Reading won't solve your problems. But then again, neither will housework!

It's been a very pleasant week weather wise, until today and now it's all turned to custard. And as they say in Games of Thrones. A. Lot. Winter's coming.

I sit out on the deck most days with a cuppa and more often than not I have a wee visitor, a friendly fantail. I love these little birds, such characters, I love the way they flit about and chirrup. They remind me of the tits back in England (and no I'm not referring to my fellow countrymen still living there!) They are of a similar size and colouring.

I love the expression on his face, "Is this my best side?"

Echo was giving me the eyeball, so she got snapped too.

I've been a bit of a domestic goddess, I don't know what came over me on Monday but I did shit loads of jobs! I sprayed the weeds in the garden, I still need to do the drive, the garden alone took three backpacks of 18 litres. And there's less to spray now we've mulched some areas. I did three loads of washing and I baked a cake!

A feijoa and coconut cake. I'll share the recipe another day.

This cake, by the way, was nearly never to be, as I carried it over to the oven, the bottom fell out of the cake tin just as I placed it on the stove top!

Luckily I managed to clip the base back in without losing too much cake mix. What oozed out got scooped up and plopped back in the tin. There are advantages to those ceramics hob tops. Good job it was clean.

As you can see, we've been tucking in to it.

I even made some bread and butter pickles. The recipe is on the blog somewhere, all you need to do is search for it. I didn't follow the recipe exactly, I kinda winged it and I might have put in too much cayenne pepper and turmeric. It's quite spicy, we like spicy in this house so it should be good.

I can't remember if I shared these courgette pickles that I made a few weeks ago or not, I made 6 jars, I could only reach 3 jars, I'm a short arse.

I'll share the recipe for this another day too.

I've been reading a lot and crocheting, crocheting can sometimes be a bit difficult when the cat thinks your yarn is for laying on!

 

I'm really loving how this is evolving, I want it to go on the spare bed and I hate to say it, I might not have enough yarn!! Won't it be terrible if I have to go out and buy more!!

 Monday the 9th was the fifth anniversary of losing Bonnie. It's hard to believe that five years have gone so fast. We still miss her, she was such a smashing girl, even when she was stealing my knickers and leaving them on the drive for all and sundry to see!!

 

 After she died we bought a rose, called In Loving Memory. 

I have to say it's not the best performing rose we have in the garden, but this one lone flower has been blooming all week.

 We buried her in the garden and she rests under this stunning Acer, you get the best view of it in the paddock, the prevailing winds come from the south west; and so the side that faces into the garden is a tad windswept

 There are even some bulbs out!

 And now for something to make you giggle, well it might not if you're a Trump supporter. If you are you may wish to look away now!

Back tomorrow with an update on the calendar quilt

Ta ta for now

I got my Medal in the post...............

....for 25 years good service 

being married to Himself, the Joe.

We got married on the 27th October 1990.

We had intended to go away for the week but I said I'd rather have a new deck! So that's what I'm getting....soooooon. There's some preparation to do first and things have been set in motion for that to be done. We have some boards on the outside of the house to be replaced and new stringer boards being delivered tomorrow. The pricing for other timber such as posts, joists, bearers and decking has been done and we might just have enough to finish it at long last. 

So watch this space, it's going to be exciting!!

But back to the anniversary, as we had decided not to go away we thought....'day trip, go some nice for the day'......then we thought 'timber yard and Hamilton gardens for lunch instead!' It was such a nice start to the day and the sun shone at Thompsons timber yard in Whatawhata.....

the picnic benches looked particularly lovely I thought...

'We're not getting one' said Joe.

We then went to another place for more pricing and whilst Joe was in there I went in one of my favourite shops,  

The Early Settler. 

'You're not getting anything from there' said Joe.

Pfffrrrtt! said me!

After Joe got a haircut we headed out to Hamilton Gardens which never gets boring.

In was lunch time by then and they also have a cafe which does lovely food

View from the cafe

Check out the menu here

I had the smoked salmon salad

 and Joe had the prime beef burger

Next... a walk around some of the gardens, it has recently opened a couple of new gardens which we had yet to see finished so we planned to check them out, but first some of the old favourites. It's still early yet for all the beautiful plants to be in full bloom but they promise to put on a good show in a few weeks time.

The English flower garden

The Indian Char Bagh garden

The Italian Renaissance garden my favourite

And running through Hamilton and behind the gardens is the Waikato river

Tudor garden one of the recently finished gardens

The Tropical garden (new) 

This was lovely and reminded us of our Island holidays

And lastly the Rhodendron lawn where there is a giant eucalyptus tree.

We might have to take a picnic or two in the summer and sit under it's shady branches.

Back home we set about sorting out our evening meal, roast lamb with a Moroccan spiced rub, a salad which was my re-creation of my lunch and a potato salad.

There was of course a few bottles of bubbly involved

We obviously dragged Michael up okay, he drank his Waikato draught beer out of a champagne glass 

 The still happy couple

 The good stuff about to be popped!

 After we ate we watched our wedding video, we haven't watched it for years, in fact we nearly never saw it that night either because we couldn't find it. 

Crisis averted however, it was found, in a box in the attic!

It was lovely to watch again, such a great day spent with family and friends. There were a few tears after noticing some guests who are now no longer with us and a few tears more for such happy memories. 

I've often said since over the years that if I were to do it again I would just run away and do it quietly without all the fuss. But now having watched our day again I thought nah bugger it, I'd do it all again exactly the same because memories like that are just far too precious.

After Michael and Tash left we looked through our wedding photo album

Here we are on the day, looking so young....and thin!! Sigh!

Today after we got home from running a few errands in town we found a box on our doorstep. It was full of some wonderful goodies from my family back in the UK. 

Two days  late but that's NZ post for you!

 

So thank you all back in Blighty.

XXXXXX

Joe's been off all this week and we've done absolutely loads in the garden and it's looking fab

Back with photos soon