Post 245 Mostly botanical

The little bit of rain overnight was enough to refresh the daisies on the balcony's edge but not for the sunflowers. I needed to water those, even though more rain was forecast.

 

 

I managed to get organised to go to the TNT depot on Richmond Road on my way to Pilates to pick up the parcel I wasn't here to receive yesterday. As I guessed, it was the second volume of my blog in print.

Once again, I am pleased with the quality. It serves, however, as a reminder that I still haven't succeeded in ordering the third volume, in spite of several emails to the support line. 

As usual, Pilates was good. I enjoy the Thursday sessions with only one group - four students and the instructor, rather than Friday, when there are two instructors and eight students.  The studio garden is looking particularly lush at the moment. The fig tree has new leaves and there are strawberries on the numerous  strawberry plants.

I diverted to Unley Village on my way home to dispose of a bag of soft plastics and get some ingredients for Monday dinner. I ended up buying some scones - and two sausage rolls from the Dulwich Bakery for my lunch. It was 3pm by the time I got home, and two sausage rolls, a tomato and two scones ended up serving as both lunch and dinner.

The  strawberries in the Pilates garden reminded me of the strawberries waiting to be added to Rabbits at Dawn, so I left the hexies pinned to the quilt and got to work on the rabbits and strawberries.  There was, however, only one strawberry, and rather a lot of hillock to be finished before I could move the hoop on to the strawberry plant. 

The sun came out late in the afternoon, picking out the leaves of the red-leaved begonia.

The flower on the one on the left also comes into its own in the late afternoon.

I had a delivery of a top I bought online. It fortunately fitted into the letterbox - along with a Piecework Magazine returned by whoever I had lent it to. I wish I could remember who that was! My sincere thanks anyway.

I finished a rabbit and the strawberry plant, using the photo taken this morning as a bit of a colour guide,  while watching the 1980 version of The Mirror Cracked from Side to Side, with Angela Lansbury, Elizabeth Taylor, Tony Curtis and Rock Hudson. It was interesting enough to keep me watching. I enjoyed the performances of Edward Fox, Angela Lansbury and Tony Curtis.

It's now raining fairly steadily. Hope my sunflower is benefitting! 

Post 194 Warm and windy

I went shopping at Frewville this morning for bread and a few snacks for the kids this afternoon. They had Australian grapes - not sure where from. I'm guessing Stanthorpe in Queensland. They look fabulous.















It was very warm and windy - a good drying day as my mother would have said. I washed all my merino trousers, possum wool socks and a jumper. I tried to capture them blowing around, but without a lot of success. It was good to open the apartment up and get a breeze right through.

The daisy I bought the other day is opening up beautifully. I love the pointy petals as the flowers first open. So crisp.


Niamh came around 1pm from the orthodontist where she'd had her bands fitted and the others arrived singly throughout the afternoon. Very relaxing for me.

I scanned most of the rest of the 1980s photo album - adding 69 more. I have about half a dozen left to scan, ring-ins that don't belong to the 1980s. The app is proving successful. It doesn't have an edit function for improving the quality of photos so that needs to be done separately.

I phoned an archival box manufacturer in Adelaide this afternoon and they have the photo storage boxes I want so I shall call there tomorrow. In the meantime, however, I can dispose of one empty photo album!

I did not get out of bed this morning when the coo-ing started, but I did put seed down as soon as I was up.

Turtle visited this afternoon and devoured quite a bit. He seems to have a feather out of place - or ruffled - but behaved normally.

This evening I managed to work another pattern repeat on the Serenity project. It is still tricky and requires concentration.  Fortunately I have seen (at least once) the episode of Midsomer Murders I've been watching at least once and can afford to concentrate on the stitches!





It will, I think, get a bit quicker and easier but it will never, I think, be automatic or easy. Very interesting though.

The temperature only reached 29C today, lower than predicted. It is nearly 11pm and still 25C. Tomorrow however, is predicted to only reach 19C.  Fine by me!