Monday, November 19, 2012

What's Been Happening....

 
A couple of weeks ago I had 2 weeks holidays off work, but it wasn't a relaxing holiday.
 
I had to get my laundry and main bathroom floors pulled up which had water damage, which caused parts of the floor to swell and floor tiles to crack. I was able to claim it through my insurance so I didn't have to pay for it. A word of warning if you have metal hoses that connect from your basin tap to the water pipe, make sure keep checking them, as mine corroded and consequently the water went everywhere.  Luckily it was on a weekend and I was only out for a couple of hours.  When i returned the bathroom and the laundry had a couple of inches of water over it, ready to come into the kitchen wooden floors.  Anyhow, all that over with and a couple of months of waiting on a date, it is all finished and I am very happy with it.  It was so hard trying to find country look tiles as they are all the modern look now. I am still not sure if I am completely happy with the feature tile on the floor, but I love the terracotta floor tile and the topper tile in the bathroom just finishes it off.  I also had all the ceiling, walls and window frames repainted.
 
Looking into the main bathroom (before).

 
This is the laundry (before).  You walk through the laundry to get into the main bathroom.

 
This is looking from the laundry to the bathroom, yes, my fridge is in the laundry as it doesn't fit in the kitchen, they didn't allow room for a big fridge in the kitchen!
 
 
 This is what the old floor was like, a ply particle board, not what should be on a bathroom floor and there wasn't even any waterproofing on the floor, so that is why I had humps in the floor!
 
New floor, cement fibre, what a bathroom floor should be.
 
It's all finished, new floor, new paint colour on walls, and I got rid of the yucky green window and door trims. It has made it so much brighter.  They decided to put waterproofing up the bottom of the wall so we put a floor tile as a boarder. 
 
In the bathroom I already had tiles on the wall so I decided to buy a topper tile to go at the top of the tiles on the wall to finish it off.
 
This is close up of the feature tile, which I am still not sure of.  It is the closest country style looking I could get to match the floor tile without going back to the federation style which I didn't want again.
 
While I was at home for the 2 weeks, I made some more bread, practice makes perfect.
 
The first week I was home I caught up with my neighbour friends for lunch one day.  We just grabbed some stuff that was in our fridges and put it altogether and it turned into a lovely Ploughman's Lunch!
 
We enjoyed the lunch so much we decided to do it again the second week but we thought we would have breakfast this time...bacon, poached eggs, mushrooms, tomato, spinach, freshly squeezed orange juice and fresh home baked bread....delicious. I tell you what, I could handle not going to work anymore and doing this every week.
 
At the beginning of the year I planted a couple of Canterbury Bell plants, it took them a while to get going and I thought they were going to die, but they look great now.  I have never had this plant before but I think I will be buying some more to put through the garden.
 
The flower is stunning and it is quite big too.  I think it looks like a teacup and saucer.
 
 
My tomatoes, are growing like crazy. I have mini roma (which are more like normal size roma), gold cherry tomato, and red cherry tomato.
 
 
 
The beans are growing better now that they get more sun.  I had some lovely friends visit for morning tea one day and had relatives come for lunch another day, so I off loaded the spinach to them so I could pull the plants out to let the beans get more sun.
 
 What's this.....is that a christmas tree!!!!  Yep, you guessed it...I put up my christmas decorations last weekend. I have to take photos of them so stay tuned for my next post.
 
 Enjoy your day!
xx
 

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Around the Garden...

I thought I would share some photos of my garden.  I am really happy with how the garden is looking this year but I still think it is not quite how I would like it....but as they say a garden is always a work in progress.
 
This is looking up the garden path!!  The foxgloves have grown great this year, I also put a lot more in this time.
 
Looking down the path. The magnolia at the end has grown so high.
 
I think the foxgloves look great amongst the roses.

 
The rose on the arbour has come back so thick...I think it needed the hard cut back.

Rose out the front
 
 Pierre de Ronsard rose that I moved from out the back to grow over the other side of the front arbour, has thankfully survived and growing well. I love this rose.

The rose along the back fence is starting to flower.

The foxgloves behind the old fence are growing crazy and the sweet peas too.
 

One of the foxgloves behind the fence, the one on the left at the back, is so tall, it comes up to my forehead.  I am only 157cm tall (yes I'm a shorty), but the foxglove really is quite tall and looks great.

A close up of the tall one, love the bell shaped flowers...stunning!

The Iris' are starting to flower too...I think of Nan when these flower as her name was Iris.
 
I planted 3 different tomato plants, mini roma, cherry tom and golden cherry tomato and they have started to fruit.  The spinach at the back is still growing wild, one of the bean seeds that I planted has started to take off, don't think the others I planted are going to shoot so I planted a few more seeds last weekend so hopefully this will shoot. I'm thinking maybe they are getting too much shade from the spinach so I might have to pull the spinach out.
 
What's been happening in your garden?

Enjoy your day!
xx

 

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Puppie, Puppies and more Puppies...

 
Last weekend I went to visit my friend Pat, who breeds Labradors.  Two of her dogs have had pups and there are 11 puppies altogether (unfortunately 3 died).
 
Be warned, this post is a bit of photo overload, but they are so cute!

(in this litter there are 4 brown and 1 cream)

(this litter there are 4 black and 2 cream)

(its such hard work being a puppy)

 (yes, I had to have a cuddle)


 From left to right....Grandma, Mum, Mum and Dad at the back.
 
Its time for a feed.
 
 
 



(he is out for the count!)
 
 
This is what Bailey did to his Pooh Bear the other week....when I am not paying attention to him he decides to pull his stuffing out....I must sew that up one day!
(I didn't do it....really!) 

(Pooh Bear are you ok?)

I also had a go at making the Flower Biscuits that Joolz made here . I was happy with how they turned out and they tasted good too!
 
Enjoy your day!
xx
 
 

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Family Portrait....

A couple of weeks ago I had some family portrait photos taken with my Dad and Bailey.  I won a voucher in a raffle for a free sitting and photo. 
 
What a great afternoon it turned out to be.  I asked Alicia from Alicia Birch Photography if I would be able to have the photos done in my yard with my old stuff and garden. Alicia said that was fine and said it would take about one hour....well two and half hours later the photos were done. Alicia loves all the old stuff that I do and she loved my garden.  Bailey was the star of the day, he was very well behaved, probably because we wanted him in the photos too and that he was being included.
 
Alicia asked if she could do a blog on my photos, I said really!!  So here is the link to her blog if you would like to have a look at my photos and let me know what you think.  All the people that I have showed them to have commented how great they are.
  http://aliciabirch.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/no-two-family-portraits-are-same.html

I would highly recommend Alicia if you live locally, she is a lovely lady and excellent at what she does!

Enjoy your day!
xx