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.