quilts and gardens

I have finally planted some vege seedlings in the new garden. Some eggplants (which were great for Scott's homemade gluten-free pizzas last year), some weird round looking carrots and a strawberry plant which looked very healthy at the garden shop but already looks a little worse for wear. It wilts very quickly and so I have to remember to give it some water in the mornings before the sun starts to burn. Emma is actually out of shot watering the seedlings (her idea for a happening photo!)

The whole point of the pavers and chicken wire was to keep Kipper out. Dad built a little stile for the girls to climb over, but of course, Kipper, now climbs over as well. Out with the stile!

My only other Kipper proof garden (apart from my three hanging baskets) is filling up nicely with nasturtiums, lobelia and snapdragons. It brings me so much pleasure to see some colour when I look out of our front door (and, literally, past the dog's breakfast that is sitting on the patio).

I took this of the quilt fabric I bought a few weeks ago in readiness for my first quilting class. (E loved the yellow floral material and was so disappointed that I didn't choose it for the front of the quilt that I bought it for the back) The fabric cost much more than I bargained for so making the first cuts and stitching the first stitches was a little bit nerve wracking. After lesson two I am feeling more confident. I'm amazed how well my corners match up now that someone has shown me how to pin the seams together so that the corners match up! Sounds obvious, I know, but I was just making it up as I went along before and wondering why everything looked a little wonky. Never mind - at least my first two quilts don't look factory made!

I haven't been blogging much as life is a bit hectic and I am a little down and overwhelmed by life which is how I am sometimes. Sometimes, it's hard to know what to say or blog about and after admiring Beck's exquisite photographs and words and laughing at Tammie's dry wit, I'm a bit lost for inspiration. But of course, blogging is not a competition and the joy of it is that we are all ourselves and that's what makes it such a great patchwork of people and ideas and images to stumble around in. I am also conscious of editing what I say sometimes as some people I work with know about my blog and I don't want to completely spill my guts about every little thing. Perhaps I need a new "secret blog".

I'm enjoying seeing what you are all up to so keep blogging girls.

Things making me happy

Just some random stuff that is making me happy. I seem to have lost my momentum with my blog but I guess it's just there for when I'm in the mood....it doesn't have to be something on my "to do" list. Sometimes, I just wait for inspiration to strike. As it did just now when E cried out "Look, Mummy...our first baby nasturtium!!". So....here it is. A simple, small thing I know, but it really makes me happy. All my lovely colourful petunias have gone scraggy and dead looking so after consultation with my green thumbed mother, I have hoiked most of them out. I will start again with some new baby plants. Also, my pansies are not coping with the warmer weather and I don't have time to water them EVERY morning so I might go with something more hardy like geraniums that I can neglect but still get pretty flowers from.

Recently, I have slackened off from my efforts to let the children have less time watching kids' TV/dvds and playing the computer (mostly my big girl, not the little one). But I resumed my guerilla warfare this week. My family doesn't respond well to "rules" and the Daddy is too soft to help me enforce them so I gently said one school morning that we were going to do "other fun stuff" rather than watch TV before school. (E usually gets up at 6am or earlier so is usually allowed to watch TV quietly before having breakfast and getting dressed). I put out scissors, glue, paper and magazines the night before and in the morning, told the girls we were going to cut out pictures of stuff that we would like in our life and stick them on paper to make a sort of life wish collage. That only occupied them for a little while. (Making the rainbow out of magazine pictures was much more successful. Don't know how to link to that post, though). Anyway....I also bought a packet of little coloured matchsticks and let the girls loose with them. E made pictures and G did a multi media installation!

So it made me happy to see them absorbed in creating rather than interacting with a screen.

Lastly, I don't watch that much "grown up" TV or get many DVDs out because by the time the girls are asleep, I'm just about ready for bed and can't manage to watch an hour or more of something. Scott is a night owl and had tried to get me to watch "Californication" but I thought it looked too sleazy. I gave it another try one night and, again, thought the first episode was a bit gross. All that sex with strange women put me off no end. But...I persisted and soon realised there is a lot more to the show than just the graphic sex scenes. It's funny and has it's deep moments and David Duchovny's character grew insidiously on me until I developed a bit of a crush. Yes...he's an irresponsible sex addict but he "loves the shit out of his daughter" and has a good heart and he makes me laugh. So now we have wizzed through the first season. I can manage a half hour of TV before bed without too many eyedrops and often say "Let's watch another episode!". Yep....I'm a real party girl.

After work this week, I had a rare chance to browse in the city shops as Scott was at home on duty with the girls. I decided to treat us to the next season of Hank and get a new dvd each for the girls. "Milly Molly" for E and a Hi Five dvd G has been wanting forever. It was nice to come home with a present for everyone. The budget doesn't run to presents much but it's good to lash out occasionally. So...if you want to snuggle up with someone and have a good laugh....give Hank a try. (By that I mean snuggle up with someone and watch Hank together. But I could definitely snuggle with Hank!)

News Flash - baby nasturtiums!

Just after I wrote the last post, I went out to bring in the washing and water the garden. Guess what I found? One tiny little nasturtium seedling has popped its head up. I'm sure it wasn't there yesterday. Not a huge thing in the scheme of things to some people, but as a lazy gardener who usually buys seedlings, I get such a thrill from seeing something grow from a seed. As Wordsworth said, sometimes you can see the universe in a flower, or words to that effect. I'll have to dig out my big fat book of English Literature from my uni days for the exact quote. So here it is....nestled under its neighbour - a nice fat pansy.

Just saying hello

No profound thoughts to share today. Just wanted to say hello to anyone who is out there. I've read that blogging is addictive and it truly is. Not just the chance to express your own thoughts and in the process, clarify them, but the pleasure of dipping into other people's lives and reading about their experiences and having the chance to connect with them. I could wander about the blogosphere for hours (if there weren't clothes to fold, kitchen benches to wipe, small, warm bodies that need bathing and cuddling, cheques to write.....you get the picture).

When I set up this blog for fun on my birthday, I sort of forgot to save it in my favourites, so I googled "Hester's garden" to find it. (It didn't work!). By a strange and lovely coincidence, one of the Google results was a quote from the Anne of Green Gables series of books by L. M. Montgomery. By another coincidence, that weekend was the 100th anniversary of the first edition of the original book and there was an article about Prince Edward Island in the travel section of the weekend paper. Those books are old favourites and dear friends of mine. I often turn to them to reread favourite bits and, in my youth, when I had more time and pocketmoney, I used to trawl through second hand book shops and buy lovely old editions. I was fascinated by the way images of Anne changed as new editions were published over the decades. I have my own set of hardbacks from my 1970s childhood, a beautiful 1912 first edition of Chronicles of Avonlea with a watercolour plate of an Edwardian looking Anne, and some 1950s ones with Anne looking like something from an advertisement for household appliances. I also have a 1920s edition of Anne's House of Dreams where she looks like a flapper.

Anyway..... I think it was in Anne of Avonlea that Anne and Diana discover an old overgrown garden that once belonged to a girl named Hester Gray. I had forgotten all about Hester Gray's garden but maybe it was a subconscious influence on my choice of name for my new blog. I've just found the quotation so here it is for anyone who likes that sort of thing .....

Just before them, hemmed in by beeches and firs but open to the south, was a little corner and in it a garden...or what had once been a garden. A tumble-down stone dyke, overgrown with mosses and grass, surrounded it. Along the eastern side ran a row of garden cherry trees, white as a snowdrift. There were traces of old paths still and a double line of rose-bushes throught the middle.....Oh, how perfectly lovely!" three of the girls cried.

I feel inspired to go outside and weed my garden!