At about this time every year . . .

In two days time, it is my birthday and I turn 60.  Who allowed that to happen?  Sigh . . .

Here it is, almost mid winter and we are yet to even look like rustling up a decent first frost.  One morning perhaps a week and a half ago, there was a slight tinge of white way down the back near the dam, but nothing around the house.  Shame, as Dave next door, the source of knowledge of all things citrus, says we cannot pick our mandarins off the tree until they have had a good dose of frost which apparently sweetens them.

The string you see in the photo is part of an elaborate systems of lines and pulleys which  I have patented and the design of which shall remain a secret, suffice to say that when the little bell on the wall of the parlour rings, I know that the white cockatoos have landed.

That's rubbish, there is a large piece of plastic hanging on that line, or maybe not by the look of the empty pegs (the cockatoos have probably stolen it), but it is there to deter the white marauders who, if left undisturbed, can completely strip the tree of every piece of fruit.  They don't eat the fruit, mind you, they just tear it open with their evil beaks and eat just the seeds inside.  The fruit is left in all it's juicy winter goodness on the ground.  We have a flock of the white rascals which live permanently in this area and can be heard screeching somewhere around at any given time of the day.

In the garden, the jonquils are out.

In previous years, most of these came up underneath a solid layer of lavenders.  I dug most of the lavenders out this year and the jonquils are thanking me for it.  I've resisted picking them for the vase, their perfume is so gorgeous in the still cool air outside the front door.  The violets obviously love this time of the year as well.

Just in the foreground from the jonquils is the rose I think is Mr Lincoln.  He has three large and luscious blooms at the moment, which are also adding to the sweet perfume.

DA Graham Thomas continues to get the odd bloom - this fuzzy one looks interesting, perhaps it's a sport that I can register.

One job I did manage to achieve was rescuing the last of the snowdrops from the overground snake bed to the west of the house.  They had already come up and were struggling through an almost impenetrable layer of kikuyu but I managed to lift them without any loss of shoots and they are now in these pots by the front steps.  I'll be surprised if they produce any flowers this year given their shocking treatment of late.  The snake bed now only contains a clump of blue agapanthus, a yellow daylily and a small clump of tiger lilies which are dormant at the minute and lost under the grass.  I will have a go at finding them if I can, will crowbar out the aggies and the daylily, then the snake bed will become part of the lawn again.

One of Mum's zygo cactus behind them, almost finished it's winter show.

Come back up the stairs and in through the front door and I'll show you my next project.

I have been given a quilt to quilt on my longarm machine.  I am really excited and really really nervous about doing it, I just so want it to turn out well.  It swirls around inside my brain morning, noon and night, will I do it this way, will I do it that way, I know I'm totalling overthinking it, but I'm very determined to master this craft.   I've even been doing online classes on Craftsy, which I've found really inspiring.

Here it is, not basted yet.  Bit of overload on the power point system in the corner?

And I bought myself this to save my busted ankle -

It's a drafting stool, so can be adjusted really high.  Various other gadgets, templates and rulers have also been purchased and ordered and the real work will begin shortly.

With lots of assistance from my two constant helpers.

Disconnection . . .

I sit outside in the morning sun.  Warm morning sun for winter.  I sit on the edge of the front verandah, doing my knitting.

Sometimes I sit with my feet in the garden bed, as above.  Sometimes I sit with my back to the verandah post and my feet up on the verandah.  Either way, I struggle to inelegantly get back up on my feet - can only be done from a crawling position.

I sit like this, because the chairs are already taken.

In front of me and slightly to the left is DA Anne Boleyn.  With one large winter bloom -

dangling downwards on the spindliest stem you'd ever see.  No, actually it's not the spindliest, every one of my roses is spindly.  I hope it's because not many were given a haircut last year and are waiting for a good one this year.

I look at Anne Boleyn in disgust.

The violets are flowering along the path.

I resolve to dig out the standard Icebergs in the front garden and throw them on the next bonfire.

I have completely fallen out of love with my garden.

Autumn . . .

I had a gorgeous visitor to the garden a few days ago.

Lovely thing!  It spent ever so long flitting around the Hebe in the front garden bed.

Elsewhere in the garden, the jonquil bulbs are all coming up.

These are around the base of the buddleia alternifolia.  I swear I only planted four or five . . . I'm guessing they are multiplying and also that my random digging every now and then has moved them around a bit.

Life here at the moment looks like we are looking at it through a smoky lens.  Which indeed we are!  At this time of the year, we're allowed to burn off our garden/property rubbish.  And everyone is - even Mike turned into a pyromaniac this morning and sent up some smoke signals.

And on top of that, the authorities are doing official hazard reduction burns - read volunteer bush fire fighters having great fun burning stuff in the bush!

So our sunset today looked like this -

and our horizon looked like this -

Yesterday was my son's birthday.  And today was Mother's Day.  These two occurrences have gone hand in hand many times over the years - my baby was born fifty three minutes too late to arrive on Mother's Day thirty two years ago.  We had a big family lunch yesterday at The Mean Fiddler pub with many drinks and much fun.

This morning, for Mother's Day, Mike woke me up from a sleep-in with a pot of tea and a nice bit of crumpet.  

So I took a photo to remember it by -

Get your minds out of the gutter, you lot!!! :-)

ANZAC Day . . .

My sister wrote a lovely post on her blog yesterday about my family's rather unique connection with this Australian celebration.

At the risk of becoming far too personal and completely off the gardening subject, I'd like to show you a few more photos that we came across when researching our uncle at the time of making the website dedicated to him.

This was taken in 1908 -

and shows my Grandfather and Grandmother with their young family at that time.  Their eldest son sits at the left of the photo.  I get the feeling that he is holding firmly to the britches' waistband of his little brother beside him!

By 1915, this young man was quite the spiff.  He had his portrait taken just prior to signing his enlistment form and leaving his family for good.

Before he left, he apparently gave a copy of this photo to a number of young ladies that he knew!

By the time he was in France, his youngest brother, my dad, had arrived.  The next family photo we have was taken at Christmas, 1922.

That little blond urchin in the centre of the front row is indeed my dad.  And to the left of him is his sister Nell, whom we will farewell on Monday.  And behind her is the little brother whose britches were being held in the first photo.

My regret is that when all these folks were alive who would have remembered their eldest brother, that I was too young/not aware/not interested to ask about their memories of him.  I wish I had, I would love to have heard first hand about him.

Thank goodness for family members who have kept and preserved all these old photos.

Today we're going to play a game . . .

. . . it's called 'Find the Stick Insect"!

First prize is one weeks holiday at the Kurrajong Garden and free use of a weeding fork.  Second prize is two weeks holiday . . .

Weeding continues apace, the bed in front of the verandah is almost done, the most prolific 'weed' there was the determined seaside daisy - once upon a time, I can remember actually planting it in my garden, many years ago and quite a few gardens ago - what was I thinking?

Since moving here, I planted a small Japanese anemone or windflower, a pink single, I think I've had a picture or two on here, it's on the easterly end of the verandah bed, around the corner and in front of the fishpond.  Planted it a good metre from the corner.  When weeding the other day, found it has turned the corner and is a good six inches or so out into the main bed.  We plant things that seem like a good idea at the time, but later we wonder why.

Further along the verandah, where the Stick Insect lives, is DA Leander, still flowering -

Glorious blue autumn sky!  The sun is still warm but the evenings are getting cooler, I have even resorted to the electric blanket at night, but that is mainly on account of my aching ankle.

Further round the garden, along the front of the house, the bank of violets has recovered from the heat of summer and is starting to flower again.  I particularly like the white violet in the foreground, which prolifically self seeds, especially in the gravel path.  

Today I thought I would clean up around the hedge at the side of the garage.  It's growing way too high, it's supposed to be used to hide the garbage bins but it almost hides the garage!  I wish I was game enough to fire up the chainsaw . . .

Anyway, I figured a clean up around the bottom would be good, got my rake out to rake up the fallen leaves left over from Mike's last hedge trimming effort and look what I raked out from underneath -

Where did they all come from and how did they get under the hedge?

I was slightly interrupted in my clean up by the most enormous garden spider I think I have ever seen.  One of those common brown ones, I must have removed the camouflage of its home when I pulled out some weeds, my first sight of it was as it walked ever so slowly across the gravel towards the hedge and a close look revealed the multitude of baby spiders it carried on its back!  I guess that means it's a she!  She came out of here -

and it's a wonder she fitted in!!  B - I - G spider . . .

To finish on a sad note, our dear Auntie Nell passed away yesterday.  She was 101 only 9 days ago.  Ironically, I had a message from my sister in law last night to say that they have arrived in Ieper (or Ypres) and will today be travelling to the place on the Western Front where Nell's (and my dad's) oldest brother lost his life in 1917 in the Battle of Messines.  How amazing that there are almost 96 years between the passing of these siblings.  I have always felt that Auntie Nell was my link to my Dad, who died in 1986.  While Auntie Nell was still here, somehow Dad was too.  It truly feels like an end of a long era.

Mike and I will travel up to Dorrigo on Sunday for the funeral on Monday.  It's going to be very sad.

Inspiration . . . .

You may recall my previous post regarding my credit card woes.

My bank has kindly credited my account with the amounts that appeared, but today I received a letter from them with a form I must fill out to officially dispute one of the transactions.  Enclosed with the letter was a copy of the invoice from the store in the United States where this transaction was made, together with a copy of identification of the purchaser, who by now I guess is in possession of his new Bulova Watch, his Citizen Watch and his new flash Nike Trainer Running Shoes.

I opened this letter, addressed to me as Mrs Juliet ******* and I have to laugh that they need me to formally advise them that I did indeed NOT purchase these items.  Let alone have them sent to me in SINGAPORE!!  What an absolute star Mr Vincent Gie is!!

I can tell you though that it is somewhat creepy to see your credit card number on someone else's card, right down to the supposed security number on the back.  Well, it was my credit card number, it is no more and I'm guessing it isn't my friend Vincent's credit card number any more as well, he's probably moved on to any number of other poor unfortunate victims' cards.  How many watches does one little Singaporian need anyway?

I used to buy myself gardening magazines on a fairly regular basis.  Then in the last year or so, I haven't bothered.  A good indication of my lack of gardening mojo.

I buy my sister a subscription  to a home decorating magazine for her birthday each year.  We were discussing on the phone some weeks ago the fact that everything is online, you can read a magazine on your iPad these days, page by page, but never hold it physically in your hands.  I asked her if she wanted to still receive it each month in her letter box or read it online.  No, she would rather get the magazine, even if she is running out of space on her bookshelves.  She loved to be able to refer to it later, to sit in the sun and read it slowly, or put it away and peruse it at her leisure.  Then she said something about how she thought it was her way of staying inspired, that inspiration for the decoration of her home, which is gorgeous I might add, didn't just come out of the blue, she needed to see what's out there, to see what other people have done and to find ideas that she could use or that gave her inspiration to make up her own ideas.

And as she said it, it dawned on me that I  am the same about my garden.  The magazines I used to buy, whilst not always applicable, gave me ideas and started my brain thinking about plants and plantings and accessories and all the other joys that come with making a garden.

I was depriving myself of this important inspiration.

So that very day, I organised myself a subscription to perhaps my favourite gardening magazine, The English Garden.  Yes, I know the seasons are all wrong, that their summers are so cool compared to ours and that their winters can include snow where ours here don't, I can cope with all that, but I am always inspired by something that I see between the covers of this magazine.

And my first issue arrived today.  It's all about the Chelsea Flower Show, and I think I need to visit that one day.  Even the ads I find interesting.  And inspiring.

Pity Mr Vincent Gie didn't get into gardening, instead of the rubbish he's doing at the minute . . .

Echinacea seeds, anyone?

Many of the plants in my garden are self sown.  It's a fact that gives me much joy actually.

However, a lot of it stems from the fact that I am an abject failure when it comes to dead heading.  Things that have well finished flowering are left in all their deathly glory.  Part of the problem lies in not knowing how much to chop, part of the problem is the sheer volume of dead heads that need dead heading and part of the problem is not a problem at all.  I just love to find little seedlings sprouting up in the garden which when moved and/or nurtured, become  legitimate members of the garden society.

I'm also stingy.  I buy plants that I know will multiply.  I bought one Acanthus about four years ago, I now have at least six clumps of Acanthus.  I bought one Echinacea and now have them everywhere.

Speaking of which, hmmm, yes, I'd say they have definitely finished -

a few late bloom but mostly done.  But I don't see dead flowers, I see another million Echinacea seeds waiting for me to collect.  I don't need to collect them, I have more than enough Echinacea plants in the garden already, but I just can't snip them off and bin them.  So I stand in front of them with my secateurs for a minute, then I hobble off inside and find a bag into which I pop the dead heads as I snip.  Makes for slow progress but within a short period of time, I have the makings of another million Echinacea plants.

When I don't dead head the roses, which is often, I'm sometimes rewarded with colourful rose hips.  Hey, I don't mind looking at them, maybe it's not the done thing in all the good gardens of the world but it's okay here.  The joy of this is also that eventually they dry and fall and I'm at the moment watching with interest half a dozen rose seedlings which have come up in the garden.  One I'm particularly watching has come up just in front of the DA Lucetta, which I'm sad to report is looking very sick at the moment.  It's had a small flush of blooms but nothing like previous years.  That's it behind the dead Echinacea in the photo above.  Sad . . .

I'm lucky that I recognise a lot of the seedlings that come up.  The gravel path seems to be a favourite place for sprouting, at any given time there can be a dozen lavenders, both French and English, countless violets, johnny jump ups, aquilegia and seaside daisies, not to mention butterfly bush or gaura which is fast becoming a weed in my book and is dispatched along with the other weeds.

Speaking of which, I have again made some progress with the overgrown western bed.  In a thick carpet of summer grass and kikuyu, I found my Dutch Iris have come up and I managed to careful weed around them, but wasn't so lucky with some ranunculi who were at a one leaf stage and I managed to yank quite a few out in my enthusiasm.

Autumn is definitely in the air.  I got up last Wednesday morning and put on a warm jumper.  For the first time in probably six months.  This is the best time of the year to be out in the garden, it's the best time to plant new things, when the ground is still quite warm but the sun is no longer shrivellingly hot.  The sun is moving steadily into the northern sky - a month ago our sunsets were over Bowen Mountain, now they are over Bilpin and Mountain Lagoon.  Here's yesterdays -

Today I will try to finish the weeds in the western bed.  I'll give the roses there a bit of a tidy up, a bit of a dead head (yeah right) and then I think I will empty my bag of collected Echinacea seeds around them.  It's about the only place in the garden where they aren't growing already.

Here's Graham Thomas on the corner of the verandah, looking lovely and blackspotted!

And Mary Rose showing the effects of all the rain we've had lately - but still she flowers on!

This afternoon, I'm off to an appointment, a new strategy to try and find some flexibility and stability in my ankle.  I desperately hope it works, I've got gardening to do!