A Busy Time.

Christmas and the lead up to it are always a busy time of year. At the beginning of December we were invited to Alex and Bens school for a special assembly.

 

 

Where Ben received a Principals award ................

 ...........and sang in the schools junior choir.

 The annual visit to meet Santa and enjoy the festivities at Grahams works Christmas party.

A lovely piece of Pork on the Webber ............
 

.......... which, along with other goodies and loads of presents, we took across to Beckys on Christmas morning.

Opening presents was the usual paper chaos but unusually both the boys became engrossed well before all the presents had been opened.

 I love the look of concentration or frustration on Bens face as he grapples with Nano Lego.

Give Alex any book and he is well away. The shirt behind him is mine.

The glass says it all, my sentiments exactly.

What am I going to do with ten pairs of Happy Socks?

Just before Christmas we spent a few days with old friends Val and Rod who are out here to see family and be at their grandson Samuels Naming Day. We joined them for the happy day at a winery in the Hunter Valley.

Imagine everyone's surprise when the naming ceremony suddenly became a Wedding Ceremony for Samuel's parents, Jen and Brad. A great dinner followed with lots of liquid refreshments that necessitated an over night stay. The best part I thought was when Rod made a very unprepared speech in which he referred to Jen and Brad as Jam and Bread!

Adaptations !!!!

Re:- Christmas cake and sherry.

Someone likes to play around with my photos!

I think I like the second one best, thanks Becky.

Christmas.

It must be getting close to Christmas as we have been panicking about the Christmas cakes.

The mixing and cooking of the cakes was put off last week as its been too hot to have the oven on.

Today dawned with a 20C drop in temperature so all the measuring and mixing could get underway.

Tins lined and ready for the oven.

Good old Delia. Actually the book is only a point of reference for Di as this is where she keeps the records of previous years cakes.

To get in the festive spirit we had some of it, spirit that is. Everyone knows that every cake mixed is worth a glass of sherry.

A camera, a glass of sherry and Di don't go well together!!

A second photo record was needed and it was only when the cakes were in the oven that we realized that we had forgotten the final paper wrapping. No wonder I burnt my fingers a couple of times.

Think I need a sherry to help recuperation!! 

The tree fights back! .... and other stuff.

Walking around "the estate" this morning we noticed how lush the garden was following the recent good rains, but also that the recently felled tree is fighting back.

 

 

 It must be the recent rains but there signs of growth appearing all over the stump.

This strange tree is a native hibiscus. The leaves and branches are very spiky but the flowers are really beautiful.

 

The final flower is about hand size with white petals. The petals are striped with pink on the underside and tinged with pink on the inside and with what looks like a raspberry in the middle.

Di also noticed that one of the New Zealand flax plants are flowering.

Very delicate red flowers with yellow tipped stamens.

Water!

For a number of years I have had a mini water collection system off the roof of the little shed where I keep the firewood. This consisted of a couple of tanks sitting on the ground which were connected to the rainwater down pipe and which were very rarely full. This water is only used for the garden.

We have been warned that this year could be a significantly dry one so I decided to extend and upgrade this little collection system so that if we did get rain we could keep the garden alive.

 

I bought two extra tanks and built a strong timber stand to lift the tanks off the floor. This was so that we could get a bucket under the taps I fitted to each tank.

 

 The tanks were interconnected, spilling from one to the next.

My dear wife tended to knock my system and told me that we would never get the tanks full. 

She must have jinxed us as later in the day we had the heaviest rain storm I ever remember. The rain continued throughout the following day and the tanks are now overflowing. I never thought to put in an overflow pipe as I never expected such rain. It even filled up one of the wheel barrows that I had left out.

Of course the ground is now so wet we don't need to water the plants anyway.

Such is life!!

A damp day.

Its a bit damp outside so a chance to catch up although there hasn't been much happening of interest.

We have had a few days of light showers which have helped the garden revive before the next onslaught of heat.

We have been talking about getting a new bed for sometime but couldn't find one that we both looked so Di suggested I make one.

As you can guess, the cost of materials alone were more than for a bought one....

but we got what we were happy with. Unfortunately I don't have any photos of the completed unit with new mattress and topper.

Some photos from the garden.
The bees love any flowers but seem to be happiest with blue coloured ones.

 A tiny bush orchid.

Some of Di's favourite roses.

An unwanted visitor.

Bougainvillea.

 Tiny water droplets and a spider web.

 One of the flowering cactus family.

 

Lovely delicate Walking Lilies. 

 

 They have their eyes on me!!