Bedervale

Another Arts Trail activity we did was go out to Bedervale, which is a historic homestead just out of town. It's interesting because it had seven generations of one family there from the 1830s - who never threw anything out - then passed to the current owners in the 1970s who sold the contents to the National Trust to raise some cash but kept everything in place. It's unusual in Australia to get something with original contents; often they buy them back in when they start opening it to the public. 

It has the most amazing setting just on the other side of the ridge line from town. It was a beautiful day with a very big sky ... they'd invited a plein air painting group out for the weekend so the gardens were dotted with happy people behind easels and wearing shady hats. We did a house tour too which was fun - the owners still live there but not in the older rooms, which were freezing. It must be impossible in winter. 

We continued to get ideas beyond our station in life ... and available gardening manpower. At one point is was 36 000 acres - mostly cattle - with 58 cottages on the property - mostly convicts - and self contained with everything from blacksmith to granary. Serious outbuildings and lovely old trees.

We'd met the current owner at gardening club, so were able to ask some more detailed questions about planting ... including a wonderful bunya pine. They take 100 years to grow but I think we're going to plant one anyway. 

the Arts Trail

This weekend the little town featured on the council's Art Trail - I think there are four towns that do it over successive weekends. It was also the long weekend - and lovely weather - so lots of Canberrans passing through on their way to the coast. We went to the antique / bric-a-brac / collectible fair, where we didn't buy anything, because nobody needs that stuff in their house. We had a look in at the quilts that they'd hung in the library, including one of mine, very exciting. All the shops were open for once so we wandered down the main street in the sunshine and popped into shops we haven't been into before. Normally you could shoot a cannon down the street with no risk of injury so it was fun to see everyone out and about. 

The garden continues to bloom and blossom. This tree (an apple? possibly?) is gloriously covered, along with the pom pom tree.

We think this is a Persian lilac. I pruned it not knowing anything about it in the winter, which turns out to be the right thing to do, and it's making very pretty flowers which smell lovely. 

The grass is sprouting slightly - it may die off in the late summer Dad, but it's got to be better to have something there than nothing? I will do more remediation in autumn and compare success rates. 

And here is another before and after; this one the bottom rose bed (we are calling it the 'agapanthus bed' even though there are agapanthus in every bed). It was impossible to weed in any normal sense so I had to mattock off the top layer of grass and soil with no respect for the agapanthus ... bulb chips flying everywhere. They will recover, and the roses seem happier to have some space even if their shallower roots did get a bit mattocked. The before shot isn't even proper before - I had pruned the roses - which were all well over ten feet tall. It was insane.

On Sunday I went to some more arts trail things while my husband went to pick up number one and girlfriend who came out to see us and stay the night. Which is very exciting, they are always super busy but it's so lovely to have them come and see us when everything is looking so pretty. Number one had been at an aerospace conference in Sydney so we heard all about that, sounds amazing (what we could understand, which wasn't much).

A new bike

After contemplating it for six months I finally took the plunge and bought myself a new ebike! We are about four kilometres from town, which is slightly too far to walk for a loaf of bread, but an easy 10-15 minute bike ride. And easy is definitely the word on an ebike - it just kicks in with a boost when you need it, especially on the hills. There is one hill in town that I still feel it going up (in the thighs, aaaargh) but generally it is a delight. I have a big saddle bag so have gone into the library, the shop, and into quilters .. not art class though because I have A3 sheets of pastel paper that might be a bit logistically difficult.

But my first ride to test it out was in the opposite direction out on our road. It is a narrow country road with traffic at 100 km/hr .. but not much traffic. I felt pretty safe, although I wouldn't ride it at dusk or dawn. I got a mountain bike so I can go on the side of the road if I need to, and a stylish high-vis vest to wear :)

Mostly though it was absolutely delightful. I've been down that road before in a car, but a bike is different. You can see the sights and hear the sounds and smell the smells ... I did get swooped of course but only once and it didn't connect, just startled the crap out of me! Bloody magpies.

More pretty

So it turns out springtime is even prettier than winter. We've gone from frosty gardening in two sets of socks and gloves to sunblock and sweating ... the routine of leisurely breakfast, garden until lunch, craft in the afternoon might have to change. If the sun's out it gets a bit warm by 11, and it's still only a fairly cool spring. 

Luckily you have to stop every three minutes and stand and admire something. Or just stand, and look around. Or chat to the little birdies, especially the tiny wrens and fantails and thrushes that like to pick over what you're digging. It's not a strenuous business, gardening. 

Mostly we have been mowing, now that the ride-on is back from the shop. I despair at the state of the lawn, then we mow it, and the weeds magically disappear. Up close the lawn is very patchy but from a distance? Mostly fine. 

I have tried to remediate a couple of patches - till, feed, seed - then covered one with chicken wire to stop the birds eating the seed and one with sugar cane mulch, which apparently has the same protective role. I do not think it does, but it's too early to tell, and I like an experiment.

We have heaps and heaps more tulips in the south bed of all different colours. We're going to note where they are and plant more where they are not. 

The trees down by the middle fence are covered in AMAZING blossoms. Just a big sea of fluffy pink, it's extraordinary. The camellias are keeping on giving and giving, the strawberries are still alive and even the buddleia we coppiced is showing signs of life.

Dad, I don't know what you're going on about, those apples were plastic. Were you casting aspersions on my nascent pastel skills? RUDE

Next art class

I went back for my second art class and it was just as much fun as the first! I had gone to the art store in the meantime (of course) and bought some lovely pastels in pretty colours and pastel paper in dark shades, so the teacher set up some apples for me under a strong light and I had a bash. This is the photo of the apples... nice colours and good light and dark contrasts.

It was definitely a learning curve, especially in how to combine the colours and how to get something that looks textured and not like a wall of solid crayon. Then getting the lights lighter and the darks darker without everything going all muddy. 

I was pleased with this in the end, but it took a lot of fiddling about for such simple shapes! I'm going to try something landscapey next week, we shall see how it goes. The teacher gets us to take a photo halfway through too, which is really useful.

The main problem is how filthy your hands get, with smudging everything together. Then I end up wiping it on my jeans. I need an artist's smock...

Battery warning

This quilt is called "battery warning" because something must have been going flat at the time. I'm not sure what, but it was probably a garden tool ... although it could have been the ride-on mower. We just got it back from the auto-electrician today and it needed something electrical done. Just in the nick of time too - the grass is looking very shaggy.

This was started at a Saturday quilters meeting - the Tuesdays we just drop in and sew whatever we are working on but Saturdays one of the group will run a lesson on something they do or have seen. So this was about making hexagons by folding circles, not over papers or using a running stitch. 

It was great fun but it requires a certain precision in folding and stitching, which I do not have! So I couldn't really put them together in any normal way so I just sewed them onto a background square and used them in the middle of a medallion quilt. 

This was glue basted again, which is still awesome! The quilting is just a squiggle because I don't love the colours enough to do anything time-consuming, but it turned out fine.

Arty things

On Wednesday we went into Canberra to vacuum the-house-that-no-one-wants-to-buy, do grocery shopping and have lunch with number one (who had just finished a lab about the science of reporting the potential for uranium enrichment accurately to the International Atomic Energy Agency ... nuclear engineering, such a roller coaster. We heard about it with great interest and zero understanding). 

Then after lunch we all went to the Cezanne to Giacometti exhibition at the National Gallery  - highlights from Museum Berggruen. It was amazing - lots of Picasso and Klee and Matisse - but also they brought in things from Australian artists with links to the works. It was more coherent than it sounds and we all had a very good time. 

We couldn't agree which one to take home with us other than it would probably be a Picasso - the other two liked 'still life on piano - cort' but I preferred 'still life with blue guitar'. We all agreed that a tall skinny lady from Giacometti would be AMAZING in the sheep pen, to surprise visitors. 

At the other end of the artistic scale, I did go to the drawing group at the local regional art group last Saturday. It was lots of fun - not just drawing but painting or pastels or pencils, whatever you wanted. I was not very good but enjoyed a couple of hours (with a glass of wine). I can't find what I did so I won't post it, but it did inspire me to actually ring an art teacher from a flyer I picked up ages ago and I joined her Tuesday afternoon lessons!

There's about five people in her backyard studio that work on their own things, but she starts beginners off with a few standard lessons, including (of course) a selection of glass bottles in charcoal. Dark and light, shapes and negative space, highlights and shadows. I had a lovely time doing it, she is a very good experienced teacher, and the results are so much better when you learn it properly!!! Who would have guessed?

Flowery flowers

I think it's just going to be pictures of flowers from here until autumn ... it is so exciting whenever a new one pops up! And many of them are not at all the colours we thought they might be. For starters, there are five camellia bushes when we thought there were two ... we can tell because there are five different flowers. There is a big forsythia tucked in there as well, that gives the yellow flowers. Very gaudy, but we like that.

Isn't this variegated pink amazing? Coconut ice we're calling it.

The little rhododendron is an absolutely shockingly bright pink. Not subtle at all. The other one hasn't flowered (and is looking a bit sad to be honest) but we're hoping it's more elegant. Hah.

Blossom is everywhere and gorgeous. The bees are in the rosemary behind it but I'll have to chop it back at some stage. When we get round to this particular bed.

We have tulips! I didn't know they were skulking in the ground; just these three so far and they look like being a very dainty shade of pink. 

Other than that it is all about the roses ... after pruning 104 roses and spraying 104 roses we have now fed 104 roses and mulched 104 roses. Actually only 97 because there are six in the bottom bed I'm weeding before mulching (if you can call using a mattock on a garden bed 'weeding') and I think I did kill one in the pruning extravaganza in July. Next week I will spray 104 roses for black spot (yes, even the dead one, you never know).

And our neighbour came over after clearing out his strawberry bed to see if we wanted any runners ... why yes please, so Brad planted about 80 in the ex-cineraria bed, covered them in sugar cane mulch and we will see if they live. It's just a temporary measure until we get our proper vegie enclosure built as I doubt the birds would leave us any fruit; but even if we don't get fruit we will have runners of our own for next year. I googled cineraria too, it turns out what we called it in NZ is "florist's cineraria" which is quite different, more like a daisy, and some botanists have it as genus senecio, which explains Pam's word for it! how confusing it all is.

K'gari

 

When we were in Brisbane we did a mini-break to K'gari (formerly known as Fraser Island) which is about a three and a half hour drive up the coast and an hour on the ferry. It's a fascinating world heritage site and national park - lots of tourists but very little development. I wasn't sure what to expect; many people love it but they seem to love driving up the beach, camping in the dunes with no amenities, and fishing ... none of which appeal to me at all. But neither of us had been so off we went.

It was absolutely beautiful. We stayed at the resort on the bay side of the island, which had mostly seen better days but we were in a little house up in the bush with a deck and our own kitchen and it was lovely. It might have been warm enough to swim - although neither of us thought to bring our togs - but definitely warm enough to paddle. 

We saw dolphins both ways on the ferry, and lots of amazing birds. The island has roads but they are sand, very windy and very steep - you need to have a 4WD and know what you're doing so you don't get bogged. We have neither a 4WD or any experience so did a full day bus tour (4WD bus, hilarious) to see the main spots.

I took a lot of motion sickness pills and thank heavens I did because it was TERRIBLE. I'd rung beforehand to try and see how bad it would be - fully expecting the usual "you'll be fine" or "most people don't have a problem" - they said it was really rough, expect the worst and they have seasick bags on the bus! So I took all the pills, they worked fine but I felt completely spaced out all day and slept for 17 hours when we got back. 

This is the beautiful inland lake that was our first stop.

Then we did a bushwalk along a gloriously clear river - filtered by sand, lots of sand. Onto the main beach, which is a 120 km of gazetted road with an 80 kmph speed limit, including some 40 km spots where you have to cross creeks or there are camping areas. There was a traffic cop with a speed radar at one, so there you go. 

It was stunning, but you can't really swim in the open ocean, it's too dangerous. Lots of good fishing though, and I'm sure people do swim, but I'd be nervous. And of course dingoes that tend to attack tourists - we saw some (safely through the bus window). And we saw lots of whales breaching just offshore, including some calves, really exciting but my photos just look like ocean although there were three whales in the shot, I swear. 

This is an amazingly clear creek that I wandered down - transclucent water, sandy bottom, feels like a million miles from anywhere (and not like you've just hopped off one of four tour buses, including several minibuses of british backpackers, who were having a lovely time and looked exceptionally sunburnt). 

It was a great day and I'm glad I did it, but I don't know if it's really a holiday destination for me. There are designated camping spots up and down the beach but there's no facilities of any kind (including water) and it gets incredibly busy over the summer. There was a wee plane doing joy rides taking off and landing from the beach.

The next day we did a guided nature walk that was excellent, and my husband did another beach walk in the afternoon while I slept for a couple more hours. The pills had caffeine in them to try and keep you awake ... which works for about two hours while the sleepiness lasts three days. We had a good trip though.

Springtime

It's absolutely bucketing rain here today but the last few days have been gloriously spring-like and warm ... lots of gardening. Or mowing, as we realise just how much grass we have and how quickly it grows.

Most of the trees are still bare but some of the blossom trees are out and very beautiful.

Daffodils are decorating unexpected patches of the yard, and they are all different sorts. My husband said it looks like someone just ordered one of everything from the daffodil catalogue then stood on the front verandah and chucked them in every direction. It does not appeared planned ... but they do seem very healthy and it's fun to see how many different ways you can combine yellow, pale yellow, dark yellow, orangey yellow, pinky yellow and white.

I brought some inside (with wattle and forsythia) which was a very good idea given how grey and miserable it is out there at the moment.

Last week we had a lovely few days when my sister and a friend of hers visited - they had been up with the friend's rellies in Sydney beforehand so took the train down and I picked them up at Tarago railway station. Possibly the smallest station I've ever seen; they were the only ones getting off so had to hop down quick smart. There was nobody else there at all, no-one working or meeting or leaving. Wonderful.

We went down to the beach for a couple of days to see some ocean (sadly no stingrays at the jetty, I think the tide was too low). Super lovely to catch up and have some chill family time .. they had a poke around Braidwood too but there's not that much to see really. 

So now we are back into the swing of whatever it is we do ... although I've had a bad cold the past couple of days which is a bit unfair. It's the first bug since I stopped working - I wouldn't have said I was around enough people to catch germs but maybe someone sneezed on me at the grocery store. I struggled into quilters on Tuesday, and there's garden club on Thursday, and I think I might gather my courage and go to the drawing group on Saturday. They say it's "all levels" but it still requires some level of bravery to draw in a room full of strangers ... although it's at 4 pm and the bar is apparently open. That may help. 

The cat has been very clingy since we got back. I have a lot of photos like this where she is 'helping' me with various household chores.