Hints of spring

There are definitely rumours in the garden that spring is on the way. One camellia bush is in full flower and the other one is covered in buds about to burst out. 

This tree is an early starter with these blossoms thinking about showing - most of the rest of them are still completely bare. It's not any warmer but the days are starting to get longer. 

The daffs are starting to come up, and the jonquils are everywhere. The roses that I pruned so severely have some buds ... although some shoots that are never going to sprout again. Oooops, sorry roses.

We're a bit nervous about spring and things growing ... having barely gained control of some small fraction of the garden, it's an intimidating thought that everything is going to start fighting back. And because it will be our first spring we have no idea what exists underground or what half these plants are. Is it dead or is it deciduous? We're about to find out.

Melbourne again

We went down to Melbourne for a few days to see some more alternative theatre ... off to the Melbourne Theatre Company again where number two was in a reading of a new play. It was described as a "reckless, erotic and audacious ode to reconnection" so we weren't 100% sure what to expect but we really enjoyed it. The main character was read by a single actor but number two did the three secondary characters including sensible best friend and British love interest ... god listen to me "love interest" it was definitely a fuckboy situation ... so yeah, our child reading sex scenes. We coped with that and just about burst with pride all the other times - so talented and smart!!!! And can do an accent!!!! Completely unbiased opinion of course.

Number two also had a ticket to some re-telling of Pride and Prejudice and persuaded us to get tickets to come too... then BAILED (admittedly, did have a bad cold) leaving us to go and enjoy a play where Mr Bennet was played by a literal pot plant (I think a monstera?) and Mary murdered Mr Collins with a shotgun. Sounds dreadful, was actually very funny and we laughed a lot. Very high energy and entertaining. 

The weather was a lot better than the last trip - clear and cold - we saw these hot air balloons very early on the last morning just as the sun was coming up. It would have been freezing up there, but very still. Our airbnb was a nice townhouse that had bedroom/bathroom downstairs and a big kitchen/living space upstairs. Kind of strange but you did get a bit of a view from upstairs.

Other than the theatrical experiences we hung out with number two a little bit, wandered round the alternative streets of Brunswick ... I accidentally walked into the Victorian headquarters of the Spinners and Weavers which was AWESOME. A shop, but also full of volunteer ladies who wanted to tell you all about everything you were looking at and ask you questions about what you did and point you to the library and suggest you join the guild? I enjoyed it very much and one of the ladies had a small crusty white dog for my husband to bond with.

We also went to a historic house and gardens - Como House, which was kind of cool but also impossible to see how you could live there, even though it wasn't that grand. Sometimes we go to these places for decor inspiration but I think I prefer the ikea touches of my cosy cottage. The gardens were nice.

One afternoon we drove into the burbs to what is allegedly the largest shopping mall in the southern hemisphere ... I don't know if that's true but we had a lovely couple of hours shopping - it was all very clean and shiny and peaceful which sometimes is just what you need. We enjoyed it but were glad to get back home again to the countryside.

Log cabin

I finished the log cabin that I started at the quilter's Saturday Sew Along - I do like a log cabin and this is nice and small and pretty. I was the only very scrappy one - most people had a more curated selection :) - but it turned out OK. It was going to be far too small for anything so I put on the border and brought it up to a reasonable size. And less long and skinny.

It's just quilted in straight lines because of all the seams. I wasn't going to get swirly and creative with that much going on.

We finally have a new sofa and it is surprisingly comforting. It feels like the living room has finally got its proper shape, and we are very much enjoying having somewhere to loll. Once again, despite swearing I wouldn't fill my house with shit from Ikea, we bought it from Ikea - exactly the same as the one at the last house except smaller. It was super comfy then, and it's super comfy now, and the colour is good, and the price was right, and it only took three hours to put together, most of which was putting the cushions in the covers ... like putting a duvet cover on but ten times as hard. Here is an action shot...

So I think that was the last house thing we had to do? We have lots and lots of more elaborate plans (if we ever sell the Canberra house and have two cents to rub together) but that was it for immediate things. No outdoor furniture yet but we have camping chairs... And finally we have my husband at a eight-hour lunch last weekend (Christmas in July [August], which is why the Santa headband) bonding with the house dachshund. It was a flighty little thing but followed him round like a sausage missile the whole time.

Chaos at the sheep pen

One of the 'features' of our new place is a small sheep run, with broken down fences and a concrete ramp up to where they would have loaded sheep onto some form of transport. It is old and cute and planted with roses and some other garden beds. Cupboard guy reckoned that the concrete was made with stones from the local river, and it certainly looks rocky and rustic.

Like everything else it is wildly overgrown and we've had to dig and clear to even see what's there. We know that it's been lovely because these are photos from when it was sold in 2017.

And this is what it looked like last week! Some of it is just because of winter but mostly it is an absolute morass of weeds, grass, roses that have been left to their own devices and dead sad lavender. So I've dealt to the roses, sprayed them down, chopped them back and we are in the process of clearing and mulching the beds.

It could be a long time before it gets back to the picture postcard glory days. The fence is falling down too, and we don't really want to 'fix' it, but we don't want it crushing passersby either. 

And of course Chonky needed a second burrow so dug one out in the least convenient spot. It's the dark bit to the right of the little rock, which we rolled into the hollow to see what he would do .... dig around it? roll it away? ignore it? We have noticed he's started dropping turds on the wooden chopping stump, so is that a sign of protest? or just lizard-brain cairn-building? Wombats are mysterious.

Photoshoot

A few weeks ago I bought tickets in the preschool raffle, because the first prize was a very large load of firewood, and we really needed some. Excitingly, they rang that afternoon to say that I'd won ... second prize, which was a family photoshoot by one of the preschool mums who also had a photography business. The chances of organising the children to get us all together was zero, but we figured what the hell, let's go with just the two of us, and so the photographer came round the house with a mate and we got some photos taken of us, in our garden.

We said we were unphotogenic and awkward, and would like almost entirely garden and house with just a little bit of us, and we were embracing the wintry ugly! Surprisingly, it was great fun, she totally got it - we nattered about all sorts of things for an hour or two while she snapped - and we now have a peculiar but pretty record of our first winter. 

Some of them are a bit engagement shoot - no excuse for this window number - but generally it was us in all our middle-aged glory. So peculiar - absolutely nothing I would ever voluntarily do - but I'll get some printed out and maybe even one for the wall. 

More vertical quilt

 I had another go and managed to get some better shots - way less windy! It actually takes a strong wind to keep a quilt from hanging down, they are quite heavy, not like sheets or towels. Anyway this is the creation, I don't like it as much as I thought I was going to.

The one I got inspiration from had a white background (where I have the pink triangles) with different coloured trapezoids (where I have green) and it looked like a starburst or a flower - coming out from the middle. I decided to go with two solids and I think the pink triangles come forward too much and ruin the effect. Maybe it would have been better with swapping the colours over? We'll never know because I'm not going to make it again but it's interesting that it gives such a different vibe to the one I was trying to re-create.

I like the colour combo though. Nice and bright. I quilted feathers all over it - mostly as practice because I haven't done them for so long. And because I basted this one with glue! Elmer's washable school glue, just dribble a really thin layer on, let it dry and quilt away. Then wash it out - which is why this quilt looks a bit wrinkly. It worked very well, it was lovely quilting without having to remove any safety pins, and I will keep gluing things in the future. I called it "My way AND the highway" because quilt groups are an interesting social experiment. 

Coast days

We went down the coast for a couple of days - not entirely sure why but we certainly found enough to do when we got there! The weather was cold and windy and rainy everywhere, so we figured we may as well be somewhere that was closer to 15 degrees than 5. It's only 59 kilometres as the crow flies but the weather can be wildly different. Much excitement on the local facebook page because a seal was having a nap on the beach.

Mostly very chill creatures, seals, but they have sharp teeth and are surprisingly large. Everyone was avoiding it, but that part of the beach is off-leash dog exercise, so there might have been a cavoodle or two in danger. Or a white crusty dog. No great loss. 

I made a couple of dozen library bags for the local school which is a quilter's group endeavour. Nice mindless sewing - once I got into the swing of it - and a good way to use up odds and ends of fabric. If the kids don't mind random colours, which I'm sure they won't. 

I also meant to do a day's errands in Bateman's Bay but got trapped at the first hurdle - changing my driver's license over to NSW - which turned out to be unnecessarily complicated. So I didn't go to the hardware, join the library or buy some thread ... just had a bacon and egg roll to soothe my shattered nerves and came back home again. And it's still not sorted, I will try again this week. 

I should have a photo of a finished quilt to show you but this was the attempt today - the horizontal quilt!!!! It was so windy (a cold wind too) that I gave up. Perhaps tomorrow. I came back up for the quilter's group AGM on Saturday afternoon. I am now secretary, which doesn't seem to be too much work, but I guess I will find out ..... There were six ladies at the AGM, so most everyone got some type of position :)

More before and after

We have finally finished the last edging and mulching in the south beds at the front of the house so here is the transformation. In our defence, a lot of this is just summer vs winter, with the leaves off the trees. So before is overgrown, beds full of grass and trees just randomly doing whatever they wanted with their branches.

After is a lot more orderly, even if a bit stark.

Honestly, those trees and shrubs were suffering with crossed over branches and sad twisty bits. We did them a favour. Honestly. At least the hellebores on the bed we mulched with fallen leaves are incredibly happy and covered with new growth. Although that might just be the month of frosts we've had.

And here's the last before and after - we have spent a couple of days repainting the kids' rooms in our old house in a futile attempt to get someone to buy it. Removed the child-chosen brights including extra-bright feature walls and painted over them in off-white. It's very sad, but the rooms do look bigger now ... this turquoise took three coats! Most of that was remediating the short-lived but sooty scented candle phase.

Height of ruralness

On Wednesday we reached the pinnacle of country living when we finally put a match to the Burn Pile. The Burn Pile has been growing bigger and bigger with all the logs and branches that have been pulled out of the creek and other stuff that is just too enormous to chip and no good for firewood ... and that has just been down in the lower forty too far from the house to do anything with easily. So it's been put in a pile for Burning, and on Wednesday we Burned.

It was a perfect day for it, freezing cold with frost, then clear and sunny and absolutely no wind. We had to tell the local RFS of course (who then made a facebook post to let everyone know but giving the wrong address, eye roll) and warn our neighbours 48 hours in advance which was an excellent opportunity to say hello to the neighbours. Which we have been  meaning to do since we moved in but have only done friendly waves so far. 

It started off with a solid application of diesel then it was a couple of hours hauling branches to chuck on, then a couple of hours making sure it kept burning, and then a couple of hours staring, raking, playing with the coals and burning random twigs on the ground. It was awesome, I love burning things at the best of times and this was massive. It was all out by dinner time and our four huge piles of branches have gone. 

It was nice just to stand down in the lower forty and admire the view. It's a fenced paddock next to the road, over the creek bridge but we have no use for it at the moment so I never go down there. It's very pretty and people wave as they drive past because nothing says rural togetherness like Burning. 

And the other advantage is that the neighbours over the back said they would pop in, which they did, while I was in the shower, so had to do a dressing gown run past them to get some clothes on ... but once that awkwardness was behind us we had a good natter. They've been here 15 years so could fill us in on the last two previous owners, and the other neighbours, and the weather, and useful things like that.

We were chipping the next day and Mr Neighbour came up to examine our chipper that had been the topic of discussion the previous day - Mrs Neighbour had thought we got people in to do our chipping because 'one of them was wearing high-vis'. No, one of them was not wearing high-vis, one of them just got another pair of amazing gardening overalls in a colour that appeared on the website to be burnt orange.

It is not burnt orange, I look like a traffic cone, if traffic cones were spheres. But I don't care, they are so amazing, and after a day's burning it was kind of greyish anyway. We have finally got some pallets to store next year's firewood from everything we are chopping down ... but we need some more, that didn't really make a dent in the chop pile. Peak Ruralness. 

Choppity chop chop

The joys of a neat and tidy twig-garden have gone to our head and we have turned into chainsaw wielding maniacs. It's gone from careful googling of tree types and thoughtful pruning to two options - "head height" or "knee height". We are clearing out crossed branches, dead branches, ugly branches and any branches that stab us or clip us on the ear. Then we take those branches and run them through the chipper while staring at the remaining trees.  Chip one, teach a hundred.

It looks SO much better. We are nearly done mulching those beds and I even spent many sad hours trying to dig the periwinkle out. With very limited success - much like the grass it will be a process of dig, smother and poison. And burn, we haven't used our flaming weed gun yet and it's always very satisfying. 

We bought a little wagon for the ride on mower. It has already been super useful - holds about three wheelbarrowsful - and is wonderful for moving heavy stuff like firewood. 

 The electrician had our power off at lunchtime on Wednesday so we went into town for a bacon and egg roll and took a detour up the road above our house. The main water supply for the town is up there, and the overflow goes down the valley and is the creek that runs through our place. It's very rare for it to flow, but with all the rain this year we've only ever seen water in it. Not normal. 

You can't really tell from this photo but we're looking down a fairly steep hill. The water dam is up to the left, and there are trees in the little valley that lead down to our place, which is where the big clump of trees is. It gave us a good sense of the geography that we hadn't had before ... the countryside is looking very brown and wintry! It was cold. Our visitors went skiing for a couple of days with low hopes of snow but ended up having heaps including heavy falls on their last day. They stayed another couple of days at the snow then overnighted with us on their way back north.

The selvedge quilt!

Sorry Pam, but here is another finished quilt. Yes, I do make them quickly, but it is amazing how much quicker you get with practice, and also what else am I up to? Nothing, that's what. And it's great. 

In my defence, I have been working on this one for about 15 years. It takes a LOT of selvedges to make a quilt, and I'd do a few blocks every now and then, when I felt the urge for mindless sewing. I found them in a drawer, realised there were 100 (actually 102) which is a nice 10 by 10 quilt, sewed them together and quilted it up.

Strictly speaking I didn't quilt it, I tied it with embroidery floss. And there's no batting because it's so heavy - strips sewn over strips onto a backing fabric - so I just backed it with a flannelette sheet. Although I stuffed that up a bit because I bought something I thought was a flannelette sheet but which was actually some weird synthetic with a slight stretch ... I liked the colour (pale pink) and it felt soft and fluffy but the fabric was a bit of a disaster. It was from Kmart though, so I probably could have predicted it.

But I ploughed ahead, made 100 little thread knots, put some binding on it and who would know? It looks like a proper one. It was lovely to put it together because of the trip down memory lane with all the fabrics. Some of them people had sent me which was even lovelier! A group effort. 

The pretty

For the past two years - when we described our retirement place to increasingly incredulous friends who wondered why we would do such a thing - at some point we would just shrug our shoulders and say "we bought the pretty". Because we did, we bought the flowers and the blue sky and the embroidered tablecloths and the hammock. But, every day, I look around and admire the pretty. Even in the depths of winter. Here is fog this morning just starting to burn off down the driveway.

But still misty over the back, towards the creek.

Here is the other end of the day, as the shadows get long and it starts to get cold.

But still sunny over to the west, until the sun finally hits the hills.

Or the west this afternoon, as a big storm rolled across. We were enjoying the sunshine and thinking about doing a couple of hours chipping when we heard thunder and saw the black sky. About half an hour later it bucketed through with lightning so close we checked out the windows for burning trees. And there was hail! Just little peas luckily.

Our visitors have left to do some skiing - it was so lovely to have them stay and show them our corner of the world.