Autumnal

Beautiful autumn weather means one thing - the Folk Festival!!! Boiling hot during the day under the big marquees and freezing cold the second the sun goes down. I think I take this picture every year of the trees starting to turn on the driveway in, because it is pretty, and it gives me a happy moment when I make my way to the gates for the first time.

It was a smaller festival this year, but at least it's still going. Lots of music festivals of all stripes have folded since covid - this one is supported by old people (who are the only ones still with discretionary income) so might be a bit more recession proof. Or not. I have no problems with a smaller event without the big international names (I never know who anyone is anyway) and managed to find lots of entertaining acts.

I camped out in the empty Canberra house, which was a bit grim, so I bailed early on Saturday  night and drove the hour back out to Braidwood to sit by the fire and sleep in my own bed. It was very welcome. My husband came back in and we went out to dinner for number one's birthday - which was a wonderful catch up - before cleaning the house again in a fit of optimism that someone might turn up to an open home. No luck yet with selling it, but we are too tired to panic. 

Autumn in the new garden is rather a treat. We had massive rolling thunderstorms all Easter Monday afternoon and Tuesday ... including a tornado! Nowhere near us but it definitely happened, someone put a photo on the local facebook group, which is a cornucopia of such treasures. I went to quilters' again Tuesday morning which was very soothing after the excitement of the weekend, although the quilter's shed/hut/hall leaks a bit, onto the cutting table. 

A quilt!!!

Can you believe it, I finished a quilt! I needed something to do at quilters, and this top was entirely done except for the binding. So I bound it with random solids and sat quietly doing the binding with the ladies on Tuesday.

According to my blog I did this in August 2018, and I can't remember when I finished the hand quilting. I do love a big stitch. A finish, so exciting.

Gardening

It might not be the best idea to call a blog post 'gardening' ... because that is my life now. Gardening. It would be like calling a blog post 'going to work' or 'having lunch'. But, at the moment, every bit of the gardening is new and interesting. And more than a little bit overwhelming.

I kind of weeded half of this garden bed. I say 'kind of' because I dug up the big clumps of grass and oxalis but the bed is absolutely riddled with runners and it is not weeded in any meaningful sense of the word. My husband went down to the building / gardening supply place and ordered two cubic metres of mulch, which arrived via truck guy a couple of hours later. It was meant to be tomorrow but truck guy had something else he wanted to do and it's $50 cash on delivery regardless ... small towns. 

Anyway truck guy used to be a paramedic and remembered our place because he got called out to an older lady who had died hanging out the washing. Apparently her family hadn't heard from her for a while and called the ambulance, who found her at the line. Truck guy thought it wasn't a bad way to go really. We are taking it with a grain of salt because all the ladies who have lived here since 1986 are definitely still alive ... but I am taking my phone with me when I hang out the washing now. Just in case.

This is my first spaded edge. I am thinking they will get more expert as I do more? We sprinkled the weeded patches with blood and bone to discourage the rabbits (too strong smelling apparently) and will get the mulch on it pronto.

Though that will wait until after we've mowed the five acres, because it is looking a bit shaggy. The ride-on mower is good fun, although it's quite a contemplative experience. The mower will only go so fast, so you potter in ever decreasing circles, watching out for rocks. We have no idea how to do it efficiently yet so some patches get mowed eight times and some get missed entirely as we make unnecessary parallelograms. It doesn't have much of a turning circle. 

We went to our first Gardening Club event last Thursday which was really good - visiting three gardens further up our road. It's only fifteen minutes but feels incredibly remote, and certainly places we would never have visited on our own (it's not a through road, and full of tucked away bits). Three gardens that were created from paddocks - from the 1970s through to just a couple of years ago - and it was wonderful to see the vision and the reality. I am just awestruck, I don't think I could do it. Even though it's only up the road, the sky feels a lot bigger than in our shady gully.

There were about twenty or so people, all very friendly and welcoming, all very knowledgeable about gardens and we absolutely pumped them for all the local knowledge we could. We had morning tea at the first place, picnic lunch at the third, and it was just lovely. They do these once a month so we'll definitely trot along as often as we can.

Urban sketchers again

Last Sunday's urban sketchers was in Queanbeyan - twenty minutes closer to me than most of Canberra - so only an hour drive and one I was very happy to do. My husband came too, with the trailer, and he cleaned the house ready for the open while I was at sketchers, then we had lunch and went to Ikea for various bits of furniture that I didn't think we'd need ... more bookshelves for one. I caved. 

Sketchers was lovely - we went to the Auto Italia which is a national Italian car show and meet - lots and lots  of beautiful cars, and gelato, and cannoli, and Italian music over the speakers. I have no idea about cars but it was in a leafy park and there were lots of very happy car lovers about. 

I chose these two because of the wonderful colours. So did a few of the others, and we all got lots of questions, and people taking photos of us as we sketch, including the owners of the cars of course. People are all very friendly and kind about odd-looking drawings. 

There was a long red line of Ferraris. I have very little interest but they did all look lovely, shined up for showing. A few of the sketchers took on the challenge, but mostly the ones with marker pens. It was too red for watercolours. There were Vespas too - super cute - and even a few from the 1920s and 30s. I had a great time and must make sure to keep going, even when there isn't a house to clean. Which will be never judging by the market at the moment, it's not just us, it's completely flat. There is a federal election in early May so we're hoping that might be what people are waiting for (a few people in Canberra always lose their jobs when the government changes) but who would know....

Every day's an adventure

After so many years when the same thing happened every day, we are having different days all the time. Nothing exciting by any objective measure, but always something I personally haven't done before. We finally got out into the garden which was super exciting. And overwhelming. The weeding alone is going to be months of work, let alone anything more adventurous. 

We took to a banksia rose that was blocking the line of sight as we turned out onto the back access road. A full trailer load to the tip of prunings! It was well out of control. The new reciprocating saw is great, as are the hedge trimmers. Battery operated, but by the time they run out of power so have we. I can't do hours of hedge trimming with my weak little arms.

It was a beautiful morning and a lovely outlook onto the frosty cows. Sunday we went back into Canberra to clean for another open home - a few more people through but none of them bought it - and to look at the new carpet we had put in. It's a terrible colour (we didn't see it in person, just a photo) and they did a bad job so we've given them a rousing and they've apparently come back in and fixed it up a bit. Very disappointing ... but the carpet we had was seriously gross so at least it's not that. Then we had lunch with friends and picked number one up from the girlfriend's flat - dropped home via the grocery store - such unusual parental concern was because of a back strain! Fell over while skateboarding home from uni! This is a new pastime and I'm not sure it is an entirely good idea. But I'm glad we were in town and able to help.

And we are a big step closer to proper unpacking with the completion of the kitchen bench. We had to get the cupboard guy around to cut the wooden benchtop - we don't have the proper tools - and he did that, and attached it properly, and then suggested he could finish it off if we wanted him to ... which we absolutely did. And it took him and his offsider most of the morning - he said we would have found it a bit tricky - and because he is a perfectionist it looks amazing, and he put a lip on the back to try and compensate for the fact that the floor is completely not level in every direction, and the wall is also not level but in a different way. 

Cupboard guy's supervision dog was helping as well - she wasn't allowed inside because of the cat so followed my husband down to the shed to make sure he got the right size drill bit. So helpful. Anyway we are delighted with the unit and consider the cost of outsourcing the tricky bits an investment in our marriage, because there would have been bickering. We put three coats of varnish on the top and the knobs, then put everything in, moved the kitchen stuff out of the bookcases and moved the books in. Or at least some of them ... despite our very best culling efforts we do not have enough shelving and now have to either buy more shelves or lose some books. We can't decide.

Little things

We've unpacked and sorted most of the big things (except those kitchen cabinets, that could be a loooong process) so now it's just the endless little things to try and figure out.

This is the wi-fi extender - our house is kind of a capital-T shape, with the modem at one end of the top bar, and the bedrooms on the long upright - so the bedrooms didn't get any wi-fi at all. The extender has fixed that, and wasn't too painful to install, but the sewing room is right at the bottom of the T and still doesn't get any signal. I won't worry about it for a while, it might not be a problem! Depends what I do with my time perhaps.

I'm not sure if this photo shows it but the sunniest spot at the moment is mid-afternoon on number one's bed. The house itself is mostly quite dark with small windows but the two kids' bedrooms are west facing and get this wonderful sun patch in the afternoons. I have been having a coffee and a little lie down there ... often with the cat. Magnet for any sort of comfort.

The shadows are a bit longer and the nights are getting a bit colder but the fire is good. The washing line isn't in a very sensible place for drying clothes, but we did finally figure out the hallway light. It's a motion sensor! This is the hallway all the bedrooms come off, and they thought it was a good idea to have a sensor light that automatically goes off after a couple of minutes, and which doesn't come on at all if you approach it from the bedrooms. It turns out the oven is electric even though the hobs are gas, which we think is a true marvel of modern engineering. It's still turning out fabulous loaves of sourdough.

I went to quilters again on Tuesday, which was lovely - ten ladies this time. And cake for Carol's 80th, so double winning. I had lunch with my old work team in Canberra on Wednesday where I heard about all their adventures leading up to the end of the parliament. I feel a bit bad about leaving them to deal with it without me ... but also felt quite good about not being there. It sounds like chaos, but it was lovely to see them and catch up on the goss. 

We also took the opportunity to re-paint one of the rooms in the Canberra house and we are getting it re-carpeted. It looked very grotty with no furniture, so we're hoping fresh new carpet will tip the balance. Someone must want it, surely.