life with a cold

I've been half at work and half at home with the flu this week.  It did give me a chance to look at the weedy garden and see what's happening;

 The two self sewn female pawpaws in the back garden are now starting to get lots of flowers and, just by chance, the other tree that grew up under the clothes line is a male so things are happening and baby pawpaws are expected to arrive in spring!

 The lemon tree is covered with fruit and the mandarin is also doing it's best - even though both of them are having to cope with grasshoppers and other nasties.

Lesson learnt - don't buy nail polish when you are not feeling well.....

 or this is what you might get!!!!!

 I also fell into my favourite shoe shop (to see if she had any tissues for my runny nose) and came out with two pairs of shoes.

They don't photograph well, but they are both pretty nice!
I hope I am better next week so I don't have to stay home and go to the shops.

Fruit is good for the soul

In order to boost my immune system, I have been trying to eat as much fruit as possible.
I started last week with these babies:

 put some clementines in a pan and boil them for a couple of hours....

 strain and wait until they are cool and then look at how beautiful they look when you cut them open!

 mix them up with some almond meal and sugar and look what happens!!!  Yum - the book club belles ate about three quarters of it and some hungry lawyers at work made short work of the remainder.

Then, I picked two papayas from the tree in the middle of my front garden

 I was a little concerned about the spots on them and hoped the fruit flies hadn't done their thing with them but look...

what magnificent things they are and so full of enzymes and vitamin C!!

Just so that I could get some protein, I got out my lovely pie machine!  You put some pastry and filling in and turn it on and out them come!!

 and look how delicious they are!!!   yum

Stress relief

This weekend I have decided top have a relaxing time and do as many nice, quiet things as possible.
I started off on Friday night with lovely pizza in New Farm - thin base like in Italy and artichokes, mushrooms etc. plus half a bottle of Sav Blanc.

Then

 A quiet Saturday morning in bed with some of my favourites - breakfast in bed too of course and the weekend Australian.

 And then a bit of a swim and some quiet reading time by the pool with a glass of cold water and Delicious magazine.

 These are my new glasses which are from Coco Song, Italia and were very expensive.  The optician talked me into having multi focal lenses which I'm finding it a bit hard to adjust to - its a bit like looking down a tunnel.  I went to the theatre to see Summer of the 17th Doll last night and had to revert to my old bi vocals so that I could see the actor's faces!  Looks like I'll have to take them back and get different lenses!

This is just another spot I sat and relaxed in on saturday afternoon - reading The Cat's Table which I am really enjoying.

things that are changing

three things are different:  1. my hedge is VERY high, 2. Mr Morrow's windows are OPEN!! and 3.  there is a 2 story building behind him!

When a 96 year old neighbour dies there have to be changes.  Alan left us at Christmas time and yesterday his nieces and nephews had a clean up, which meant that for the first time in 28 hers, I have seen his windows open.  Apparently it made quite a bit of difference to the light inside.
There is a LARGE skip in Bourne Street which is now full of all sorts of things.  Those doing the cleaning up tell me that their grandmothers matching shoes, bags and hats from the 1920s were all still there - each set in an individual hatbox!

weeds are thriving

Because Alan had no children and has left his estate to be divided between nieces, nephews and their children and grandchildren, everything has to be sold.  This includes his fishing shack on the North Coast.  I guess we'll get another GMH (glorious modern home) along the lines of the one beside me.....oh dear, the hedges are going to have to be very high.

in the meantime, it keeps raining and the hedges keep growing!

and I can hardly walk down the side

the pawpaw in the front garden still has some fruit

the pawpaws in the back have flowers

and mr very rich builders house is nearly obscured!!!

Creatures in my life

I seem to have a lot of creatures sharing my life at the moment.  Won/t take photos of those that are flying around the house and garden doing all sorts of devilish things to my plants etc.

the elephant is still calling for a mate by the pool - we nearly had a flood that could have swept him away!

this possum doesn't seem to do much to deter his furry brethren

BUT the devil is better - the pashionfruit vine near him is actually doing very well!!

In this dark and gloomy palm, lives a poss and a rat - which one will win that battle/

I've put the baby elephant out with the big one in the hope that he will feel happier and put his trunk up - hasn't happened yet!

and here I am with the Peachester llamas!!!!!

celebrations and more celebrations

Great excitement here as christmas celebrations got underway!  We start the festivities with a celebration of our baby's birthday 28 years ago!  Who doesn't want a giraffe shaped kettle for their birthday???
Peter got off to an early start with his holiday shirt and santa hat

and then the following day we entertained 12 for breakfast (a monumental feat for me who doesn't like talking before 11am).

THEN came the presents:

and then, in case we hadn't eaten enough breakfast, we had 7 for lunch:

What a lovely couple of days - let's get back to WW immediately!!!