Fairy house

We've had a lot of freezing cold, cloudy days this winter and have spent far too much time indoors as a result. But today was glorious. The sky was blue, the sun was shining and it actually felt kind of warm (for winter).

So we spent some time in our garden, playing on the swings, digging in the dirt and building a fairy house.

I have been meaning to build a fairy house with Lil for ages, but I always think that I need more time and stuff. Of course that's ridiculous. She got right into it with the aid of leaves, sticks, flowers, shells and berries - all of which were not only right in the garden, but right in the very spot where she chose to build the little house.

I have to admit that I'm not the best at playing (I get sooo bored of 'mums and dads'), but I really enjoyed this too.

Something a little less serious

A catch-up post in dot points:

• Lily is completely obsessed with the Faraway Tree series. She has had it read to her (and listened to it) so many times now that she is talking in Faraway Tree language: "It was simply marvelous." "No, that's just horrid." etc... She is also making up "Saucepan's silly songs." They are quite funny.

• Lil's also been sick for over a week now. She's been up and down in that time and seems to be properly on the mend now, but it's been a long week. Poor kid.

• I am heading up to Sydney on Thursday to do a faculty presentation on my thesis and meet with my supervisors. It will be very useful, but I am sort of dreading it. I know that the list of things that I still need to do will be long and daunting...

• A lovely friend of mine gave us a pressure cooker as a present for leaving her our house to sit while we were in Mexico (they were moving to NZ and needed somewhere to be after their stuff had gone on ahead). It was ridiculously generous since it was just as beneficial to us to have people staying in our place and taking care of the garden etc. But, it has also been a revelation. I LOVE IT. I really like cooking, but it can be quite stressful to try making dinner when Lil is already hungry and is getting impatient and demanding. The pressure cooker means that everything is so quick to make and I can do other things while dinner is cooking. Win, win, win. It also makes cooking dried beans so very much easier, which means that I am resorting to far less cans.

• Lily and I finally planted our bulbs last week. I am hoping that it wasn't too late, as I love seeing the daffodils and tulips popping up in the Spring. I helped Lily to make little labels for the pots, but we didn't make them water-proof enough and they are fading already. Fortunately it will be fairly obvious what they are (if they survive).

• Winter has really arrived here in Canberra. It is cold. It has also been raining quite a lot, which is very un-Canberran. The absence of blue skies is starting to get me down a little - though, of course, the garden is very happy.

• My pregnancy is progressing well. We had a 20 week scan a little while ago and found out that we are having a boy. A new adventure! We are planning to call him Charlie. He is a very active little munchkin - especially in the early hours of the morning and whenever he can hear his big sister's voice.

• I made this banana bread with choc-chips on Saturday morning. It was truly delicious. I can highly recommend the recipe. (But, of course, you can rarely go wrong with anything from Molly).

• That's all for now, I think. I hope that you are well. I plan to get back on tops of things when Lil is back on her feet. Expect some Wintery photos and maybe even a few lunchboxes.
  

Gathering flowers

Yesterday afternoon Lily asked if we could go outside to pick flowers. It was a beautiful afternoon (we have been blessed with the best weather lately) and so we went outside in barefeet and wandered about the front garden picking flowers.

It's funny, native flowers aren't always very big and bold and sometimes they seem to take a while to reveal themselves, but soon we found that our garden was full of colour. So we brought just a little bit of it inside.

I really should remember to do it more often...

SPRING!

Yay! It's Spring time. Welcome back sunshine. I have missed you.

BTW: Do you see that little buk choy flower tucked in amongst the wattle? So, yeah, we forgot to eat our buk choy before it went nuts... at least it makes pretty flowers though.

Fresh start (in the garden)

With the arrival of the frost I decided that it was time to rip out the last of our tomato plants - despite their valiant efforts to keep producing fruit. And so Lily and I went along to the garden shop to buy some bulbs and silverbeet seedlings and then, in a lovely moment of winter sunshine, we ventured outside to do a little digging and a little planting.


It was such fun to watch Lily plant all of the bulbs. Our springtime display should be interesting, to say the least, but it was amazing to see that she really knew what she was doing without any help from me.


Some before and after photos:

Easter

We had a lovely Easter long weekend. My mother and her partner came down to stay with us and spent the weekend on 'operation front yard blitz' - clearing the burnt stuff out of the front garden in readiness for some new veggie patches. It looks a little bare now, but it's nice to have all the dead stuff gone and exciting to think of the future veggie beds.

We also had a picnic out at the Cotter with P's family (and I got to use my new favourite picnic food containers - aren't they cute?). Lily had a ball going on 'adventures' along the river with her cousins (and aunts, uncles & grandparents). She also got a new Easter book that she loves.

Lily barely consumed any chocolate over the weekend. This surprised me a little. I had expected her to be a little more interested (not that I'm sorry that she isn't!).

Mum and her partner may be moving back to Canberra in a few months. This would be great, except for the fact that we would have to move out of their house...

Lily turned 25 months old yesterday, which means that I am late with my letter.

Lily has started falling asleep earlier in the evenings (due to the end of daylight saving) and I'm loving the extra time for reading, doing and uninterrupted conversation. She is also getting up earlier and generally this has also been a good thing too. Mornings have become more relaxed and enjoyable.

Autumn is well and truly upon us and it is glorious. The light is beautiful. The weather is perfect for being outdoors in the day and snuggling up with blankets and tea at night. And the colours of all the deciduous trees are just stunning.

We are heading up to Sydney in the morning to spent time with my Dad and his partner, and to celebrate Dad's birthday. I plan to make him a very rich chocolate cake. Yum.

I hope that you had a lovely long weekend.

A garden story

The snow peas in our garden have finally started producing. I was beginning to think that they would never arrive, but I guess they were just waiting for the weather to warm up.


I was an extremely negligent gardener this year. I bought a bunch of wintery seeds from the Diggers' Club and sowed them in the garden and then, well, I kind of ignored them. I didn't water them. I let enormous weeds grow over them. I was bad. Anyway, then I tried to pull my act together and P helped and things got a little better. Our snowpeas suddenly sprouted, climbed and flowered. Our Asian greens flourished and things seemed to be going very well. Of course, then I was slack again and, sadly, most of our tatsoi came and went to flower before I bothered to pick and eat them (I am planning to eat the one in photo below).


The broccoli was looking great, but now looks like this:


(Any thoughts? I am guessing that lack of water is the most likely culprit).


Fortunately the strawberries are thriving and will be ready to pick soon.


Our rhubarb is also ready and I really should pick it ASAP or it may go the way of our asparagus...



Oh I am so bad.

I have decided to garden on the deck (which comes off our kitchen) for the summer. That way I am more like to be nice to the plants. In preparation I went and picked up some tomato and basil seedlings from our local garden shop today. I was excited to see that they were stocking some from the Diggers' Club. I have been meaning to plant my Diggers' Club tomato seeds for ages now and was feeling a little guilty about resorting to commercial seedlings. Now this seems like a nice compromise.


I also bought a little Christmas tree while I was there. (Yes, it is that little - it is going to sit up nice and high out of little person reach). With all the family function hosting that we will be doing this year I thought that we should make a bit of an effort on the decorating front. I would also like Lily to start enjoying some little traditions and rituals around these family holidays.


I guess this means that I should really be thinking about making some decorations that will last us for at least the duration of her childhood. Any suggestions?