There is something living at the bottom of our garden and it is not a fairy.

Some flowers from my morning walk.

Our cabbage trees in flower.

Tall Aloe

Took this pic on my morning walk. Not sure what statement the owners of this plant are making! But it is the tallest Aloe I have ever seen.

These blocks were the prize in a quilting raffle on my trip to Auckland.
Everyone that went made some blocks, they were divided up in to 5 groups which were then raffled off. This is the lot I won.

I now have to decide how to put them together. Luckly one of the blocks is my own so I have some of that fabric. Another of the other blocks has fabric that I have a lot of at home. I might use these to make up some more blocks. Or I might use them for the sashing.

Have survived the first two weeks at work. After really dreading going back, it feels quite good. Especially the earning money bit. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed getting engrossed in the details of programming. Thanks to Hubbie for finding the job ad for me in the first place and thanks to John my boss for taking me on.

I bought this daisy to celebrate my first day. Got it cheap as it looked a bit bedraggled, but is is doing well and responding to care and attention.

On the way home from Auckland our bus broke down. Well done to the coach driver, assisted by a few pairs of pantihose, for getting the bus to a safe stopping place. And thanks to all the ladies that volunteered their stockings. The brief stop gave me the oppertunity to take some pics of the sunset. Then after a short delay and a bit of entertainment our next coach appeared to take us all home. Click the image to see the larger versions.

And here are some more of the quilts I liked.




And more .........

Here are some of my favourite quilts from Calico Christmas. I do not have time to post all of them. If you want to view the larger pic just click the image and it will open up the larger version.

Just had a great time in Auckland at the Calico Christmas quilt show, with the ladies from Kierunga Quilt group. We were treated and spoilt all weekend. It was brilliant to just let sombody else do the organisation, especially when they did it so well. Thank you to Shirley and Colleen for making it such a good time. And thanks to all the other ladies for all the goodies passed around.
The first view is of the sun rising, taken from my hotel room. The second is from a room at the front of the hotel over to Auckland CBD. The hotel is the Byron on Spencer, a nice tidy comfortable place to stay on the North Shore.

The apple blossom is looking so good today, I just had to upload all of the pics.

Those daisies in the garden are getting taller and taller. They look so good. But the grass is getting very long too. Well the bits of grass in between the mounds of clover. Hope the grass cutting guy comes back from the UK soon, or the neighbours will start to complain.

My good friend Manuela just came over this morning for coffe. Look at the beautiful little bowl she brought me, how cool is this. And how kind is Manuela.

Spent all day yesterday with my youngest son in the Emergency Department. You can see why above. He broke his toe while running in the garden and stubbing it on a rock. We left home at 11am and got back to the house at about 4:30pm. It was a lovely Hawkes Bay sunny day and we missed it sitting watching the sick and injured passing by. Just so greatful that all he had done was broken a toe. A big thanks to my darling hubbie Peter for keeping Callum occupied by ripping up health leaflets and making Origami Birds and Boxes.

Peter went for a walk yesterday and took these pics of daisies for me.

Peter spent all day cooking these. It is a year since he started his current job, so his turn to provide morning tea again. The first batch mysteriously disappeared! The second batch were burned! But the third batch were just right and had to be hidden so they would reach his work colleagues.

Do not tell Peter, but they tasted as good as they looked.

Shadow daisies as the tear in the Ozone layer went past overhead.

Rock rose and ant from the side of our garage. The petals are so thin and paper like, they look like they need a good iron.

Bees on a globe thistle in my mum's garden back in the UK.

Have finished the hall redecoration and have converted the hall from this...........











to this.

The daisies in the garden are starting to get quite tall. My grass cutting man is on holiday in the UK for a month.

A host of sunny osteospernum daisies.

Sunflower and feverfew from our old garden. I will have to get round to planting some Sunflower and other seeds here soon.

Tree ferns in the sun.