THE GARDEN

I love this time of year in the garden with new plants flowering every day.  

A pale cineraria under the lemon tree

                                                                      The front garden 

I can't remember the name of this yellow flower but the bees and butterflies love it.

There are now several foxgloves in flower from white through to this pink.

Another foxglove in the back garden

The vegetable beds are turning into flower beds as self-sown plants pop up.

This bed of poppies was filled with spinach and Swiss chard over winter.

Another cineraria with the lovely yellow abutilon

We have been trying to get rid of algae in the fish pond so Doug made this container and we bought some watercress plants at the Market yesterday.  It looks happy.

Vegie gardening getting off to a slow start.  Cheating.  A punnet of Blue Lake Runner beans planted a few weeks ago and one of stringless scarlet runner bean purchased yesterday.  I must  sow some more beans in the next few days.

Some of the Amaryllis a neighbour gave us when she moved to Western Australia.

 

ALIGNERS

As I age my jaw is shrinking and I have had trouble with crooked teeth that have been catching on parts of my mouth and causing ulcers so I recently went to an Orthodontist.  She assured me this can be fixed and, last week, I was fitted with my first aligners.

In days gone by I would have had a cast made of my mouth/teeth but a "magic wand" was run around my teeth and gradually a three dimension model of my teeth appeared on screen.  I wear these first ones for a fortnight and then go back and have some attachments put on my teeth and will be fitted with the next set and given four more sets to change at 2 - 3 week intervals.  

I am only allowed to drink cold water while wearing them and they should be worn for 22 hours a day.  I am still finding them  hard to remove although it is easy to put them back in but it is quite time consuming cleaning both them and my teeth beforehand.  

I have changed my routine and my early morning honey and cider vinegar drink is now left until breakfast time and at night I am having my meal slightly later and then clean my teeth straight away before putting the aligners back in.

I can remember as a child having braces fitted and them being tightened and complaining of the pain. My mother just took them off and that was the end of it.  I had no idea that I would have problems later on and there was no discussion.

I am the oldest patient to have them at this Orthodontist although she told me she had several ladies in their 70's.

Meanwhile, in the garden, the foxgloves and clivias are beginning to bloom

PAINTING

In my last post I mentioned that Doug was painting.  This time it was not art but painting doors and a gate.  After the drive was done the gate would not close so we turned it around to open the other way.  Doug made the gate after he bought the property at the end of 2008 and part of it was made from ply and that needed replacing.  We decided on a complete change of colour and are both pleased with it.

The front door was the same brown

and there were two paint splattered stools that we wanted to use as side tables that are now the same colour.

We are very pleased with it all and I am sure more items will be painted as well.

SPRING IS IN THE AIR

A lovely sunny day today and I have been in the garden weeding and generally getting ready to do some planting/sowing.  We have both done some weeding earlier but we have still been getting rain and wind and there are still showers in the forecast.  

Anyway, I am pleased with the weeding/clearing I have done today while Doug has been painting.

The trees in the park behind us are coming into leaf

The punga ferns that were self sown behind one of the fountains and moved are doing well.

The bees are enjoying the spring flowers

Still a lot to do but it is good to have made a start.

CELEBRATIONS

 On Doug's actual birthday we planned to stay home but our neighbour across the road didn't feel able to come over due to mobility problems so we took the birthday cake across to them.  We had not been home long when we got a surprise visit from Doug's Primary School friend whose birthday we attended at the end of June.  Stan has a neighbour who takes care of him (providing meals, driving him to appointments etc.) and in June youngest daughter had mentioned to him that it was Doug's 90th on 11 September.  He must have made a note of it and brought him here.  They live a fair distance out of town and had arrived while we were out but , luckily, returned to find us home.  Doug also had lots of cards and phone calls as well as other visitors.  

Yesterday, was the get-together.  We ended up with 20.  Daughters, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and a couple of first cousins.  The food was excellent. I didn't take photos but here are some from their website.

                                                                   Sandwiches

                                                                          Pies

                                                                       muffins

and some delicious desserts.  I opted for finger food and also ordered some gluten free sandwiches and desserts.  We were really impressed with the presentation and taste.

As well as this I made a birthday cake (actually 2 cakes) excuse the junk. 

Having not wanted any celebration Doug admitted that he really enjoyed himself.

Because I had made the cake/s as well as having the muffins we ended up with left over food, always preferable to not having enough.

BIRTHDAY

It is Doug's Birthday on Thursday  (9/11).  He originally said he didn't want any celebration i.e. party or anything else.  He eventually agreed to a get-together similar to the one we had for the family photoshoot recently.  That is taking place on Sunday and I think there will be 23 people - daughters, grandchildren, partners, great-grandchildren and four first cousins.

Yesterday, however, after a very pleasant walk to the Whangarei Falls, one of the ladies in the Walking Group made a cake and another a special card.  We had our coffee at our favourite restaurant where they are always most obliging.

Tomorrow, we have appointments in town and will go out for lunch and on the day itself some friends are coming here.

  

KAMO BUTCHER AND PEA AND HAM SOUP

 Yesterday we went to Omak Butchers in Kamo as I wanted to buy one of their bacon hocks to make soup.  They are so much nicer than the supermarket ones.  While I was there I bought some bacon, lambs fry and a small boned lamb leg roast.  I then noticed that their whole eye fillet steaks were on special and I knew we had very little left so bought one of them as well.

Today, after doing a couple of loads of washing and making a loaf of gf bread I sliced the fillet and packed it up getting enough for 13 meals for the two of us.  We had some for lunch and the rest went in the deep freeze. ( I was surprised to see that it is actually Australian beef.)

I also made a large pot of Pea and Ham Soup.  As well as the peas and bacon hock were lentils, carrots, kumara and celery.  When it was cooked I removed the meat from the bone and then used a stick mixer to puree the soup.  I will store the soup and meat separately and put some meat in each serving.  

It is delicious and we will have some for our meal tonight.  There are two large bowls of soup.

It was delicious.