42/52

Maggie: We have been treated to some very nice spring weather so far. On Wednesday evening, just before Rob came home from work, the girls wandered barefoot down to the ornamental pear trees that line the drive way. The late afternoon sunlight created a halo around their heads as their hair lit up. Maggie in particular was quite proud of her "big hair" as she put it, as they rarely have their hair loose. There were quite a few photos I could have picked this week but this one of Maggie with her eyebrow arched and the cheeky smile has made Rob and I laugh every time we looked at the photos.
Elisabeth: She'll be very sad when she grows out of this pink dress. With it's full skirt and satin bow it's her absolute favourite dress to wear (and there are quite a few to pick from!) She loves to twirl around in it, but equally she would love to dig in the garden as well.

Joining in with Jodi's 52 portrait project.

Day 22 - Hot

Today was warm. We stayed at home keeping inside where it was cooler. Eventually in the heat of the early afternoon the girls were tired enough to go to sleep for a nap without much fuss. Elisabeth in her cot, Maggie next to me on our bed. After a quick tidy up of the living area and kitchen I joined Maggie and napped for the first time in ages. It was heaven.
Unrelated photos from today.


The girls and their trikes. It's love. Maggie likes to turn hers upside down to "service" it, carefully cleaning everything.


After dinner while I did the washing up the girls joined Rob in the flower garden for a feast of freshly picked alpine strawberries and some weeding. Have I mentioned how much we love daylight savings?

Tomorrow is a public holiday thanks to the Hobart Show, so I am looking forward to a quiet day with Rob home.

Day 10 - Michelia

The Michelia hedge is flowering well this year. I love the furry brown sepals almost as much as the creamy flowers.
A quick post, we've been grocery shopping, the double trolley ride is still a highlight for the girls, and they receive a lot of attention as we go around the aisles. A visit to my parents to say hello to Grandma and Gramps and then the girls fell asleep in the car on the way home. So I've unpacked the car and done a few jobs and have lunch ready for when they awake. I even have managed to write this blog post!
Happy weekend!

36/52

Yesterday we had a pretty much perfect Father's Day. I woke up first and went and got the coffee machine going and collected the gifts for Rob from the fridge and the garden. He woke up on the mattress on the floor with Elisabeth, Maggie slumbered on a little longer on the bed.
The girls proudly gave him the card they made at family day care and a little red takeaway box of fudge, and then preceded to help him eat it! Our gift were three pepper trees and some strawberry plants. After breakfast of toast and coffee we headed outside together to plant them. Rob declared them the perfect present.

We headed over the hill to Cygnet, the car packed with lunch provisions, picking up some fresh rye sourdough at Red Velvet Lounge we continued onto Garden Island Creek to celebrate a birthday (albeit belatedly) with friends who own the most perfect beachside shack. The day was gorgeous, we were all in shorts, t-shirts and Birkenstocks. Lunch with our friends always comes together with the least amount of fuss or organisation, a cheese platter, foie gras and our quickly-cured ocean trout (with lime juice, olive oil and decorated with dill, gherkins and capers) served with the fresh rye started proceedings with a bottle of bubbles. Main course was osso bucco and bbq sausages cooked over the sea-side open fire. We all have gardens so the sides are always impressive, salads, home grown potatoes, fennel, broccoli. The table outside looked over the water, and it felt almost summery with the warmth of the sun and the consumption of red wine. The girls sat in our laps quietly taking it all in, sharing our plates. Wet dogs ran in amongst our legs looking for tidbits.
Dessert was an array of cakes, our Chocolate Guinness cake joined a perfect duck egg sponge filled with cream and strawberries, a Kentish cherry almond cake and a Persian Love Cake! We had to drag ourselves away around 4pm, when the girls were looking a little tired.

Maggie: During dessert she relaxed and was happy to sit on our friend's lap to share her plate of cake. Smiling with her face covered in cream.
Elisabeth: Is more reserved in company, and stayed close to her Papa, preferring to hold onto his knee and just take in the conversation.

Joining in with Jodi's 52 portrait project at her blog Practising Simplicity.

Friday Flowers

The ranunculus has started, and that makes me happy. 

Some of my freesias evaded the slugs. 

Grape hyacinth and our first rose.

More ranunculus and anemones.

Ah, spring.

Spring

Perfect blue sky.

An afternoon sea breeze.

Sunlight streaming into the hut.

Babies in singlet suits.

Bifold doors wide open.

Lawn mowing.

Flower garden bursts into bloom.

The return of the swallows.

Bird song in the morning.

Frog calls at night through open windows.

Gin and tonic.

Home made ice cream.

Lazy afternoon snuggling in the bedroom.

A later twilight.

This weekend almost felt like summer instead of spring. 

Rob ordered some sand to top dress his lawn. The dogs followed him as he wheeled the barrow to the pile left by the truck, and then back to the lawn. When they got too hot they retired to the laundry hut verandah. But all three were blissfully happy.

The girls and I snuggled on our bed with the French doors open.

Sunday, of course, was Father's Day, so after a late breakfast and some baby cuddles, Rob picked up his eldest daughter. We enjoyed a curry for lunch then Piña Colada ice cream (dairy free), then after a cooling head wash for each baby girl we all retired to the bedroom to watch them wriggle and coo. 

The weekend was over far too quickly. 

Late spring hut photos to cheer myself up

Yesterday I came home feeling tired and a little grumpy/emotional.

I have been pretty good up to now. But I wasn't feeling the best and I lay down on the window seat and if I have to be honest, I shed a few tears. Nothing serious, just regular pregnancy symptoms, and general tiredness. Poor Rob. He went outside and braved the cold and rain (after our preview of summer last Friday we've headed straight back to winter it seems!!) to pick me some more of my roses. Which are a delight.

I didn't end up sleeping that well last night (and I know this is only going to get worse!) so feel a little tired still now. I only have 12 working days left after today. Things are starting to press in from all sides as I tick off things on my to do list.

So today I need to post some photos to cheer myself up, shake me out of my mood.

How can you be grumpy if you live here?





So hopefully now I can shake my silly mood and enjoy the rest of my week.

Friday Flowers

The grass is taking off at the moment at the hut. Rob spent a happy day in the orchard with his scythe getting the grass down, although I suspect he'll need to be back not before long at the rate it seems to be growing!

I quickly snapped a photo looking from the orchard into my flower garden and onto the hut. It's starting to look really good now, the lilies have started to get growing and my beds are filling up with flowers.


Nigella and Claudia always like to follow us about when we garden, they particularly like to sit on the paths and sniff the breeze. You can see my nicely mulched rose beds (with pea straw) and behind them our happy almond trees.

I think I will see my first rose over the weekend, I've been impatiently watching this bud develop and colour up- appropriately the rose is called "First Prize".

The roses seem very happy in the clay soil, they certainly get plenty of sun and now they are mulched we shouldn't need to water them much. Finally the ranunculi are going crazy, neither Rob or myself can pick a favourite colour, each is so perfect.


Hope you have a lovely weekend whatever you get up to.

Friday flowers {tulips}

Today dawned grey and a little gloomy, especially in comparison to yesterday, which was a lovely, balmy, 24 degrees. About the perfect temperature! This morning I quickly snapped some photos for a Friday post, only with my iPhone, so hopefully the weather is kind enough over the weekend to take some with the real camera too.

I had looked into my flower garden yesterday morning, and noticed that the yellow Golden Parade tulips were looking to start soon, but one warm day was enough to tip a few into blooming, along with the first of the red Ad Rem tulips.

It's so lovely to see them from our bedroom window each morning (although I'm not sure I need to check them at 5.50am thank you very much Claudia).

I now am impatiently waiting for the other tulips to start properly (the Queen of the Night and the rest of the Ad Rem's) and my ranunculus.

I'm already planning next year's spring planting, with more tulips, anemones and ranunculus and some daffodils. We do have some daffodils, but I planted them under the hazel and quince trees out in the paddock. Apparently they are tasty for wallabies so they're not exactly thriving.

Happy weekend.

Snap it {three}

Just quickly, three daffodils.

Oh Spring.


Playing along here.

Friday Flowers

Finally something to share. I meant to take photos the week before but the weather was so terrible I didn't get a chance to.

My spring flowers have started. Bright red tulips, deep blue anemones, lipstick pink anemones, white anemones, pale blue spring star flowers, nodding Hellebores, and just the last couple of days the pink Claudia tulips have started to expand and colour.

It's so nice to look out our bedroom window and see them in the morning. The blue wrens have been a bit confused by the blue anemones. The poor males are having to compete with 50 bright blue anemones, to which the females are irresistibly drawn!



The vegetable garden is starting to get going too. We're eating fresh silver beet several times a week. The broad beans and peas are flowering which hints of tasty fresh beans and peas to come.
Garlic and shallots are hopefully fattening up beneath the soil, if their leaves are any indication of their happiness.
The carrots and parsnips are starting to actually grow so we may get a few of those too sometime soon.
We're even eating the tops of the Savoy cabbages (we put them in a little late to actually have cabbages).
We're hoping to put some new lettuce seedlings in soon, as well as a new sowing of rocket.
Fine little asparagus spears have emerged, but we will have to be good and let them be for this year. I'm already looking forward to our first harvest of home grown asparagus next year. One of my favourite vegetables.
The orchard has started to bloom, almonds, the peach and nectarine, plums, apricots and now the apples. The alpine strawberries are flowering and expanding too.

Hopefully Friday flowers is now back for the season!

Hope you have a lovely weekend.

Snap it {yellow}

Looking back in my albums I found a little bit of yellow. I need to see these photos, it's a grey old day here in Tasmania. Unsurprisingly all were photos of flowers!

Playing along over here today.

Garden planning {bulbs and roses}

I am so ready for this weekend. This week has been all over the place for me. Work is busy, and I had a few days that were tough to get through. I try not to let work stress me out too much, but this week it did. But by the end of the week I've found some perspective, so it will be ok.

During the week to keep my spirits up, I indulged in some online retail therapy.
My flower garden looks fantastic, but apart from my lilies it's rather empty. So firstly I ordered 250 tulips, 300 anemones and 240 ranunculus bulbs from Tesselaar.

All of these images are from the Tesselaar website.

Next were my roses. Now Rob and I don't see eye to eye on roses. He loathes them with a passion. I however, would love to be able to pick roses for the hut and for friends and family. This partly led to the separation of the two gardens, so that Rob would not have to go near the roses! They are in the u shaped bed that surround the quadrant beds, so even I won't catch myself on a thorn whilst gardening around them. For the last 5 years I have sent away for the Treloar catalogue, which is in colour and mulled over the roses writing lists of my favourites. But eventually I narrowed it down to 40. Ten each of red, pink, yellow and white. They are all hybrid teas, which I know not everybody appreciates, but at the moment that's what I'd like. We certainly have room later to expand!

All of these images are from the Treloar website.

Last Saturday we had another load of soil delivered and Rob finished his vegetable beds. Although not the best time for planting we couldn't resist, so we planted some self-seeded Speckles lettuce and coriander. On Sunday we visited the Tas Farmgate market and picked up some chinese celery, dill and broccoli seedlings from Paulette at Provenance Growers. We also sowed carrot, parsnip, silverbeet, spinach, broad bean, rocket and savoy cabbage seed.

Watering in the speckles lettuce.

Lastly I just thought I'd share a little diagram I drew of our dream harvest year. I've joined in Chantelle's  April Photo-a-day challenge. Today's photo was something I drew. Believe me I don't draw very often. But this was fun. Not so sure about the likelihood of growing tangelos and mandarins in Tasmania, but the rest should be doable.

Happy weekend, I hope to drop by your blogs over the next few days, sorry I've been a bit slack at commenting this week. Well it must be almost beer o'clock! Yippee.

Another late Friday flowers

Sorry I've been a slack blogger of late. With the week away and a lot of work email to catch up on I have been reading your blog posts just not been good at commenting!
Not many flowers in the garden right now. I'm about to order some spring bulbs, well when I say some, I actually mean 1040. Tulips, ranunculus, daffodils, snowflakes, and anemones.
But Rob bought me a bunch of mini sunflowers to make me smile. They are very happy flowers.

Spring hut

The trees in the orchard are flowering, the grass has started to grow, we've got a family of ducklings in the dam, the swallows are trying to come inside the hut to make a nest, it must be spring!
A couple of shots of the hut as we walk around the block.

Monday’s Menu

The weather really dictated what we felt like eating this week.

Monday was a stunning spring day so we opted for a spring risotto of peas, broad beans, asparagus and the essential scattering of mint.

Tuesday saw us home a little later than intended so we had pasta with Rob’s “Aristos” sauce (find whatever’s in the fridge and pantry and make something up!), which was tomato-based with sliced chorizo and green beans.

Despite the soft rain that started falling as soon as we got home on Wednesday evening Rob dressed up in polar fleece and a beanie (my personal BBQ gnome!) and cooked up some sliced fennel, red onion, eggplant, asparagus and zucchini, we served it with some couscous, a tomato sauce and feta.

The rainy grey weather continued so we felt like comfort food, Shepherd’s pie (although it was beef mince so I guess it should be Cottage pie) did the trick! Which meant that at the end of the week we could just reheat the pie and serve it with some spinach!

Saturday of course was the AFL Grand Final Day, and we always pretend to be avid followers of the game just to eat the football food. After picking up vegetables, bread and meat at Salamanca we dropped into Jackman & McRoss, and saw they had a special “footy” pizza. We took it home to warm up for lunch, covered in sliced beef, caramelized onions, cherry tomatoes and cheese. It was delicious, and sadly we ate too much of it! That night after the big game was over, Rob cooked the frankfurters on the BBQ, with some onions in beer! They didn’t taste too bad in squishy white buns with mustard and of course tomato sauce!

For lunch on Sunday I made some guacamole with enough Tabasco sauce to make my lips tingle (no fresh chilies in the house) to eat with corn chips in the sun. Making the most of our extra hour of light in the evening, Rob cooked rib-eye steaks and baked potatoes in the BBQ (are we picking up on a recurring theme yet), and a piece of pork belly for dinner tonight. I think the Weber is going to get a serious workout over the next 6 months!

What has been on the menu at your place this week?

Our weekend:

We've had a quiet weekend, apart from this afternoon we stayed in at the hut the whole time, it was lovely.
But we made the most of our time, yesterday we weeded my lilies (some are still in pots); I seem to have a zillion, and that's only a slight exaggeration, several hundred at least.
Rob made a batch of Seville marmalade, I made lemon curd to put into a doughnut shaped puff (choux pastry again), and we mixed the rest with whipped cream to churn into the most wicked ice-cream.
Today was sunny but cool, after a morning perimeter walk with the dogs, Rob made a big pot of lamb shank and vegetable soup and I used up the egg whites to make almond and also coconut macaroons.
Whilst Rob did some digging, I admit I had a post lunch snooze on the window seat.
But later we headed for a walk at nearby Snug Falls. Both dogs love to walk in the bush, but Claudia got herself all scared over two little girls on the track! It was sort of funny, maybe their tartan dresses were too frightening for her?
She has been a little naughty this weekend, Rob spread some blood and bone under all the trees and she keeps sneaking off to eat it!! Cheeky bugger, it didn't seem to matter if we growled at her, she just couldn't help herself!
Although at least it distracted her from the dam, where a mother duck and 11 of the cutest ducklings have been keeping us entertained with their antics!
Hope your weekend was as relaxing as ours.

Today I know:

• That I’m welcoming the first day of Spring. Even if it’s a little chilly in Hobart.
• I like tangelos, my workmate has introduced them to me, and I love the sweet/sour taste, and they make my hands smell devine.
• Not to dry clean my blazer again. I did it three weeks ago and I still smell like a grandmother, and not a nice smelling grandmother either! It’s my favourite black go-with-everything jacket, made of a lovely soft moleskin fabric, and I can’t bear to wear it!
• I have to attempt to make a croque en bouche on the weekend, as a trial for my niece’s baptism cake. Yikes.
• Our dogs make me laugh. They’re at a funny stage now where they play mind games with each other over their food. Their antics and elaborate ruses to distract each other so that they can steal the other’s food is hilarious to watch. Better than tv.
• That we almost have a window seat. The builder says it might be finished and delivered tomorrow or Monday. I can’t wait. 
• We have our dinner sorted for tomorrow night, our Friday tradition of cheese, good bread and a bottle of red. We picked out two nice creamy soft cheeses and a piece of 24 month old Parmigiano at Bottega Rotolo today.
• My husband makes an excellent beef shin, mushroom and stout pie with mash topping.
• I like to collect the tiny plastic bulls that are attached to bottles of our favourite Spanish red, Torres Sangre De Toro. Each one is in a unique pose, my favourite is the one lounging on his back with his legs casually behind his head!
• This is my 100th post, and you know what, I like blogging, and the friends I have made in this electronic world. I especially like meeting people that I’ve first gotten to know through blogging.  This first 100 posts has seen me through building a new hut to live in and moving in, adding a new furry friend to our pack, and getting married to my best friend in a surprise ceremony for our guests. Can’t wait to see what the next 100 bring and hope you continue to drop by to find out.

Slab = tick

The main hut looking from our bedroom end of the hut.

The laundry/shed hut, which will have a little west facing verandah- perfect for afternoon drinks!

The build continues on. We had a magic day of sunshine before 5 days of showery grey weather, so our builder took his chance and poured our two slabs.
The only disappointment was that we arrived too late to put our hand (or paw) prints in!
The next few weeks will be a bit quiet then the fun begins, I can't wait for the frame to go up, then our little hut will start to take shape.
We'll have to get Nigella a bright orange safety vest, she takes her role as site foreman very seriously!

A little crazy

Do you ever feel a little crazy?

Just excited to be outside in the sun, sniffing the salty air?

Do you love the beach so much, you start squeaking and prowling around in the car on the way there?

If you answered yes to all three you might like to join Nigella on her dog walk.

If this photo doesn't make you laugh I don't know what will.

A second later I'm trying to shield the camera and myself from being licked.

We had a great weekend enjoying the sun in Tasmania, 21°C is roasting down here!