It is the most beautiful Autumn day today. The cold blast that came from the south over the last couple of days seems to have bypassed us, thank goodness.
Papa has been out to BMS to pick up odds and bods and is now sitting reading the Saturday paper. I notice as I look out on to the side verandah that he is all set up to continue his painting in his office.
Today is the second coat on the ceiling. He's being very good and having regular breaks as his back has been giving him a lot of trouble. He's made an appointment with the doctor for next week for another injection in his back. This gives him a lot of relief but unfortunately only lasts a few months.
Next door is coming on great guns. Yesterday they put up the rails on the back deck and from my kitchen and our back deck it looks very pretty - very Paddington if you know what I mean.
The house still isn't painted yet and as the new owners will be moving in soon, I rather suspect that Lawrence the Builder may get the painters to take over the task he was going to try and do himself.
I had a lovely time at the Garden Club yesterday morning. It was way out at Middle Ridge on the corner of a main road. The garden was very small, just a small covered patio and the narrow bit down the side of the house. The patio was just outside the sitting area in the living/kitchen area and was covered over with a sail. The groundcover was slabs separated with pebbles. Just looked at that word separated. This is a word often spelt incorrectly. If you ever have to write it, remember it has 'a rat' in the middle. Back to the slabs. In amongst the gravel, the owners had planted some small plants. The very small patio was bordered on the one side by the house and on the other sides by the outside fences. Along the fence beside the patio the owners had planted camelias, a gadenia and on the fence itself some star jasmine.
Down the side of the house, the owners had planted star jasmine all the way down and had trained it up quite high. It was a beautiful feature and must fill the area with gorgeous scent when it is in bloom.
When I first arrived, there was a delicious looking morning tea spread out on the kitchen bench which included tiny chocolate brownies, what looked like a hazelnut cake and little quiches. The serviettes, of course, were ones with pictures of plants on them. And the mugs? Gorgeous, gorgeous. They were all different designs of blue and white Spode mugs.
After morning tea and our wee walk around the small garden, we listened and watched a florist giving a demonstration and ideas in respect to making a bouquet. She was a lovely lady and said that she has a 'ministry' in flowers. I'm not quite sure what that entails but would love to know. She has a shop in the Bell Street Mall, just off Ruthven Street, so I shall pop in and have a chat next time I'm in town. She sounded as though she originally came from an Eastern European country.
She also gives classes on flower arranging. Will give that some thought too! I could definitely do with some advice in that area. The collection of 'flowers' she had on the table were unusual. There were two banksias, rosemary, reeds, palm fronds, succulents, gum leaves and some unusual shrub-like flowers.
Here is the bouquet she made while she was talking to us about all the things she was doing.
Can you see how she has bent over the palm-fronds? She bent them over and tied them with florist tape. She also gave a couple of tips about flower arranging. You must strip all the stem that is going to be in water. When you are putting a bouquet together, you hold it in your hand and as you begin to add the different plants to your hand, you make sure that as you add, you add in the one direction.
With the little succulent, she put it on the top of a florist stem and just taped it to the stem because succulents such as these ones don't have stems.
It was a very interesting talk and quite funny in parts. I'm not quite sure what was funny as the battery in my hearing aid decided to die, but I laughed along with everyone else.
Because it was my first visit, I knew only one other person, but I wandered around and chatted to different ladies. They seem a lovely group and I'm looking forward to getting to know them better.
When I started talking with some of the ladies and mentioned our garden out at Cabarlah, they knew the garden well as they had gone there when it was an Open Garden so that was something I could talk forever on.
After the Garden Club, I headed over to Robyn's for quilting. It was a quiet day there as only Jenny and Bonnie were there (along with Robyn). It worked out quite well though as Robyn was able to spend quite a bit of time with Bonnie who had made heaps and heaps of flowers, leaves and stems for a very large border for her quilt. Both Bonnie and Robyn worked away placing everything in between chatting, cups of coffee and lunch.
Today is a quiet day at home with Papa painting and me catching up on some housework. Although it is a bit difficult with everything higgilty piggilty. I've done a big wash which included some woollens so there's a lovely smell of Martha Gardener's Eucalyptus Woolwash pervading the kitchen.
Tomorrow, we've been invited to Sasha and Eleanora's for lunch and for a soup 'tea' we've been invited along with Charis and Neil to Anne and Roger's out at Cabarlah tomorrow evening.
A lovely wee photograph of a knitted radish for you.
Well my darlings I shall away. Thinking of you both as you sleep in your wee white beds as I type.
Love Nanxxxx
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