from the sick bed

I only managed one day at work last week. After a fairly productive long weekend around the house and garden, which saw two trips to the tip, and a trip to the riding school to pick up horse poo for the garden, tuesday night saw me come down with some sort of 'bug'. It has not been pretty around here at all, and even though I have done nothing but sleep and make trips to the bathroom, I am completely exhausted. I am going to have to get some energy fast though, as tomorrow I fly to Melbourne for a workshop on Tuesday, returning to Sydney that night. Oh woe is me!

But enough of the self pity - if I hadn't been sick I might not have had a visit from A, or got to see 'Three Dollars', which A kindly brought with her. Great movie even if the ending was a bit sudden. Also, I got to have lots of snuggles with our latest houseguest 'Winston' the Littlest Sister's Tonkinese kitty kat. He is very affectionate and although we were a little bit anxious as to how he would go with his four legged cousins and vice versa, we had no problems. Although Jasmine was a little outsparkled by the fancy collar little Winn sported (made by the littlest sister).

Winston

Winston's collar

DA has now been lodged...

As you (may) have noticed, the website is down...

This is not a permanent thing, and it will be back!!!

So stay tuned!

oh shyt... (you know what I mean...)

This morning, everything was going great. As I had thought it was supposed to rain today, I figured I would go out and water the garden a little in order to get the most out of the rain, a deeper watering.
'L' came out to assist, as she had wanted to move a small area of earth from the garden to create a little spot to park the bins in (all 3 of 'em), she noticed that there is actually a really bad odour coming from where the sewer vent is...

sewer vent

So on closer inspection, she actually noticed that it was not just a sewer vent with a small overflow of bad air, but it was like the river Mersey back in Liverpool trying to come through the little opening!

See what I mean...

overflow

So, after a couple of calls to some plumbers, the worst one was a plumber at $160 call out fee + $80/1/2 hr... We said 'thanx, we'll let you know' and needless to say, he is still waiting to know...

But, we found 'John' who came out for the lovely price of just $140.... 'WHAT A BARGAIN'!!!!!

Here he is...

john the plumber

So, after about 20-30 mins of digging and shoving an electric eel down the sewer, we were given the 'All's Clear Dear' and permission was granted to flush the dunny and all was well.... Or was it??

On a closer inspection of the pipes, he noted that the thermostat in the hot water system looks as though it is constantly on =(big electricity bill); it looks as though over the many years that this house is (around 80) that there may be a problem with one or two of the connections that needs some sort of attention, and that all up, he liked our house (leadlight windows in particular), and I thought we were paying him to fix the blockage, not to give us his 2 cents worth, (but it was FREE advice).

So, after all that, there has still been no rain, but we are no longer blocked up. I only hope that the next time I am the slightest bit constipated, a mere casting back of the mind to the electric eel should fix things....

no burn dessert

no burn dessert

We had friends over for dinner last night, P and M with little L, and A. I made dessert which we have had quite a bit in recent times - last weekend when K and R came to dinner (made by B) and for Father's day. It is a really simple dessert which requires no cooking, and tastes great. It is just Chocolate Ripple biscuits sandwiched with cream, and left to sit in the fridge to set, and embellished with sliced strawberries. So easy.

it's a jungle

A couple of weeks ago, the back corner of our yard looked like this..

jungle

and has now progressed to this...

de-foresting the back corner

jungle removal in progress II

Although my favourite bit of our garden at the moment is this....

louisiana iris garden

Although it is a work in progress the brick edging gives an indication of what the rest of the garden will look like. The plan with this little bit of the garden is to plant the Louisiana Iris's purchased yesterday at Sydney in Bloom from the Iris Haven stall.

In this photo, horse poo is in place and the little sandstone bird, also purchased from Sydney in Bloom, which will sit amongst the flowering Iris.

louisiana iris garden II

The brick edging came from a pile of bricks which was amongst the jungle in the back corner and is no doubt from the back wall of the garage, which I guess was removed for ease of access when the previous owners were doing the rear extension. Watch this space as we look for ways to reuse these bricks in our home makeover. There is more than enough bricks for the garden edging, and for some reason the bricky who we have asked to do some steps and a retaining wall avoided committing to there use in this work. We are open to all suggestions?

bricks

homemaking

I am having a couple of days at home to catch up on study - my break from uni has been cut short due to an impending supplementary exam. However, I am not off to a good start - yesterday attending Sydney in Bloom with mum, and now concentrating on catching the blog up with our lives. Some time later the garden will also need a weed.

I have been quite consumed with tweaking this and that in and around our house, mainly the garden, although some painting and curtain making has been carried out. For your viewing here are some of the before, in progress, and after photos. Special mention is made of the help - the constantly appearing 'help' in the fluffy fur coat, and the trusty green trousered help.

Painting - before

side

back

courtyard

After
Curtain Making

in the way and cute

pattern matching

curtains finished

In the Garden

potting production

wash dog

b's favourite flower

waratahs

I went to Sydney in Bloom with mum today, and bought these waratahs for B, whose back is making him a bit miserable at the moment. I think we might consider growing some waratahs in our backyard.

I am also considering making a mosaic like this one for the backyard. This was part of one of the garden exhibits at Sydney in Bloom. As we have been clearing out the jungle in the backyard we have been finding heaps of sandstone which would lend itself very nicely to similar creations.

butterfly mosaic

winners are grinners

generally the mail does not bring us much joy these days, its usually bills, bills and more bills, especially now that we are on a self imposed ban from ebay. So you can imagine our surprise with the receipt of a letter congratulating us on winning the Gardening Australia Festival Grand Prize. This generous gift was bestowed on us for taking out a Gardening Australia Magazine subscription. Our prize???? A 323L Husqvarna Trimmer and edger attachment.

When we have tamed the backyard with of course these new pieces of equipment we will be creating the following vege patch and arbor, both exhibits at the Gardening Australia Festival.

vege patch

arbor

Peter Cundell you're my hero! We'll be back again next year to renew our subscription, and could you make the prize either a blower or mulcher this time, I think we're on a lucky roll now.

circus

circus

The circus is in town, well at the local park, which is 2 minutes walk from our place. B and I took Macc for a walk to check it out, but there wasn't really anything to see, just the big tent and lots of caravans, no elephants, ponies or anything, oh well, it was a nice evening for a walk.

ssssunday

this blog presentation is brought to you with a 's' theme happening...

Officially the day commenced with swearing as at 12.01am and mid-view, we discovered we had hired a rather scratched copy of Spanglish.

With six/seven hours sleep we woke to light shower of rain and so took the opportunity to plant out the plants purchased yesterday at the Indian Bazaar, which saw us get totally soaked. Breakfast (raisin toast & a cup of tea). Phonecall to A, and an invite to join us on a Sunday drive, (she might as well have stayed the night) and the 'S' theme was offically born....

Spear....
First stop was a trip to the buddha belly. I had in my mind a way to hang some of the smaller framed pictures down our hallway, without having to put up a heap of picture hooks. I could get one of those timber rods with the carved ends from Bali used to hang quilts, this would require just two hooks to hold the rod, and I could hang the pictures from that, it would be something like a picture rail. With three in stock, a purchase was made of a 3 metre rail that, on the walk back to the car was dubbed the spear.

Seafood....
Next stop was Newport for fish and chips. Unfortunately the seafood shop we had travelled to visit was no longer. Instead it was fish and chips at a seafood takeaway chain. Not quite to the standard of the old fashioned one that has been levelled to the ground.

Sink or Swim....
To get to the nursery at Glenorie we took the scenic route which required a trip on the car ferry.

Ferry View

Nice House

Snake....
Shortly after we got off the car ferry, and still following the 4wd towing a trailler that had also been on the trip across Berowra Waters, we came to a stop. A snake was making its way across the road - we think it was Diamond Python.