Resting at the beach

I took my cold - and my husband took his bung knee - and we spent a quiet rainy few days at the beach this week. It was a good idea to have nothing much to do (although I did finally join the local library down there! Access to another library full of ebooks, I'm very excited) except some sewing and making airplane models. I went for a couple of short walks and that was about it. The cat was very excited about my sewing and jumped up to lie on the material and help me cut it out. She still has all four paws but it was a close thing.

Speaking of paws, Fred the failed service dog came to art class again. He is very gorgeous and an absolute snuggle tart. 

The rain didn't last down the coast - just a day really - but there was still a big swell. 

Before we left we cleared out the lavender shed in preparation for concreting the floor ... it is a very old shed that we want to store things like star pickets and chicken wire in. Bulky, random things. 

The uprights are mostly quite solid and the tin isn't bad but the floor was completely broken up. 

Of course to get somewhere to put things we had to clear out the potting shed (which was very satisfying, I have been meaning to do that for ages) and there are still piles of stuff everywhere. If it is OK outside then we are leaving outside for now, until the concreting is done and we get ourselves sorted. It's a slow process.

Another quiet week

I'm feeling much better now but still not much energy - and it's been raining and cold - so all in all a pretty uneventful few days. I did make it to quilters and art class on Tuesday, so that's something. I didn't know what to paint so took this photo as I was driving off.

This is the work in progress - definitely not finished but you get the idea! A nice splotchy landscape.

I have been raking leaves in the garden. This not a high priority task but it's perfect for low-energy low-brain days. I can quietly rake away, then stop for a bit, and it doesn't matter. Friday I was going absolutely stir crazy so went into Canberra, had lunch with a friend and went to the Canberra Quilters annual exhibition. It was very good, lots of lovely quilts, lots of nice vendors although I didn't buy anything. I took some photos of quilts I'd like to try and was inwardly rude about the judging! Perfect.

Still struggling on

I'm still coughing and spluttering and completely fed up with being sick! This has lasted forever, or it seems so. I have terrible cabin fever but don't quite have the energy for going anywhere... Never mind, I'm on the up so it can't be long now. 

I did drag myself to quilters on Saturday because I promised I'd do a fabric dyeing workshop (we had tubs of donated plain calico that no-one was going to use for anything). It was super fun, I made up the dyes in advance and we had a happy couple of hours splashing it all about. I was exhausted by the end but it was worth it to get of the house and have a bit of socialising. I now have fifty bags of dyed cloth to rinse, but that can wait for a day or two longer.

We have put up a bird feeder by the garden shed for the king parrots. They are very young or very dumb or very hungry because you can walk right by them without disturbing them. The oak is slowly losing its leaves and the garden is lovely ... not that I do much but wander about in it at the moment.

Knocked over by a nasty cold

So this week has been very dull as I've had a nasty head cold - not the flu, or covid, just a cold - but it's still been pretty miserable. I've got things to do! Gardens to dig! Wood to chop!!! I made it to quilters on Tuesday but was too sick to do art in the afternoon, and missed the author talk at the local library by a local guy that I really wanted to go to ... I even read the half the book. I will read the other half and then talk to him at garden club.

I have been doing very small toddles around the garden for fresh air, and of course to inspect the finished veggie cage! It is very exciting. The wire curves out into the ground to form a rabbit deterrent apron - we might plant it out or just leave it for the grass to grow through. Lots of options. 

And that is exactly all that's been happening, I have been to the pharmacy and nowhere else. The cat has been keeping me company in bed or on the sofa, and my husband has been looking after me very well but it seems like such a waste of time. At least when you're sick and working there's a slight sense of enforced holiday, but I'm on holiday all the time now and coughing up a lung has no upside. 

Pottering at home

It's been lovely this week to potter gently about at home. A bit of gardening, although the wind chill has knocked the fun out of it a bit. I don't mind cold weather but having a gale rip through you is not very pleasant. I went out for about an hour yesterday before retreating indoors. 

I did manage to take some baja sage cuttings - we have a very pretty and healthy plant and I wanted to get some more, but it's not common and I couldn't buy either seeds or seedlings. So I have ventured into (another) unknown world and I'm propagating by cuttings! No idea if it will work but I followed all the instructions and found nodes and dipped in hormones and the rest ... I've done six that I will coddle through winter and see if they live to be planted in the spring.

In even more exciting gardening events ... our veggie cage is being built!!!! It is too hard to protect edible plants from rabbits, parrots, kangaroos and wombats individually, so we are building a big netted enclosure and putting everything in there. Vege beds, fruit trees, maybe some herbs? 

It is 9 metres by 12 metres which seemed perfectly reasonable when we made a little map out of paper but looks absolutely enormous now it's a steel structure in the western paddock. But given that we keep saying things like 'how about a permanent bed for asparagus? how about espaliered fruit trees? how about thornless blackberries? how about cold frames?' it might not be big enough...

Back to the autumn

Even just a week away has changed the landscape into autumn. It's very very beautiful around here at the moment. 

I'm appreciating the time I took to do the last trim and feed of the roses because we're getting a late flush, including some that I don't think have flowered yet during the summer. I suspect there has been some thoughtful planting. 

The dahlias and tomatoes have all died - before we left for Norfolk Island I pulled up the tomato plants and made all the green ones into green tomato chutney. It was quite fun but far too time-consuming to do the day before you go off on holiday and everything in my suitcase smelled vaguely like chutney. I had fun though, and it's very satisfying. Here is an oddly blurry shot of me stripping a cherry tomato bush, in the late afternoon sunshine.

The day after we got back we went into Canberra to farewell drinks for friends who are off to Washington on posting. They most cordially invited visitors but I don't think we'll be going any time soon .... We've put off the planned UK holiday until next year, and we'll have to save our pennies again after that to go to somewhere with proper hard currency ... but it seems a shame not to go. These are the same friends we stayed with in Jakarta in 2012 and we did have a lovely time.

Then on Monday we went back in to catch up with both children  - number two had flown up for number one's birthday party on Saturday. We popped in briefly after farewell drinks, before the party had started, there is no overlap in time between old person drinks and young person party ... but went back on Monday to have brunch, a proper chat, and take number two back to the airport. Then we had to do a very large grocery shop which is more than enough effort for one day. But we LOVE our new car. It is so easy to drive.

Norfolk Island

We have just spent another lovely week on Norfolk Island with my husband's parents - which is why I haven't posted for a while - the internet over there is fantastic but I didn't bother bringing my laptop! It would take away from the time sitting, chatting, having a drink, going for a walk and poking about the shops. 

It was a very relaxing and fun week, although the weather wasn't as good as previous years. I took my togs but was not tempted into the water. I also didn't spend as much time sitting on the verandah chatting and painting ... I changed it up for sitting on the sofa chatting and knitting :) 

This year we overlapped with Brad's sister and her husband for a day, which was an excellent catch up. They'd been there for two weeks, which would have put me into an almost fatal level of relaxed I think. We tried to go for walks but wind, rain and laziness kind of put us off...

How pretty is this. What a lovely part of the world.