This is what happens when you don't thin your carrots.. The Love Carrots
Before we left our house we had to harvest what remained of our veges from the garden. We had done quite well for a new garden, I was quite surprised. Some of them we had grown for the first time, carrots, potatoes, parsnips and swedes. None of them did particularly well, except for the potatoes, but we will be growing them all again.. I would really be pleased if we could grow some green bean – second year in a row that they have failed.
Not really a hope that I would be well enough to host a birthday lunch today. Woke in the night with sore chest and coughing, had to sleep elevated on pillows to breathe properly, so our little get together has been postponed until further notice.
However – in v good mood, not for any particular reason. Several thing have happened, or come together, which perked me up.
Japanese Crochet book arrived and is lovely as promised. It is, of course, in Japanese but has diagrams in it and after a quick shifty and a google browse I reckon I can work out what to do.
Whilst searching for diagrams, I came across a brilliant knitting/crochet site that has tons of free pattern and also sells the yarn Garn Studio . Has a fun pattern for crocheting slippers by sewing granny squares together and felting them.
Finished my scarf and I love it. I am actually wearing it as I write. It has some of my very first crocheted squares in it which are a bit wonky and will forever remind me of the learning curve And it has pom poms..
I have just been on the phone arranging with my Mum for a visit down to see her this Easter weekend, and incorporated into that visit we will be attending my good friend Kate’s wedding on Saturday at Karori Wild Life Sanctuary, YAY!!
Then on Easter Monday we are having a ‘family lunch’ with my birth family. My Granny is coming down from Palmerston North for it.
I have an episode of QI to watch
Having the flu now means that it will all be over with by Easter.
We will be having 10 o’clock Cookie Company hot cross buns and Queen Ann chocolate for Easter. Greed always overcomes any reservations this pagan feels about celebrating other religions festivals, lol! Enjoy the best bits – chuck the rest, is my motto. But yes - how weird is it celebrating spring, in the middle of our antipodean autumn?
We have tons of harvest veg and are giving some away.
My dog has lovely, spotty legs.
Enough – I think you get the picture, full of the joys of autumn. Now for some photos..
So – right then.. Back again with photos this time. . Several things..
The tuis are back on the gum tree, yay! When we first moved into this house back in April last year, the gum was flowering and loaded with tuis supping the nectar. They were noisy and fun to have around and I missed them when they flew off in summer to find new food. This morning, while cleaning my teeth, I heard the familiar warble, and sure enough they are back.
Tui in a Gum
My granny squares are ready to be sewn together, I just need to make a couple more pompoms for the ends, I love pompoms.
Ready to sew
I have worn my charity shop green cardi once already – it has pockets, I love pockets. I think my new scarf will go well with it.
Pockets, mmm
Japanese Anemones are going mad in my garden – everything is, tomatoes and cucumbers growing furiously, some of the roses having another burst. The autumn is quite obviously here now, with acorns crunching under foot when Poll and I walk in the park and a proper, old-fashioned nip in the air. Won’t be long now till we get our first frost.
Anemones
It was, of course, the Autumn Equinox in this part of the world on the 20th of March. That means you people over there in the Northern Hemisphere are celebrating spring. And much welcome it is by the sound of it.
I would be hard pressed to say which is my favourite season – Autumn or Spring. Both have a lot going for them. Mr T says winter is his – he likes extreme weather, storms, torrential rain, snow – so do I, but there is something about the in between seasons, the smells and the colours that appeal more to me.
I roasted garlic and a butternut pumpkin this morning so I will be getting all seasonal and making soup for dinner tonight. But for now it is back to the crocheting.
As some of you may know, I make my own bread. Well, I have been taking a few weeks off the bread making lately and eating the shop type and what a load of blah it is. Sorry – but it’s true, I have paid for my laziness.
I got back into it yesterday and made a couple of loaves consisting of whole meal, oats, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds. OMGoddess – how good it was. I had it today for lunch - toasted bread, a fat, warm tomato straight from the plant, with a garlic and avocado dressing, sheeit! A little bit of heaven.. (if I say so myself )
It feels like time is starting to speed up now, probably because Mr T is so busy doing lots of chimneys and I am doing the usual, except now I am office person as well, the weeks are starting to flick by. The start of packing looms..
I have seven squares done for my scarf and am frustrated that I haven’t done more. There is so much I want to make, and so many free patterns on the net to choose from. I am getting ahead of myself a bit..
Another wonderful discovery this week – the British programme Q.I. has started on Prime. It is probably my most favourite programme in the world and has one of my most favourite humans on it – Stephan Fry. Knowledge stuff, comedy stuff and rude stuff all in one go – what’s not to like?
Talking about comedy, thought you might enjoy this little video. Like the man says, it is very much a British thing the old Out Out. And I am looking forward to doing it.
So, yesterday was gardening. It needed it and I have put it off for far to long now, hoping it would go away, which it hasn’t, of course. So nothing for it but to get stuck in – and I’m bloody glad I did cos it looks sooo good. I am saying I, but really I had the help of the trusty Mr T, who normally runs a very long mile before volunteering to weed anything. Consequently way more work got done than would normally have and quicker. It was also very pleasant to have company.
The only down side is that I have woken today with just a tad of stiffness, having over doing it of course. And I am going to go out and do it again today, which probably won’t help.
I am celebrating today for my friend Katy over at Katyboo1′s Weblog. She has finally passed her driving test. She has been entertaining all of us faithful readers for some time now with tales of her attempts to learn to drive – just about all disastrous and ending in tears, so I was really pleased to read her blog this morning and find out she had passed – Yay!!
I have had flashbacks of the FOUR TIMES I sat my practical driving test in the UK and FAILED. I was not used to failure and it seemed to me that after every test sitting I got worse. I finally passed when I came back to NZ and sat the test in the good old Wairarapa – nice broad streets, very relaxed examiner, about a million less drivers on the Masterton streets which is a town small enough to have no traffic lights. How could I not have passed, especially after driving in the madness of the UK roads? And also having driven illegally without a single accident or incident for the preceding twenty years?
The new issue of ‘World Sweet World’ is out. My favourite little, crafty magazine.
Starting a Sour Dough starter. Should take four days before its ready to make bread. MMMMM!
Tude has scored the latest Terry Pratchett book, ‘Unseen Academicals’ for me, from the library. Will start it next weekend, leaving it just a little bit longer for the anticipation to build
Getting ready to make our take on Bailey’s Irish Cream. Nice to sup a little drop, loaded with ice, of an evening. One of those Christmas things.
Made rice salad for the first time tonight. Used baby celery and leaves, as well as purslane, parsley and oregano from our garden and it was fab. Got the recipe from Alison Holst’s ‘Meals Without Meat’ , can see I’ll probably make it now till I’m sick of it.
Summer has finally arrived, ohhh so warm.
Started the day with the ‘Word of Mouth Blog’ in the Guardian. The subject? Modern manners: office Christmas lunch – What is the most disastrous work Christmas lunch you’ve ever attended? My favourite reply was the following..
i got given the task the week before Christmas to find somewhere that could do lunch for 15 of us. The only place available was a local Chinese that did a set menu. There was much complaining from several of my colleagues about not wanting to eat ‘foreign food’ and we all sat down to a rather tense meal. My favourite moment was when our aged Chief Executive tried to order a bitter lemon to drink, (through a colleague), as he wouldn’t talk directly to the waitress because she was a woman, and he didn’t speak to them, and finally after much discussion between the waiting staff, he was brought a saucer with a small bit of lemon on it…
And finally, my favourite video of the last couple of the days, enjoy -
I have picked a huge bunch of lavender, roses and jasmine for the vase on the table and am sitting in front of them typing this. The scent is out of this world – almost to much.
The flowers are our reward for weeding the garden today. I decided to spite my latest test results and damn the torpedoes. I always feel so much better when I can see the results of my labour. And the garden really needed the work – before it got too out of hand.
My Mum helped as well and Tude when he got home, so all is looking tidier. The urge to get into the garden was helped by the beautiful weather today. No sooner had I put washing out, it was dry. I just love that.
I am less annoyed today regarding the thyroid problem. I was lying in bed this morning feeling sorry for myself when I remembered – it’s not how bad the problem is, it’s how you handle it. So, o.k., I’m going to handle this well.
My husband and my Mother are enjoying a shared pleasure in the lounge – watching Coronation St. Tude never admits to liking it but as soon as his mother-in-law is about, and Coro is on, he is in there. I suppose it could be worse – they could both like East Enders :-0
I used to watch Coro when I was a kid, I remember it before there was colour t.v. even. And Ena Sharples was in it. Drinking Milk Stout – whatever the hell that was. As a child I thought it sounded quite nice, sort of like a milk shake or something. I also liked Elsie Tanners lovely red hair, which is possible now, come to think of it, why I have spent most of my adult life with red hair?
Two days of warm sun, blue sky’s and lots done in the garden. Together Tude and I have dug and weeded and planted and my body feels it.
List of plants so far
Cabbage
Cauliflower
Pak Choi
Beetroot
Broccoli
Red Onions
Celery
Chilli
Tomato
Aubergine
Cucumber
Courgette
Scallopini
Purple beans
Strawberrys
We had already planted potatoes, parsley, carrots, silverbeet, swede and garlic about a month ago. And they are doing fine. Unlike almost all the vegetables I planted when we first moved into this house in April, I have just had to haul them all out as they had come to nothing – I won’t be trying to start a garden so late in Autumn again , that’s for sure. What a waste.
Surprisingly one of the only veg that did do well was the lettuce which I planted next to the house, they are growing furiously. Yay! We are having a big salad tonight using some of it. Can’t wait till the middle of summer when the rest are ready. Especially the tomatoes; I have planted two of the black russian heirloom variety, one of which; ‘Black Krim’ I grew last year. What a revelation it was, especially plucked straight from the garden, warm and rich. The best tomatoe I have ever tasted.
This year we are also trying some Cherokee Indian tomatoes – should be interesting. Mind you – gardening is always interesting, just to see what does well and what doesn’t. And what new variety’s taste like. We have learnt our lesson from last year and planted the scallopini/yellow squash in its own bed, away from all the other veg. The last one grew so huge it took over the garden bed and bullied everything else. It also fruited prolifically and I am sure our friends were living in fear of being offered more.
It is a holiday weekend here in N.Z. so we have another day off to come, Tude is very happy. He’s just not happy that there is a bit more weeding to do
Hope you are all having a good one – see you tomorrow.
The warm weather continues and is contributing to the urge to spring clean and reorganise stuff. Also the garden is calling and several new vege gardens were dug and built today – Mr T will feel the strain tomorrow. I was in charge of the more gentle tasks, planting a mint in a pot, sowing red onion seeds, watering the outdoor pots (no rain for well over a week!).
It was wonderful to walk around the garden and see everything budding, a very beautiful japonica is starting to flower and huge piles of bulbs, that have been naked since we moved in April, are in vigorous sprout. I can’t wait to spend a summer here, it is such a private space with lots of trees and shadey spots for lounging.
Alfred the Oak
We are very lucky to have this tree in our back yard, I have called it Alfred after the previous owner of the house. We are lucky with the garden in other ways as well – wonderful, wonderful fruit trees, three different apples, plums, grapefruit, oranges, lemons, pear, peach, nectarine, feijoa and a couple of grape vines. Who could ask for more huh?
And it has pom poms..
