Starting to breathe out

I've (nearly) done the taxes, offloaded several items to the local Buy Nothing group, tidied up several more drawers and taken yet another boot full of stuff for donations. I've tried conquering the fireplace - I am not very good at lighting it yet, it takes more attention than I feel it should, but I'm using a scientific approach to find out what works. My Dad did it with a single match of course, but he's gone home, and I have to figure it out myself.... But it's worth it. Even though we haven't had any below zero temps yet, the firelight in the corner is just so lovely, it's worth the agonised staring. I tend to fiddle with it too much, I think the secret is just to leave it alone.

We actually had some rain this morning - 2 mm, but we take what we can get - and the garden is looking very autumnal. My husband bought some pansies for winter hanging baskets that look fabulous, although he is super pissed off about the pansies that went into the big pots for winter colour. Something has eaten almost all the flowers of them, apparently "that bastard possum" which is a variety I am unfamiliar with. Why would anything just eat the flowers? Are they tastier? Don't possums eat fruit?



I am not sure what we can do about it. Possums are protected here (in NZ we would just catch it and drown it (well, truthfully, I only did that once in NZ, and felt very guilty)) and we can't net the pansies, surely. They look quite feeble though.



I have also been for two runs, where I realised how fat and slow I am, but the weather has been very warm while we wait for the rain to come in. We've known it was coming for two days, and it should have been more than a morning's worth....



So I am generally starting to wind down and actually realise that I am on holiday. Still quite a few more chores on the list, but it is nice to do them in the peace and quiet.