Garden progress!

I had to break my loose "no mid-week blogging" (is Friday really mid-week...?) rule to let you guys know that I have finally weeded not one but TWO garden beds around the house!  And discovered all kinds of plants gasping for air amongst the weeds.

I haven't shared many photos of these areas because frankly I've been embarrassed at the state of them, and they're hardly picturesque: rampant weeds and grasses choking everything else.

But - behold!

Of course, as usual I forgot to take any before photos.  Because that is how I do.  A renovation blogger I am not.  But I'm sure you can imagine the dense thickets of weeds.

It's obvious that these were once well tended and well loved garden beds, with quite a variety of little cottage plants and various bulbs.  Not to mention the ubiquitous hydrangeas.  It's all been sadly neglected for quite some time but never fear!  Prue is here, with my sporadic enthusiasm, to save the day!

Not very prepossessing right now but just wait until these plants pick themselves up and fill in the empty spaces.

Tiny little jonquil that was well-hidden before I started

I'm not sure what these little pink flowers are called.  We had some at my childhood home and Mum used to call them kiss-me-quicks I think.  And henceforth that is what I'll be called them until I know different.

Lots of little bulby things poking themselves sunward.

Much better.  I probably could have moved that washing basket before taking this.  But I didn't.

Incidentally, check out the weather.  By the time I was finished I was down to a t-shirt (and jeans! Don't worry.  We live too close to a main road for anything less).

The other garden bed I weeded.  Poor plants.  I found lots of little violets and even a maidenhair fern in the corner!

In unrelated garden news, isn't it nice that one member of the family is spoiled for choice when donning her gumboots.

Taking Stock: Winter

Inspired my my newest favourite blog, Sydney Shop Girl, I decided it's time to Take Stock.  I used to do this occasionally on my old blog and I like how it prompts you to think of various things that you mightn't otherwise.

Making: no progress in the garden whatsoever.  The weeds however are making leaps and bounds.  Why does everything go dormant in winter except the blinking weeds?!

Cooking: more meat than I ever have in my life.  Can now knock out a very acceptable roast with little to no effort.  Tonight: pork.

Drinking: a bottle of Monteith's pear cider.  Eminently drinkable. (It's ok, it's 6.45pm here) (it's also taken me more than 24 hours to finish this post so now it's 1.00pm here and I'm not drinking anything) (I am, however, apparently very partial to a parenthesis today)

Reading: nothing at the moment.  I've just finished a whole pile of biographies of the royal family which I loved (for unexplainable reasons) and am now stumped for what's next.  Open to recommendations, will try anything.

Trawling: car sales websites in anticipation of updating the old banger I've been driving since we arrived in NZ.  A functioning heater becomes a more pressing necessity by the day.

Wanting: a Kathmandu puffer jacket.  AND they're having a sale.

Looking: at the carpet and wondering if A will ever allow me to vacuum again.  The vacuum cleaner wakes her up when she's napping, and she is terrified of it and cries if I vacuum while she's awake.

Deciding: whether to just go ahead and buy the damn jacket.

Wishing: I had all the time in the world to do all the things I want to do.

Enjoying: my little girls.  I really am.  I have had some tough times this year, especially with A, but at the moment it all feels manageable and fun.  It's amazing what a solid few hours' sleep can do for the mood.

Liking: the inexplicable and effortless weight loss that had me returning a pair of size 10 jeans for being too big.  Yes I have wormed myself, thanks for asking.

Wondering: how to convince B that a Kathmandu puffer jacket is a smart investment.

Loving: life.  

Pondering: why both my girls keep getting a fever every week that then turns into nothing.  Is it something underlying?  Is it their immune systems doing their job and fighting off all these new NZ bugs?  Should I just give them paracetamol in their Weetbix every morning?

Listening: to the weather on the news.  Cold, cold, cold.  Wet.  Cold.

Considering: whether to have a Tim Tam for my lussert (lunch-dessert for those uninitiated)

Buying: plant pots, picture hangers, nappies, cardboard files, all the exciting stuff.

Watching: the fire.  So mesmerising.

Hoping: that A continues with this good run of sleep.  I'm cautiously saying that she's turned a corner.  It's not amazing but it's far better than it's been in a long time.

Marveling: at our view, as usual.  I love looking at the mountain in the early morning and the late afternoon when you can see all the wrinkles and folds.

Cringing: at how much I keep eating at lunchtime.  No sandwiches for me.  Bring me the huge bowls of steaming soup or pasta or last night's leftovers.

Needing: to go through all the drawers and cupboards that I wildly threw stuff into when our boxes arrived - can you believe that was almost a month ago??  Where does the time go?

Questioning: was that really a month ago?  Can that be right?  That means it's less than 3 months to A's first birthday.

Smelling: the remnants of dinner.

Wearing: all manner of soft elasticated items.

Noticing: everything.  The light through the grass, the fat rolls on the back of A's fingers (heaven I tell you), a tiny bed of moss growing next to the paddock gate, steaming rising off my cup of tea, the bliss of snuggling down into my soft fluffy bed, it's all enormously pleasing.

Knowing: that that kind of stuff is probably pretty dull for everyone else to read, but facts is facts.

Thinking: about cleaning the house.  Which is almost the same as actually doing it.

Admiring: my newly-hung pictures.  Lots more still to hang but it's always fun figuring out where everything should go, and then admiring them as I walk by.

Getting: irritated with how many businesses make it so hard to move country.  I can't even buy Nespresso pods without having to ring them to change my address.  And I'm listening if anyone has any ideas on how I can get bloody Spotlight to acknowledge any of my correspondence telling them to stop sending catalogues to my old address.

Bookmarking: comfort food recipes.

Opening: endless jars of baby food.  I gave myself a break while we were in transit and just gave A jarred food and now - horror - it's all she'll eat.  She actually shuddered the other day when I gave her something I'd cooked.  Humph.

Closing: my Australian bank account.  It's the end of an era!

Feeling: warm with the fire at my back.

Hearing: some rubbish on the TV that B is watching.

Celebrating: that B is off work again, hopefully for a few days or more.

Pretending: that I have a reason to keep buying Horse & Pony magazine each month.  If nothing else it's certainly reminding me of everything I've forgotten.

Embracing: winter in all its glory.  Now come on with a big dump of snow!

Of teeth, pheasants, and home decor

Well, we're officially "over the hump" of the shortening days.  Winter solstice here was a beautiful day, which promptly led into the following few days that looked like this:

It's brightened up again and it's cold.  We're burning through the wood at a rate of knots and will need to get another load in very soon.

B is off work briefly which we're all enjoying, although for him it means replacing long work hours with trying to tick off as many things as possible from his to-do list around here before he returns to work.  Wow that was a long sentence.

I've been pottering about in between baby/toddler sleep times trying to find places to put things, and starting to think about those faffy little bits and pieces like hanging pictures, decorative plants, and so on.

A hanging basket at the front door is a small start.  The garden beds around the house are absolutely overrun with weeds which I'm just trying to ignore as I have, like, no time to attend to them.  Well, I could be doing it right now but... I'm doing this.

We went to watch the rugby on Saturday night (the first match of the Lions Series I think?  NZ won by a decent margin) which was good fun.  Personally I would have liked to see a closer match, more of a nail-biter.  No one else felt that way though.

We had B's birthday earlier in the week, while he was still working, so it was celebrated quietly.  I made a packet mix chocolate cake decorated with Smarties which were promptly picked off by J.  A seems close to crawling, and is saying "mum mum mum" quite distinctly - has been for a while in fact - but I think it's more a whinging sound than her actually being aware that she's saying "Mum".

Oh and she has a tooth!  Or possibly three!  The first one popped through at last this week and I know there are at least two more imminent.  Must remember to check.

I don't share many photos of the inside of the house but I've made an exception below because I'm so proud of how J's play area has worked out.  I guessed and hoped that we'd be able to squeeze her stuff in here at the end of the living room behind the couch, and it's perfect!  She loves her little area, and I love the fact that the couch shields it from the rest of the room so if she's made an unholy mess I don't have to stare at it (and/or tidy it up eight times a day because apparently I enjoy participating in thankless tasks when I could be using that time to weed the damn garden beds but hey).

What were we talking about?  Oh yes.

Soon enough A will be in there too pulling all the baskets out and eating the crayons and so forth so we might have to rethink then but for now it's working well for all of us.

My mother-in-law took me to this amazing secondhand store or, more accurately, warehouse in town the other day.  There were racks and racks of beautiful hand-knitted jumpers and cardigans for babies and kids.  I got a couple for the girls, including the one pictured below.  Our time was cut short because I had the grumpy baby with me who was fresh out of rusks.  I need to go back solo asap and have a proper rummage.  There was sooo much good stuff there.

In wildlife news, the other morning we were pottering around doing the breakfast routine when what should go strolling through the house paddock but a FREAKING PHEASANT.  Needless to say I leapt (quietly) for my camera and took about fifty photos out the window.  Unfortunately it kept far enough away that I couldn't get a decent shot but here is evidence below.

B in typical fashion wanted to shoot it.  I mean.  Seriously.  Are we major hillbillies now or what.

Right, time to wind this up.  I'll leave you with the soothing view from our back fence.  Can you believe we have daffodils popping up in the paddocks already?  I thought they weren't supposed to emerge until spring?  I'm not complaining, just worried about the many frosts in the near future.

Anyway.  Soothing hills.  Ahh.

Let's go back to the start

What a couple of weeks it's been.  Busy.  Very busy.

All our things are here, and most are now in place.  We're pretty well settled in.  We have a huge amount to get rid of - the consequence of moving to a smaller house - but mostly everything has fit where we imagined it would.

Unbelievably, poor J got sick the very day our container arrived.  She had to spend the day snuggled on the couch at her Nan's, who was luckily available for last-minute nurse duty.  Then A came down with the same bug a couple of days later, and do you what's fun?  Trying to unpack dozens of boxes with two feverish and SERIOUSLY clingy kids underfoot.  Oh wait.  No.  That's not fun at all.

But we got through it and are (touch wood) all back to fine fettle now.

Speaking of, please excuse me this small boast.  I for some reason decided to try on a pair of pants that haven't been even close to fitting me since well before J's birth.  Up went that zip!  Snap went that button!  They were even on the loose side!

This is through absolutely zero concerted effort.  Needless to say with everything else that's been going on, I haven't kept up the 5:2 for some time.  Turns out though, that the magic combo of carting wood daily, stressing out, chronic sleep deprivation, and carrying around two heffalumps really burns the calories!  I'm not far off my pre-kids weight (aka the first time I thought I was really fat *eyeroll*).

So, look out for my book coming out later this year.  I might call it something catchy like Stress, Carry Wood, and Don't Sleep: How To Get Your Pre-baby Body Back By Moving Internationally.

Now, being reunited with all our things, I can finally share the photos I took back when we first arrived.  Looking at them now I can't believe this was only two months ago.  So many leaves on all the trees!  So much grass in the paddocks!  Not to mention all the jobs around the property that have already been done.  It's pretty gratifying to see how much has changed already.

So, here come the photos.  There's quite a few...

Oh look, this could be New Zealand all misty but it's actually one of our last mornings in Perth.  Aw.  Kinda makes me feel a little nostalgic for the place.

Ok now this is NZ.  Bucolic.

The rosemary bush, the small shed, the vine-infested tree behind - all gone.  The driveway has a new load of dirt on it and we've planted a hedge around the lawn.  Not to mention the post and rail fence that now divides the drive from the orchard.

I was, and still am, so enchanted by the mossy, licheny everything.

Apples!

Feijoas! (but - don't tell anyone I said this - blergh)

Hydrangeas!  I walked around so thrilled to have bushes and bushes of my very own hydrangeas.

Yes, Prue, it's lichen.

The leaves were only just starting to turn.  That tank has gone from that spot as well, now I think of it.

Ol' curly top.

Ok this really is too many lichen photos, sorry you guys.

I was really excited.  I said to B, "This is like the soil we've been buying from Bunnings!  And here it is just on the ground!".  He was like, "Yeah".

Yup, very excited.  About everything.  Still am.  Just better able to mask it now.

Photogenic imperfect apple.  But also a sign of coddling moth issues.

Well, that was a very happy trip down memory lane for me.  It's fun being reminded how much of a dream come true this move has been.  I drive down our road and gaze at the rolling paddocks, and the big old mountain, and continue to feel almost disbelieving that we live here.

J calls, "Hi cows!  Hi sheepies!  Hi dee-are [deer]!  Hi fossies [horsies]!" as we drive past.  These are no longer animals she knows from books but ones that she sees every day in real life.  None of this will be a novelty to her, these are her childhood memories being made.

This is exactly what we wanted for our kids, and for ourselves.