A wet Sunday walk in my garden

Are you ready for a walk round my garden. The rain has eased a bit its just drizzling. We start at the front door and go past the recycling centre disguised as an old sideboard.

Past the red geraniums and a couple of plants left out ready to plant.

A quick check on the veggies, still there, the caterpillars are not winning yet. We did attempt to have some broccoli for tea. Peter thought I had washed it, and I thought he washed it. Neither of us could bring ourselves to eat it after it was cooked with the dozen juicy caterpillars that did not get washed out. We did not tell the kids and they seemed to enjoy it.

Past some beautiful roses in full bloom.

Then over to have a peer at the caster oil plant, I love to see the rain trapped in its leaves.

Another veggie check, this time to see if the tomatoes have turned red yet. One of them had something to nibble on as I wander about in the drizzle.

Down the lawn heading for the wild part of the garden.

The figs really needed all this rain to allow them to ripen into delicious juicy fruit.

When I bought the two fig trees I was told they were both brown turkey. You can clearly see they are different varieties, I am guessing the one below is the real brown turkey. More research is required to find the variety of the above one. Not that it really matters as long as they taste good.
The previous hours of heavy rain have weighed down the twisty willow from next door. You now have to duck to get down the path under it. I think it looks so magical above the path to the wild bit, I just don't want to trim those lower branches.
With some of the turf Peter cut out of the lawn, a few months ago, he has constructed a curved seat and planted the top with chamomile and low growing thyme. Eventually it will have some wooden duckboards to sit on.

Back up and along the new border. It is really blending into the background now.

A peek down the bank to see how far the creek has risen.

I love the scent of this geranium. It is so pleasant to brush past.

Combined with the scent of the fennel, heavenly.

And more fennel at the side of the garage.

And back around to the front door again and more red geraniums, my favorite colour. I hope you have enjoyed the wet Sunday potter around my garden.

I did - even though I ended up a little soggy and disheveled as usual.

Favourite Flowers #1 - Hydrangea

I am sure I don't need to tell you that I love Daisies, I think you might just have guessed that by now. What I would like to do is list some of my other favorite plants and flowers.

Just because they are in bloom and looking spectacular at the moment, I am going to start with Hydrangeas. I know they are not fashionable and can be considered an old ladies flower.
That does not stop me loving them. What I really like about these mop head ones is the champagne bubblieness of the centre.
The mixture of limey greens, purples, pinks and lavender shades are so pretty. You can almost hear all those little bubbles in the centre popping away. Or is that just in my head.

Wet Daisy

On one of the very hot days last week I rather stupidly said, "I wish it would rain." Somebody must have heard my comment. For the last 3 days it has poured. The cats are not impressed at all.

Summer Pudding

This year's attempt at Summer Pudding came out quite well, even though it looks a bit like a tie dye bowler hat.

Study Makeover - The end is in sight

Firstly, my notice board is in place at last. Really looks good there I think.
With some vouchers we got for Birthdays and Christmas we bought the materials to start making the shelves. Eventually, they will go over the door and down the other side too, with a little bit wider shelf for Peter's record player and other junk. The gap at the side was for the ironing board to slot into, unfortunately we did not measure it first and guess what the ironing board is far to wide.
I recovered some cheap boxes with some Ami Butler fabric to store some of my quilting fabrics. Hopefully, I can find some more Ami Butler fabric to cover some more boxes sometime soon, as the four of them look a little lost.

Some Christmas stuff - another very late post

I still find it hard to feel Christmasey in the heat, sunshine and warm weather don't really bring out the festive spirit in me. But what is good about Christmas time in Hawkes Bay is the abundance of fruit. The farmers market is full of soft fruit and stone fruit, yum yum yum.
Our ugly plum tree provided us with three bowls full of the most delicious plums again this year. They are so yummy most of them get eaten out in the garden.
One big down side of the heat is I can't manage to make a nice Christmas wreath without it turning to brown dried up wrinkly stuff in a couple of hours. So each day I just keep adding to it with different leafs and plants to find something that will look good, most do for about 5 minutes then they just wilt away. The fennel on the one I did this year did smell lovely. Maybe I should add to my New Year's resolutions this year - dry out some hydrangeas and other stuff in Autumn and save them for next years Christmas wreath. Watch this space next Christmas, bet I forget all about it again.

Birthday Pressies

Although my birthday is now a dim and distant memory I thought you might like to see a couple of my favorite birthday pressies. Thank you to Keriann for the beautiful spotty tablecloth below and the lavender heart to add to the collection.
And a very big thank you to Katherine for the wonderful real American Quilt. The colours of which match perfectly with the curtains in the study.

Happy Belated New Year

I like to make New Year's resolutions, every year I come up with two or three of them. Quite often I actually carry them out. Last year I decided to swim a couple of times a week (tick), do Yoga at least 5 times a week (tick) and lose some weight (tick) - putting half of the weight back on again doesn't really count. The not buying any new fabric till I used up what I already had went well almost. Considering my love of fabric two small 'giving in too temptations' is ok. I have to admit that was probably due to last years severe financial limitations, not to my will power.

This year one of my resolutions was to get my blogging mojo on track again. Towards the end of last year it kind of just dissipated, not sure why. It has taken a few weeks, but here I am again. Hope you have not forgotten me and please bear with me as the next few posts will be in a bit of a random order.