Thursday, May 10, 2012

May 2012

So here we are in May, the year is just whizzing by.

We are finally doing a "makeover" of my sons room which was a combined Christmas and birthday present and involves a major clear out of toys,  painting and some new furniture. It is really changing from a younger boys room to a teenagers hangout and will look really wonderful when it is finished. We are still waiting on a desk from Ikea and he wants to find a really cool poster to put up on the wall.

Fisherman preparing the walls for repainting...

At the same time I have been reading Simplify by Joshua Becker on my kindle. With this in mind I have been really working on clearing out from his room as much as possible, and separating things into piles to give to St Vinnie's or pass onto younger cousins or the refugee association. As the Simplify book suggests I am just planning to tackle one drawer or surface at a time and slowly keep the process going.

For Mother's Day I am going to ask for commitment and assistance to keep clearing out and getting rid of stuff we don't need. (I have tried also asking for obedient children with clean bedrooms but my daughter replied "where do you get them?")

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On the bright side Fisherman and I had a weekend away in the hills at "The Willows" a B&B in Basket Range; this was a 50th birthday present from my family for him. It was a real treat. The house is surrounded by a Cherry orchard and has a cottage garden all around it with beautiful hydrangeas, salvias, fuchsias, windflowers, roses and many other plants. Early May is spectacular in the hills with Autumn foliage, the grape vines all turning golden and cool, fresh apples, crisp clear days and cold nights.

While we were in the hills we stumbled across a international sculpture symposium at the Cedars in Hahndorf. Sculptors from Australia,  the USA, Korea, Japan, Spain and a number of other places were making large stone sculptures on site, on completion they will then be placed in towns in the hills on permanent display. i really liked a lot of it. My phone battery gave up while I was there so I was only able to capture a couple of them.




We visited Barretts winery near Uraidla. Lovely wine, beautiful gardens and views and very pleasant company

Barretts Winery

The whole thing did give rise to fantasies of living in the hills with some property, a large kitchen garden, an orchard, open fires, you know the kind of thing. At the moment we are committed to staying at the coast, close to the kids schools and work. The hills are so attractive but I know I would really miss my beach walks.


On the home front I did manage to do a little op shopping. I know, I know, it is more stuff!
I do need a little jug and some more small vases so I felt these beautiful objects were justified at $5 a pop.


I have been experimenting occasionally with some bread making. I m quite pleased with the results but really need to make it more regularly to get really good at it.


Our next door neighbours gave me some pomegranates. hopefully next year we will have our own. I went through the protracted process of seeding, juicing, squeezing, and boiling up the juice with some sugar to make pomegranate syrup. It is delicious!


I have done a few things in the garden, planted out two kinds of peas, some rainbow chard, cabbages, kale, coriander, lettuces and  a few seedlings of beetroot a friend gave me. Looking forward to be able to pick some of these greens in the coming weeks. The chooks are very happy and we have lots and lots of eggs, we are giving a lot away and still having to think about what to do with all these eggs.

I have gone vego (with fish allowed) alcohol free and chocolate free for May so I will am eating more eggs than usual. So far very easy to be meat and alcohol free but being such a chocoholic I am really struggling with that and have had a couple of minor breakouts.


Last night just before going to bed a big sigh from my son. "What's the matter?" I said. "I have to go to school tomorrow", Says he. "and I would rather be in France." (well der!)



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