Shades of Wentworth

Saturday was forecast to be hot (33 degrees C) so we all bunkered down.  This was in stark contrast to the weekend before which was the liveliest weekend I've had for yonks.  Shanah and Archie were over from England via Adelaide, Miyeon was here from Korea, Matt was here from Singapore, Oki, Sarah, Oscar and Remi came up from Hobart and Liz came from Swansea.  Lovely.  So lovely, of course, that I immersed myself in pure pleasure and forgot to take any photos.  There are a couple of Archie and Shanah at the beach but I've got to work out how to get them off my work phone...  So here's some garden photos instead.

Finally I have lupins in the garden.  Chives and parsley in seed is also promising.

The Gold Bunny sent by Jill has produced one flower, nicely in time for our wedding anniversary.

Dahlias, not part of the original plan, are going gangbusters.

These guys are also not on the plan but very welcome.  They're hugging the container with the mint and horseradish.

I spent the hot, hot day (I think it actually got to 25 degrees) reading about the Compostela de Santiago pilgrimage with scallop shells very much on my mind, so this is an apt time to tell you that Wilma's father once owned our place and used scallop shells to condition the soil.  Consequently fragments of shells appear through the garden.

My friend Jean Green Bean has suggested I make a fertiliser from a bag of weeds steeped in water for a month.  Naturally I have obeyed and yesterday I unsteeped it.  The smell is amazingly awful so it should work well.  I was trying to capture the honeyeaters feeding on the succulent flowers in this photo but couldn't zoom in far enough.  You can however see my weed steeping device.  We haven't had a big need for the esky otherwise.
Another consequence of the heat which was Wentworth-like was the outbreak of country and western music in the caravan park, resonances of the CM Festival which itself used to resonate through Riverbank in October each year.

The caravan park has been pretty chokkers this long weekend - Hobart Regatta Day today. As the music indicated, they've been a pretty traditional crew.  The gap between vans was the conversation pit with a very cute and witchy pipe wood stove.  This was the scene a few weeks ago with a younger set in residence:

Modern camping

And here is the end of a magic and indulgent hot day.