Orange

It's Wednesday so it must be Orange day. Orange seems to be a colour of food, autumn and more utility items. There was a lot of orange out there in the garage. All photos were taken by me today.

Tomorrow is red and pink Thursday. That is going to be a problem, there is a lot of red in our house, not so much pink. May have to do two collage pics tomorrow.

The one thing that should be there that I just realised I missed is a orange square with a B for Blogger in it.

Yellow

Tuesday is Yellow day. Here are a few of the 121 yellow things I took snaps of today. I thought there was not a lot of yellow around our house, I was very wrong. I did discover that yellow is a highlight colour, used in little bits all over the place and also a colour for utility items, there was a lot of yellow out in the garage. Thanks again Leya over at Curious Bird for this cool excuse for me to take more pics. Tomorrow is Orange Wednesday, can't wait to get started.

The Home for Chipped Honey Pots

My latest bargain, a chipped honey pot. One of the bee's wings is missing a little bit. The lady in the shop thought I was mad wanting to buy a honey pot with a chip missing. But I don't care, I have lots more at home. As long as it is possible to display them without the chip being obvious I am happy. Perfection is not something I strife for, as it can so easily be lost. So if any of you out there are going to throw away a chipped honey pot, remember me and get in touch, I will give it a very good home on the shelf with the rest.

Who's Birthday is this anyway?

Yesterday afternoon my good friend Keriann came round for tea. It was her birthday the day before and I wanted to give her her present. She also had a pressie for me, isn't that cool getting pressies on sombody else's birthday. Some beautiful spotty pencils from Greengate, I love them, I even love the box they came in. I also love Greengate products so much, just wish I could afford them, but at $90 for a jug, guess they are beyond me at the moment. Guess where I will be headed when I win the lottery.

Down at the creek #5

Down at the creek on Sunday, took me a while to getting round to posting these snaps. So not a today or a yesterday but a day before yesterday. Was one very friendly fan tail. This was taken within inches of my nose, I did not need to use the telephoto lense at all.
Hundreds and thousands of fallen leaves. And still no mosquitos, yeah.

Another bit of Green

One day late, a little bit more green. Dad's early lettuce growing in the polytunnel back in the UK. They were so pretty I thought I would share with you.

A week of colour - Green

Leya over at Curious Bird is having a week of colour. Today's colour is green.

Above are some of the green things from in and around my house.

Tomorrow is going to be yellow.

Gone at Last

At last the yukky bathroom window is gone.
And the new leadlight window has been installed.
I think it looks great. Three windows down and three more to go. I am going to do the boy's shower room window next.

The Great Tui Hunt

The Tui's in our gum tree have been tormenting me every time I hang out my washing. They flutter around looking very photogenic, but the minute I sneak out my camera off they go hiding behind the branches of neighbouring trees. There are three in the picture below, can you spot them. Peter and Buffy decided to help, hanging out of the bedroom window, shouting its over there.
Then at last I managed to snap one of them, before they flew off over my head into the distance.

This is ........... my favourite book

Another excellent choice for the "This is ..." meme this week, thank you to Daisy in lala Land. My favourite book. Now that really started me thinking. The good thing about the "This is ......." meme is that I can't rush into posting. The theme is announced on a Wednesday and I have to wait until Sunday before I can post on the subject. Now if I had rushed into this and posted straight away I would have been struggling to choose between Lord of the Rings and the complete works of Terry Pratchett. I know that the complete works of Terry Pratchett would be a very large book that would take a very large suitcase to carry it in, and that it does not exist yet, but I could not select just one of his books.
But after a lot of thought, the book that I use all the time and I could not do with out is actually my little Be-Ro cookbook. I have two of them, because neither is whole and has chunks missing or obliterated with cake mixture ( I am a very very messy cook). Together I can read just about every recipe. How could I make pancakes, scones or chocolate cake without it. You would think at my age I could remember recipes by now. Unfortunately not. I have now also got the Kiwi equivalent of the Be-Ro book, The Edmunds Cook Book. Another wonderful book full of amazing basic recipes, and the Edmunds book does not stick to baking recipes alone, it covers everything that any good Kiwi would want to cook. And how could you resist a cover like the one shown below. But on trial of the chocolate cake recipies Be-Ro still comes out tops.

Today's Daisies #43

Today's dasies are on my latest op shop find. All I really wanted was the little jug, but it came with the sugar container and four small bowls for the large sum of $8. They were made in China so probably originally came from the $2 store. But I don't care I just loved the shape of the jug and the fact that the flowers were different on each item, probably because they had been hand painted.

Today's Daisies #42

Today's daisies are all that is left of an enjoyable evening with friends who were passing through. Our friends live in Wellington at the moment, but we met them back in Scotland when I was at Uni with Pamela. They were one of inspirations for us to make the move to NZ, for years they had wanted to emmigrate and talked about it often. It was good to catch up with them and it was so nice to hear Scottish voices again.

Stormy Skies

The stormy sky above Havelock North last night.

Where I am from ............

Mum sent me a link to the website for the village I grew up in. Horncliffe is a tiny little place on the English side of the Scottish Border, just outside Berwick upon Tweed. I think the population is in the region of 150 - 200 people. Three generations of our family have lived in the village, well almost four as my kids lived there before we moved to NZ and my parents are still there.

The photograph has been taken from a postcard dated 1960, the year I was born.

Munch

My youngest's swan plant that he planted last year is covered in Monarch butterfly caterpillars, I counted at least 20 of them. I haven't spotted any chrysalises yet.

Moonlight?

I got some great pics of the moon this morning. It makes quite a cute bauble for the top of the conifer at the front of our house.

Another Misty Autumn Morning

Sorry for repeating myself but here is another misty morning shot, taken from Havelock over Hastings to the ranges beyond.

Today's Daisies #41

Today's daisies are on my favourite skirt. It is my summer weekend skirt. Not to be worn out of the house really. But I know that when I put on this skirt it is the weekend and the weather will be good. I wore it today because I am working from home and I can just scruff about.
I have no idea why I love this skirt so much, the colour is not that great, it is not a very flattering style and there is a lovely big rip near the hem complete with inexpert darning.

Work Space

Its school holiday time again and I am working from home for the next two weeks. My sewing machine has been pushed aside and my desk has been taken over. Working from home is really good, but it can take me all day to complete my four hours. First of all there is the washing machine to feed, then the guinea pigs to feed and play with, then the kids to feed, then my taxi service ferrying kids around to operate. Somewhere inbetween all that I have to work. Though if I could roll myself out of bed earlier I could get a couple of hours work done before the kids get up.

The second pic below is Peter's desk. So neat and tidy.

Is it snow

I thought that there had been some early snow on Ruapehu this morning, until I looked closer at the pictures. There is just cloud around the mountain top.

Now that's a suprise

I am a Snapdragon What Flower Are You?

You could have knocked me over when this was the result of the quiz "What kind of flower are you?" popped up. I think they must have got it wrong, or was it me did I mess up the questions somehow?

"Mischief is your middle name, but your first is friend. You are quite the prankster that loves to make other people laugh."

Maybe I have it wrong but I would never have described myself as a prankster. What do you think, what flower do you think I would be? Or give it a try yourself, what flower are you leave a comment and let me know.

This is .....my latest discovery

Or should I say these are my latest discoveries............

Angela from over at Three Buttons has been running the "This is ...." meme for a few weeks now and this weeks theme is a really good one, as usual. But me being me can't just stick to one discovery I have three. I can justify this as each discovery is in quite a different category.

The first discovery is a purely physical one. When I was gardening yesterday I found the sunglasses I lost 18 months ago. I have a bad habit of pushing my sunglasses up onto my head while gardening. Which means that as I am busy pulling out weeds my sunglasses slip of the back of my head onto the ground unnoticed. So I was pleasantly surprised to find these ones while clearing a bit of undergrowth. They are rather the worse for wear, but will do as a pair I can use for gardening only.

The second discovery is a literary one. I like to listen to BBC radio programs via my computer when I am working around the house. Yesterday I was looking for something that I could listen to with my youngest, when I found "A Traveller in Time" by Alison Uttley. This was one of my favourite books as a child. Usually I do not read a book more than once, but this book I must have read a lot, I can remember that my copy of was so well used it fell to bits. I had forgotten I had ever read it until I started to listen and the memories just flooded back. If anyone out there (hint hint Peter) ever wants to buy me a pressie, I would love another copy of this book. Alison Uttley wrote the little grey rabbit books which I also loved as a small child. Strangely enough having just looked up the author on Wikepedia I have discovered she was a physics teacher. Perhaps she should have come to my dinner party last week instead of Agatha Christie. Oh and needless to say, I enjoyed listening, but my youngest just wandered off and went to do something else.

The third discovery is a more metaphysical one. As a women rapidly approaching the big 50 (still a couple of years off, but I can see it on the horizon), I have discovered that I am totally invisible to teenage girls. The first time I noticed this was in the summer I was at the local outdoor swimming park with my youngest. We were crossing a bridge when a group of 5 girls came in the opposite direction. They noticed Peter and my youngest, but I seemed to be invisible. I could tell by the way they walked directly towards me, then a puzzled look came on their faces as they could not understand why they could not walk forwards but had to walk around me, just as if they had hit an invisible barrier. On Friday I had to take my sons homework to school as he had a bad case of Hay Fever (our Gum Tree is in flower). When leaving the school I was walking out of the school as the kids were going in. The same thing happened, blank expressions on girl's faces as they could not understand what was blocking there way. This did not happen with the boys, even with their heads down staring at the feet, they knew I was there. I have no idea why, maybe it is fear and denial. Have they just realised they too will not be a teenager for ever. Or is it that once you reach middle age you are so insignificant you are not worth noticing. Just think of the fun you could have tormenting these poor souls. I must say though that on a one to one basis this is not the case, most teenage girls I now are lovely and friendly. Perhaps it is more to do with them being self conscious of themselves than of them not noticing me. I would love to hear your comments on this, has it happened to you. Or are you one of the teenage girls that does it, I would love to know.

Sorry I have rabbited on a bit, the "This is ....." meme each week does a good job of making me think.

Tagged and Todays Daisy #40

I've been tagged by my lovely hubbie to ...... write a six word memoir. So here it is after a lot of consideration ........

Still growing after all these years.

The rules are -

1. Write your own six-word memoir.
2. Post it on your blog (and include a visual illustration if you’d like).
3. Link to the person who tagged you in your post.
4. Tag five more blogs with links.
5. Remember to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.

I would like to tag

Jess from Button Beauty
Kyla from Two Peas in a Pod
Jodi from Ric-Rac

and anyone else that would like a go.

Rain and more rain

This morning I got stuck into some gardening jobs at last. They have been waiting while my ribs healed. Just got finished and we were sitting on the veranda having some pumpkin soup when the rain started to pour down.

Bargain

My latest bargain a bathroom cabinet for $15, the selling point for me was the bevelled mirror. I love bevelled mirrors. The dilemma now is should I strip it or leave it painted. And where to put it in the bathroom.

Hopefully Peter's head will not appear in the mirror every time I look in it.

Today's Daisies #39

Today's daisies are a bit wet.

This is ..............my perfect dinner party guest list

The this is topic this week is a really good one and has had me considering for days. So here we go, the table is set ready, the candles are lit and Peter is in the kitchen prepareing the feast.

I think I would like to start with a few of my rejects and the reasons why I cut them from the final 6, though if I could I would probably like to have a barbie out in the garden and invite 20- 30 guests.

The first people I thought off where my family Mum, Dad, Bryan my brother and my three nieces. Being down here in NZ I don't get to see them as often as I would like. But that is not really the spirit of the suggestion this week, so I will save them for another time.

Now this is the sad bit if you don't want to read it please skip to the next paragraph, but I had to include this one. My first son died when he was a baby, he would be 19 now. I would really liked to have had him there to find out how he would have grown up. But I would have just ignored my other guests and I don't think I could have let him go again at the end of the evening. So it is perhaps best not to ask him. Sorry for the note of saddness in a fun game.

Back to the game I am afraid I had to reject George Clooney, Neil Armstrong (perhaps if we get him tipsy he might tell us if the moon landings were faked or not), Billy Connelly (he might be a little too loud), the whole herd of female news readers that Peter suggested (not sure why he seems to have a thing for female news readers, you better ask him), the dinosaur and the cave man that the kids wanted to ask (might be a bit messy, they would be better at a barbie), Richard Fenyman (perhaps too many scientists), Sir Edmund Hilary (a difficult choice to reject) and Charlotte Bronte (this last one was a very close call).

Here is the list at last, though I am afraid that my inner geek has definatly reared its head.

Agatha Christie - I would love to meet the person who invented Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot.

Carl Sagan - I have always beeen an avid SF reader and would love to discuss the next frontiers with him and my next guest.

Isaac Asimov - I have loved his stories for nearly 30 years now and will continue to do so. He is in a way responsible for my career choice. In one of his books he describes a society of people who can use Computers and people who can't. I wanted to be one of the ones that is able, and ended up a Software Developer, a job that is perfect for me and I love.

Bill Bailey - To make me laugh out loud how could I not include the fantastic Bill Bailey. A bit of another geekey choice.

Ada Lovlace - The daughter of Lord Byron, and an amazing mathamatician who may possibly have been the worlds first programmer, if Charles Babbage had been able to create his difference engine a calculating machine.

Vera Brittain - I read her book Testament of Youth and its sequels when I was a teenager and was profoundly affected by her pacifist ideals.

So there they are and I am ready waiting at the front door with a glass of champagne in my hand.

Down at the creek today #4

Down at the creek today there were zero mosquitos. I had come down prepared dressed in my joggers, socks, gum boots, big long high necked t-shirt and hoodie, in a temperature of about 18 celcius, I did seem a bit overdressed. Only to find there were no mosquitos to hide my flesh from.

There was one large, fat, old, one eyed eel, slinking around.
Two curious cats.

And three bags full ......... of walnuts. The largest bag is a bit of a cheat as that came from Keriann's garden. We just managed to find enough for two small bags. I think the Possums have been eating ours, I found a lot of empty shells down there.

Traffic Jam #2

I don't get to sit in traffic jams very often here in NZ, but when I do the view can be quite amazing, and who minds sitting for a few minutes in such a gorgeous spot.