Caring and Sharing

Not many words today, but this is what I have been doing in the last few days:

Caring for two of our granddaughters, enjoying all the shared activities and now feeling more than a little flat that they have gone home.

Swimming here in a snatched hour or two when it was too hot to work.

Sharing a cup of tea and some sugared almonds with my patchwork friends,

and finding a little time to quilt .

Amongst the beans and strawberries

I have been spending the days this week digging weeds and mulching the garden, and lots of watering time!

The weather has been very hot, and each day I have seen lots of new growth everywhere.

I haven't spent many hours with any crafty intention, although I am sticking to the schedule of trying to spend some time on this garden every evening.

The Jacaranda Tree

There is a street that I drive through on the way to do my shopping. It has become very familiar over the years, but this is the time of year that I love passing by the most.

There are several large jacaranda trees growing outside people's houses, quite close in fact. The abundant blossoms give a wonderful purply shade to those who loiter underneath the branches.

I think it was three years ago that I planted our own Jacaranda tree in the garden. It is growing well and seems to be healthy and happy, but there are no signs of the characteristic blue and purple flowers yet.

About the same time I started stitching a Jacaranda tree.

See the bird perched on a branch. I bought this from a dear little haberdashery shop in Orvieto in Italy. I would have loved to linger to gaze at the many button trays displayed so tantalizingly but the bus was waiting to leave, and I felt very fortunate to be clutching my tiny purchase as I clambered on board.

Maybe the Jacaranda tree growing in my garden will decide to flower when I finish the stitching!

A Big Bowl of Cherries

"Life is a bowl of cherries", so they say.

I felt like eating some cherries today but I might curb my natural instinct of making a pig of myself over them. There has been a nasty tummy bug in this household all week, and I have managed to steer clear of it so far. My DH has been very miserable and "not like himself".

Another big thing that has happened is our computer also became ill and needed major surgery, in fact I would go so far as to say that it ended up with several transplants. Things taken out and put back in a different order, the worst of which is my email history and address book which has gone,gone GONE, never to be retrieved again.

A clean sweep!

Oh well, cest la vie.

Once I got over the drama of it all and faced the withdrawal symptoms of several days without a PC, I actually found it quite liberating, and am now contemplating a computer-free day once a week....maybe.......hmm perhaps not.

I managed to finish these for the Creative Fibre Stall on Friday. I really don't know why one vest turned out bigger than the other.

I think I am a little addicted to the cyberspace and all the info at one's fingertips, not to mention important communication with one's loved ones on the other side of the world.

Patchwork Today

I love the start of a New Year and I especially love a diary or a little book with new clean pages to write thoughts and "things to do".

I have a little black diary for all the books I will read this year and the knitting , patchwork, weaving , spinning projects etc.

I think I will include the plants and bulbs I plant this year in its pages too.

I spent some time today sewing squares together and listening to the Debussy and Ravel String Quartets played by our NZ String Quartet. These two quartets are my favorite and well worth a listen if you click on the link.

Actually I am not sure if this link thingy is working, so you might have to google it instead.

The music helped to make the sewing flow together.

Splashing about

I had my first swim of the year today and it was very refreshing and just what I needed to do on a hot windy afternoon.

My eldest son manages a big dairy farm about an hour and a half from where we live, and he and his little family live in a beautiful farmhouse with a verandah all the way around and climbing roses on every post....plus they have a swimming pool!

Splashing about in the pool with the little ones shrieking with glee , smelling the farm smells and listening to the bird calls in the trees surrounding the property was bliss, and to think that I very nearly didn't go because I wanted to work on this:

I started this late on New Year's Day. I was thinking about Melissa and her family and wanted to do something that didn't require me to engage my head, just my hands. So I mindlessly cut lots of squares from fabric I have had in my stash for a while, and kept cutting and sorting and cutting and sorting until I had covered the spare bed ( so recently vacated ) in squares of aqua, blue and green.

I am still not wholly satisfied that the squares are in their rightful places, I might need to play some more.

A New Year and a new beginning in Norway

My New Year's day started early this morning.We were at the airport bright and early to see our eldest daughter Melissa (tinyhappy) and her family off on their first part of the long journey to Norway. This day has been building up for weeks but they went off with smiles and only a few shiny tears, and we know this is going to be a wonderful adventure for them all and for us when we visit them later on this year!

Safe travels Melissa and Tom, Arlo and Keira.

Haere ra whanau aroha nui !

I will play some of Greig's music tonight and think of you all, and imagine the landscape that you will soon be living in.