at the moment and cannot survive a minute longer without them. All I have at present is the occasional hydrangea flower and some sun jewels. I have always LOVED sweet peas but have never had the right spot for them. So this year I am determined to grow them in the vege patch against the fence. The nursery only had medium height and little bijou ones when I really want the standard tall ones that go right up the fence but I couldn't go home without them so bought a punnet of the medium height ones and some lime to dig into the soil to make it sweet pea friendly. I also saw some hollyhock seedlings. I have never grown them but I love them and couldn't resist so I have just planted them next to our raging eggplants and have my fingers crossed that they will get enough sun and goodness to grow and flower for me. I saw several earthworms in the soil so that's a good sign. It never ceases to amaze me that when you put layers of newspaper, compost and sugar cane mulch in layers that it turns into beautiful dark rich composty soil. What a miracle!

My little girl has been exceptionally good lately at amusing herself for hours on end, just pottering in her room or in the playroom. Mixing up all the toys and packing them into various containers. Such a big job to sort them out again later but never mind. This week she got into the dress up box very quietly and then suddenly found me and announced that she was a pirate. Funny creature, she is.

Kipper made us laugh this week. We have an old bathmat next to the fireplace where he is sometimes allowed to sit and be with us in the evenings before he goes to bed in the laundry. When we let him inside and say "mat", he trots to it and sits down. If he's tired he lies down and will have a sleep or just watch what we are doing. Because I had been vacuuming and mopping I had put his mat in the wash and one of the girls' little TV couches was sitting in his "mat" spot. Suddenly we realised Kipper had parked his bottom on what he thought was his lovely new comfy mat! I think he has a very worried look on his face.

Hope all is well in your worlds.

the new no dig garden

Just a few photos to show what's been happening in the garden......

The hydrangea bushes that came with the house when we bought it in 2007 have burst into bloom. I find the sheer abundance and colour of the flowers so beautiful.

Early Sunday morning, my little girl and I went out to inspect the new no dig garden that I made when home alone Saturday afternoon. She was wearing her prettiest nightie, which is a rare occurence. She normally refuses to wear any sort of pajamas to bed and at 7.30pm I really couldn't care what she wears as long as she goes to sleep. So...I shall treasure these photos of her wearing nighttime attire. She had a lovely time doing poses on the edge of the new garden for the camera.

As you can see, the puppy fence didn't reach all around so I had to improvise with some crates. There is also some serious clearing of bladey grass clumps that needs to happen but I am delegating that to someone in the family with bigger muscles than me.

I still need a few more layers of compost, manure, sugar cane mulch etc before I can start planting. The nice thing was that I managed to make the garden with things that were lying around (ie old bricks and bits of wood, the old puppy fence) so for once, I felt I was doing my little bit for the planet.

a couple of precious hours home alone

I have just had a couple of really lovely hours home alone. Scott has taken the girls to an ice skating show (featuring one of E's grade 1 friends). I stayed home to have a rest and recharge my batteries. I had already been to my quilting class this morning so felt quite spoilt, although a bit tired from frantically quilting to make the most of the class time to get as much done as possible. Anyway....eventually off they went happily with Daddy (E with her hair still wet and neither girl looking thrilled at being photographed).

Oh ....what to do first??? After some quick chores, I checked my favourite blogs while listening to my very small but extremely important to me itunes playlist (Steve Forbett's wistful Romeo's Tune", Gillian Welsh's "Orphan Girl", Split Enz's "Message to my Girl" - my favourite Enz song and one of the world's poppiest pop songs, the hypnotic "Fall on Me" by R.E.M. , Talk Talk's "It's My Life" and Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights" and a couple more. Probably something from each of the past few decades of my life. Precious memories of high school, an old boyfriend or two, my student nursing days, my childhood pal, Annie, who lent me an REM album when she went off travelling overseas, my autumn being a nanny in Oxford in 1987.....)

Then a beautiful cool bath and a lie down in a cool dark bedroom to try and relax or meditate or sleep or something. A bit hard at 5pm in the afternoon but I always crave a lie down on weekends so couldn't resist. But....I kept thinking about how great the yard looked freshly mowed by the husband and how much I would love to go and remake the half finished, weedy, falling apart no dig garden I started about 6 months ago. I blame the author and journalist, Margaret Simons, for planting ideas in my head because I have almost finished rereading her book of wonderful Earthmother columns from the Australian newspaper from years ago - Wheelbarrows, Chooks and Children. The garden kept calling until finally I jumped up, put on shorts and sandshoes and grabbed my gardening gloves, secateurs and bag of stinky chook poo pellets. I pulled out the weeds around the edges, cut off the overhanging branches, rearranged all the bricks and old logs around the border, poured some water over the old newspaper, scattered handfuls of chicken pellets, laid down a layer of sugar cane mulch, added more water, put the puppy fence around it to Kippy proof it, and then spent ages just wandering about the back yard admiring the new garden from all angles and feeling so satisfied. I even started dreaming about what else I can do to beautify the ugly overgrown back corner. I could make another no dig garden in no time!

It's now dark and the girls and Scott aren't home yet. They'll arrive any moment - chattering and tired and over excited and full of Twisties and wanting milk and toast. I'll have to wait until the morning to show them my handiwork. What a gift to have a few hours of solitude, and .....here they come...

I'll post photos tomorrow when I take some.

Garden update

As my quilting/patchwork/sewing plans are on hold until I get my hands on my sister's machine and can afford to have it serviced, I am trying to enjoy being in the garden now that the weather is warmer. It actually felt like spring today - gentle sunshine, no wind, about 24 degrees (C) and just about perfect for being outside. G and I have pulled some weeds and washed the car which was actually more enjoyable than I thought. Funny how some chores aren't so bad if you relax and take your time. And you have a little helper.

Anyway....here are some photos from the garden. My lavender flowers are bringing me so much joy. Today, I showed G how to run her hands over the leaves and flowers and then smell the beautiful fragrance. She loved it and said "Kipper can't do it". She likes to feel superior to the dog, being the baby of the house.


My Mum gave me this pretty pink geranium a year or more ago and I stuck in the front garden when it was completely bare. I have pretty much neglected it ever since and is now looking nice and colourful against the carport boards. I like flowers that thrive on neglect like geraniums and nasturtiums. We have planted some nasturtium seeds but they haven't sprouted because G and/or Kipper keep digging them up.

Speaking of Kipper, here he is watching me take a picture of the revamped no dig vege patch. This was taken over by the pumpkin vine last year and I have finally pulled the damn thing out. The girls helped put the pavers/stones around the edge and put some extra ones down the middle to use as stepping stones. I've moved them to the back to make room for the veges when they eventually go in. My dad is taking me to the garden shop tomorrow to buy some flasher garden edge pavers that hopefully will do a better job of keeping the weeds out. I've put a layer of compost and grass clippings on top but it probably needs a few more layers of good stuff before I start planting.

We took advantage of the gorgeous weather yesterday and went to a park with a lovely big timber playground. Although the playground is great, E's favourite part of this particular park is the duck pond across a big grassy area. It used to be part of a creek (Kedron Brook) but like many of the city's small creeks ("streams" for those not familiar with the Australian vernacular - or do you say "creeks" as well in the US?), they have been enclosed in concrete channels and now look more like drains. Anyway... the duck pond was quite picturesque (apart from the shopping trolley someone had dumped in it). The day before when we discovered it, it was full of nice ducks, with the added excitement of five evil looking eels, swimming about underneath the ducks and popping their heads up in search of food. This time, there was not an eel or duck in sight, just a couple of black moorhead looking things.

We had taken a neighbour's child with us and I was in "let the children have some freedom and feel the grass under their feet" mode so of course someone took their shoes off and stepped on something sharp and ended up with a cut foot. Of course, it was the neighbour's child - not one of mine and I thought the cut might need a stitch or two. So...we packed up and headed home to do some first aid before delivering the child home with an offer to drive to the nearest medical centre (a two hour wait on a Sunday) and pay the doctor's fee. Happily the cut was fairly minor and holding together and the little girl's mum was happy with her tetanus status so we went back home and watched a dvd together. I guess the moral of the story was to let the children enjoy the grass under their feet when we are in the backyard and not traipsing around a creek in a park. I'll have to find other ways to let the children experience the freedom I had as a child, growing up in the country and allowed to wander near and far on my bike with a friend and a picnic lunch we had made ourselves, as long as we were home by dark.

Photos to go with the previous post

Hurray! I found the camera. So here are some photos to accompany the last couple of posts.
First of all... the girls with the fruits of our labours doing craft instead of watching TV. (The rainbow collage we saw on Tammie's blog but can't find the specific link to).

Then the chatterbox thing which has little sayings inside eg "I love you", "Tickle me" etc. E just loves making these with me. I should try and do some step by step pictures in case anyone didn't do them as a child. Basically, you fold in the four corners of a square piece of paper so that the outside corners end up all touching in the middle. Then flip the piece of paper over and do the same on the other side. Then fold the whole thing in half so that you have two squares on one side and two squares on the other side. Slide your pointer fingers and thumbs into the pockets under the four squares and wiggle your fingers to make the chatterbox talk and reveal the pictures you have drawn on the inside. Write the funny sayings underneath the pictures on the inside flaps. When I was a child, the favourite naughty saying to write was "You stink!" for if your brother chose it. I'm sure kids these days could come up with a whole heap worse.

Then....we have some photos of the new garden we made last weekend. It was a windy day and we had colds so the hour or two we spent outside probably contributed to my chest infection and G's middle ear infection but it was still worth it. We had so much fun and because we planted seedlings as well as nasturtium seeds, we already have picked a posy of pansies and snapdragons to give E'g grade one teacher.

Poor Kipper was chained up during proceedings and looked on woefully as we fenced off his favourite flower bed for sleeping in the sun. He had completely flattened the lovely sun jewels that my mother-in-law gave me.

Re G's middle ear infection, I have held off on the antibiotics for the first time (when a doctor has said they are needed - must be the brainwashing of my nursing training) and tried putting warm garlic oil in her ears instead, plus some panadol at night. It's only 4 weeks since the poor child had a course of antibiotics for her ears and I just hated the idea of another lot so soon. So.....we've had two nights of no ear pain which is great and I'm hoping she can avoid the antibiotics and fight the infection herself. I need her to be well by Thursday as I took both my work days off last week when I was sick and have stuff I really need to do in the office this week (like upset the owners of about-to-be-heritage listed buildings).

The good, the bad and the ugly

I have decided to do further updates on the state of our neglected garden in the hope that it may inspire me to do some more improvements. Hopefully, I will have some prettier photos to show you in a few months.

First the good - my hydrangea bushes are practically the only pretty flowers I have left in my garden and I can't take any credit for them as they came with the house. As soon as they bloom I pick them for the house or to give to people as they are so pretty.

Also shown is the latest patch of dirt reclaimed from masses of weeds which has been transplanted with patches of lawn. Let's hope they join up soon!

The bad......that would be Kipper. The world's most needy, annoying, jumpy 7 month old dog! Good thing he is a handsome boy or we would sell him on the street corner. Here he is posing with the eggplants and pumpkin vines which have taken over our vege patch. There's some lovely basil under there somewhere.

Now for the ugly. I could have taken any number of ugly photos of our garden but here is the one that takes the cake. Layers of old newspaper held down with old bricks to keep the weeds at bay. It was either that or keep pulling them out every couple of weeks when they turned into a jungle. It's a good look, hey?

I don't know how the rest of you get your photos so tidy. I have played and played with the photos and the text in edit mode and can't get them to behave.

Hester's garden pre-puppy

Me again. I was just browsing through photos of E's birthday in 2007 and found this one of her discovering a fairy in our front garden. I had forgotten that I had so many flowers before we acquired a puppy who a) dug in the flower beds and b) sucked up my last remaining spare energy. This blog was sort of supposed to be about what was happening in my garden but there ain't much happening in it lately. So here's a peek at how it looked ages ago before I started blogging.

At the moment, the pumpkin vine has completely taken over the vege patch and I am not allowed to pull the untidy thing out. So our energies are going towards pulling out the weeds at the back of the yard, putting down layers of newspapers to hold the weeds at bay until we get a spare moment and then transplanting squares of lawn from elsewhere in the yard. I then have to water the new patches of grass on our allocated watering days and pull out all the new weeds until the grass grows enough to look sort of like more lawn. A very slow process but we are getting there.

I was going to go to bed early, but my husband has taken himself off to see that Clint Eastwood movie (can't think what it is called) at 9.30pm. Very unusual for him to do something for himself. He got promoted a few weeks ago so I think he felt he earned a reward. G has already woken up twice and gone back to sleep and I am enjoying having the house (and the computer) to myself. Having made apricot and black cherry crumble again for dessert, I figure I deserve to leave the pots and pans for someone else to do. Probably me, in the morning! Goodnight!!!

Little guilty pleasures

I'm hoping that title doesn't attract any sleazy sex obsessed cyberspace visitors the way my post on breastfeeding did. (I deleted the post and the comment).The guilty pleasures I'm talking about are all pretty innocent and didn't involve taking my clothes off. (Oh...except for the part in the shower this morning when I luxuriated in using my new L'Occitane lemon and honey scented bath gel which I got for Christmas after giving my husband lots of unsubtle hints).

Anyway....my day got off to a fantastic start because not only did both children sleep ALL night long, but the puppy slept in until 10 minutes to six instead of demanding attention at 5am. Unheard of! So strange that the Daddy and I both emerged sleepy eyed at the same moment to see what was happening. The Kipster was awake but lying quietly on his little bed! We took him outside and had a civilised cup of tea on the patio before the girls woke up. Because the Daddy is on holidays, I could go off for one of my two working days in the city in a leisurely fashion without having to dress/feed/sunscreen/pack lunches for/brush teeth of and deliver two children before racing for my train. I even had time to put mascara on!

After a brisk walk to the train station, I settled in for 25 minutes of precious uninterrupted reading time (The Book Thief by a guy whose name escapes me right now). Soon, I'm back from Nazi Germany and at my desk checking emails and thinking about some fruit toast with cinnamon for morning tea. (Washed down with a chocolate bar from the machine). I'm actually one of those annoying people who loves their job - I work as a historian for the Brisbane City Council, researching and writing the history of the city and its heritage. After all these years, I still love the thrill of rummaging through old documents, photographs and newspapers and piecing together the pieces of the next puzzle I am working on. I also get to meet great people, like the charming war veteran who wants to put a plaque in Newstead Park by the river in memory of the men who worked on patrol boats during World War II. Our chatty emails flew back and forth from Sydney all day. I told my husband about it, saying "If he wasn't 80 years old, it would be almost like flirting". He replied "How about 'If I wasn't married, it would almost be like flirting'"!)

I don't usually get the luxury of a lunch hour as it takes me three hours of travelling time to get my girls and I where we have to go and then get us all back home again after work, but today, I could relax and enjoy the day. So lunchtime found me wandering through the city sunshine, with a beef and ginger sushi and a blueberry Nudie juice, heading for the chocolate shop for a choccy covered fig (and a choccy covered dried peach and a peppermint truffle - let's be honest!). Next stop, the city's only stationery shop that has decent scrapbooking paper to buy some cute farm type paper for our farmstay photos. Then I meandered back through the grounds of the city's oldest church - the tiny 1850s Pugin Chapel sitting serenely in its pocket of green grass. We are not Catholic but my husband and I used to go in there sometimes and light a candle for the baby we lost when I was 10 weeks pregnant in 2005. I looked at the blue sky and the old stone walls and thought about that tiny soul. Then I just had time to have a browse in the American Bookshop and read the first few pages of "Twilight" that Tammie has been discussing with great erudition!

Time to head back to work, but still a wee bit peckish, I have a sudden urge to buy a piece of Kentucky Fried Chicken when I walk past the stall. Haven't had it for ten years! I gobble up the yummy crumby bits and throw the rest away, thinking that will do me for another decade. Back at my desk, I spend the afternoon writing a piece about Brisbane's most famous Lord Mayor before heading home. The walk home from the station at in the dusk is lovely. I steal a sprig of pink Pride of India from someone's garden and then another piece of sky blue plumbago to show the family what I'd like to plant in our slowly developing garden. Then a little white car appears. The Daddy and two small tired girls have come to find Mummy. Soon I am home (in a VERY messy house) but feeling so loved. For most of their lives, the girls have had a stay at home Mum so Daddy is usually the exciting parent but occasionally, they desperately miss me and climb all over me when I come home and that makes me feel truly special.

PS I left out another small guilty pleasure - food related of course. At the station, I had a craving for a McDonald's icecream sundae but couldn't decide between chocolate and caramel. I asked for both and the girl obliged. I truly don't usually eat like this!

In the backyard

We seem to spend more time in the backyard lately which was the goal of creating some new garden beds and getting a puppy. It's so great to get the girls outside in the fresh air and away from the television. G. has started trying to ride on E's scooter now that E is busy with her new bike. She doesn't quite have the hang of it yet, but she is having fun practising.

We have harvested our first eggplants which seems like a miracle. I guess it is! We planted these little seedlings a few months ago and then the plants grew like topsy. Next came large white flowers, followed by purple eggs with thorny little hats on. S. grilled the first one (see picture) and put it on his gluten free pizza that he makes every week for work lunches. We have also picked lots of our silverbeet which I have been having in my weekend omelettes with feta cheese and semi-sundried tomatoes. Very tasty and such an amazing feeling to cook something you have grown. I had only ever grown herbs before.

We've been having some humdinger storms lately. Here's one brewing over our back neighbour's house the other weekend. We were working in the yard and had to quickly take cover when it broke. It only lasted about 10 minutes and then it was all sunny again so we went back out and kept on working.

Taking the plunge

Well....my own blog.... a little present to myself on my birthday. Part of me thinks I don't need another thing to juggle in my busy life when I already have my arms full (and am trying not to drop anything), but another voice says it may be very therapeutic and a great way to chat to friends and make new like-minded ones.

So...here I am.... another gen x girl with a husband who loves me and a part-time career and, best of all, two beautiful little girls who are the most gorgeous things growing in my garden. Gardening is on my mind at the moment as I have just planted myself two new flower gardens and my first ever no-dig vege patch. It has been well worth the effort as the sight of my blue, pink and purple lobelias, pansies and petunias lift my spirits every day, my "cream, pink and green" garden of freesias, daisies and double impatiens soothes my often jangling nerves and the little vege patch has coaxed my girls out of doors to help with the watering, pick strawberries for eating and balance on the bricks around the gardens. It makes me very very happy to see my daughters frolicking in the sunshine (in their hats, of course), making fairy gardens and ponds to put their ceramic frogs in, and, in Greta's case, enjoying standing in a bucket full of water.

A big thank you to my dear friend at Third on the Right (who will have to show me how to make a proper link) whose lovely blog has inspired me to have a go.

Another thank you to my patient husband, who, despite his migraine, has taken both our girls shopping to buy me another birthday present and give me some of that precious "me" time that all mothers crave. (Well...I hope we all do and I'm not just selfish!)

Time to see if this is working..... fingers crossed.