L is for lots of things

Firstly it was going to be Life and Literature after I watched a lady leading her cat around the caravan park on a leash.  She reminded me of the woman in David Ireland's City of Women which I attempted to re-read recently but gave up.  A rare instance indeed.

Lily of the Valley recently liberated

Looking for a photo to send Little Sister, I found these:

Mum and I dancing in the Klemzig Kitchen, Christmas 1979

Dad and I at Marion Bay 1980

Two of my favourite photos.

Then there's the lavish and luscious nibbles provided by The Spring Bay Mill at the Van Diemen's Band's Handel Concert on Sunday.

I get annoyed at community events here because the food is always cakes, pastries and sandwiches.  More and more people are asking for food like the above - my kind of food!  And there were glasses of bubbly too.  We may be bogans but we do it well.

After the concert there was rain,

lovely rain

making those cold grey pavers shine bright like a diamond.  And lavender, of course.  I cut them right back in anticipation of having to move them when we have our building modifications, so they've grown back the best they've ever been.  The actual building work is light years away.

And lastly

H A P P Y   B I R T H D A Y    L I T T L E   S I S T E R

K is for kids, kitchen and King Lear

I've been having a lovely time.  Georgia, Oscar and Ella came for a cuppla days.

Oscar and Jill PD fell in lurve.

We did some tripping around with Steve to look at arty places he has painted.  Georgia and Ella wanted to go swimming so Steve took us to a sliver of a beach at East Shelly.

 I was captivated by these steps from the carpark but so far haven't ascended to see where they go.

Georgia and Ella did a quick refreshing dip.  The day was pleasantly warm - though they thought it was hot!

On the way home, Georgia and I dropped into Colleen's place.  She had invited me to view the wysteria in flower but I hadn't had a chance to get there.  No-one was home so we boldly explored the garden and fell in love with the place.  Absolutely dreamy even with the wysteria past its best.

My own garden underwent some changes to help the Singaporeans cope with the heat.

All rather lovely.  I do love their spontaneity.

On Tuesday we walked to the Anglican church which Georgia had espied.  It is a lovely little church and seems to have been reprieved from the plan to sell a number of Anglican Churches to raise funds for the redress scheme.  Triabunna parishioners were particularly aggrieved because some time ago there was an abusing clergyman in residence and people felt they were being abused again by the loss of their church.  While I understand that it is not to be sold, it is not currently in use, Rev. Trev having recently retired.

But for me, miracle of miracles!  The lily of the valley, which had been destroyed by spraying a few years ago, have returned.

This was the same day that Lady Jayne sent photos of her lily of the valley from her garden.  Such a wonderful coincidence.  Now I just have to sneak around to the church with a shovel.

From the church we made our way to The Village to see Steve's artwork there, plus the Green Bean's Botaniko Exhibition.

Georgia wanted to pick gumleaves for fabric dyeing experiments.

Sadly Kit and Remi didn't visit this time.  I re-organised the kitchen cupboards recently with Kit in mind.  Visitors used to complain that they didn't understand the logic behind our storage system.  Basically that was because there wasn't one.  Steve always gets to a new house first and implements his system, then I arrive and add mine.  After deep consideration and consultation we have come up with an arrangement that suits us both.

just about a pantry

just about an office system

just about a Welsh dresser

All very logical.

Tuesday afternoon I drove to Bellerive for the launch of a book about the Bellerive Sorell Railway.  Bellerive Historical Society books don't hold great attraction for me these days but this one is by John Houghton who is just about the nicest person you could meet so I had to go to catch up with him.

I had a little saunter around Bellerive waterfront before the launch and came upon this interesting piece of information

on a display map of Bellerive in the 1930s!!!!

Here is John in the corner of the Waterfront Hotel (formerly Clarence Hotel) signing books.

And here's why historical societies make you feel so young.
Anyway, it was a good event nicely catered for by the Waterfront Hotel which apparently provided the catering free of charge.  I suggested to Anne M that we have a glass of bubbly.  She'd been relief teaching all day and was very tired, sadly too tired to drink bubbles.  And, as she said, I had to drive back to Tribes.
King Lear has been on my mind.  It is a play I really like.  We had to study it at school, possibly for Matriculation, and it amuses me that one of the few quotes I remember is 'Kill! Kill!  Kill!', referring I think to the stabbing of Polonius behind the arras (Corinne would know).  It doesn't seem a particularly desirable take-home educational idea but it wafts through my mind as I declare war on the harlequin bugs storming the garden.

J is for Jardin, Jolies Femmes and a jolly good time

This was going to be J is for Judy Jeopardy after another mixup with the numerous Judys around here.  But events have overtaken me.

Out in the garden around 7am the other morning I noticed the incredible calm in this corner.  This is the northwest corner where I was going to put down trouvé sandstone paving slabs until I uncovered the pavers in the southwest corner.  I've gradually put in plants endemic to the East Coast area as they have come into my orbit.  The big gull I found dead (but with no evidence of injury) the other day is buried under the 2 big rocks.  Other rocks may go in - I'm still working on that.  Anyway, it was after rain and the bird bath was full and it just all looked so tranquil that it started a photo shoot.

Here's my basket weaving after its bath and ready for the next adventure.

My aim is to merge the two branches of the myrtle so they become like the boundary trees on the Darling River.  In the meantime the woven 'spider' is to fill the gap.  Unfortunately I haven't quite worked out how to do it yet without resort to staples and similar non-natural things.

Moving on from that part of the garden, this part looks much the same as previous years.  The small logs in the foreground are awaiting sawing up for firewood.  Their smaller branches have been chipped in the wonderful new chipper.  Some of the woodchips are likely to go in that northwest corner.

Woodchips will also replace these bricks, and the bricks may be used to support the small logs so they can be chainsawed into firewood.

The red poppies are starting to do their thing.

The Daphne struggles womanfully among the boisterous hellebores.

The artichokes are starting to bud.  But you've seen all this before, so on to something new.

Last night I went to the Fashion Show at the Golf Club.  The lady with the mike is Fran and, though we have interests miles apart, I really like and admire her dedication and amazing feel for clothes and style.  The lovely Anna is looking boldly at the camera.  She is both a zumba and tai chi participant and we all hope to end up looking like her, and being chosen as models.  The other lady is her Mum, Beth, and doyenne of the golf club.  She is also a fashionista.

You don't really need to see Beth and Anna slink back to the change room but I wanted to show you the space where we do Zumba on a Tuesday morning, having moved the tables and using the dvd.

Here we have the lovely Cheryl, also a tai chier, and instigator of the local Winter Solstice Swim.

Here she is again looking unusually demure.

Anna, meanwhile, rocked these amazing shoes.  Fran cleverly pitched the last items at the Melbourne Cup.  It's a big deal here with at least 4 luncheons going on in different places.  I'm hoping to garden that day...

I don't think I can compete in the fashion stakes.

Despite it being Listless Thursday, ie my free day,  I agreed to help Mel and the Fonz with a serrated tussock finding display at the school.  Jill and I picked plants, mostly edible herbs because I didn't want to poison any of the children with oleander, rhubarb, foxgloves, etc, but some grasses too from the garden and then tied them up (I did this while Jill PD lurked).  Later in the day I met Mel and Fonzie at school and Fonzie strutted his serrated tussock finding skills before the primary school students.  The kids had brought out various items from their classroom and we hid my plants and some of the naughty tussocks around the oval.

There was no fooling the Fonz who found the 4 serrated tussock plants after having a good sniff around everything.  He is a showman as well as a much in demand working dog.

Odious Comparisons

It's been a few years since I've felt one of these coming on but I've been thinking of the pleasure I get sitting in my shed between garden tasks yet couldn't think of a way to blog about it.  Desire to Inspire has given me the get go:

https://www.desiretoinspire.net/2019/10/08/my-she-shed-bitch-barn-backyard-sanctuary/


 And here's my backyard sanctuary (she shed and bitch barn are not part of my vocabulary):

featuring new chipper

a sanctuary also for Gertrude who has been converted to a hand puppet by having her legs chewed off

and probably wishes she had never left Adelaide in the nice lady's car

Gertrude's nemesis, here giving Fred Risbee a hard time