beer, garlic, buttons
Back from holiday, which involved camping up the Wakamarina in Marlborough, in Motueka and in Puponga in the beautiful Golden Bay. The sun shone and I fell in love with Puponga, especially the wandering over empty beaches part and I want to go back there every year and also I took quite a liking to the Captain Cooker beer at the Mussel Inn. I think it is the best beer I have ever tasted. I thought of my blogging friend Sharon when I went to Langford's Store in Bainham. You would fall in love girl. I bought a poster of the store and an apron (you read that correctly) and Gerard Hindmarsh's book Swamp Fever. This is a very interesting, indeed riveting, book and unless I turn out promising false promises which never eventuate like usual, then I will blog entirely about Hindmarsh's book in a post coming soon.
Back here, Favourite Handyman is sanding down the window frames outside the study. Given the paint flakes involved and the garlic, irises and roses growing outside the study, I got digging this morning. The garlic harvest is mostly smaller than last year. There is now a tarpaulin spread over the vacated soil to protect it, as I want to use it in winter (the brick wall holds heat and makes it a good spot for year long growing).
I decided to harvest all the garlic. The garlic which was growing where I dumped all of Raelene's chook house litter is enormous. Probably the biggest garlic outside of elephant garlic I've ever seen. I know what to do next time.
It's been a dismal season in the garden. Almost everything had run to seed while I was away. I dug some Maori potatoes the other day and while they tasted divine, out of two plants I got enough for three super sized marbles each for our family of four. Bit grim.
This tidy house lark takes a bit of time doesn't it? But I can report that the couch has been available all week for sitting on. As in sitting on without having to sit on clean washing or remove clean washing first (the short people fling it with gay abandon).
Still. It's all in the name of being in control of my life in 2010. Also in that name I have been scouting round for something to wear to work. The last lot of things must have fallen apart or something - maybe I should make a list of things to wear. I bought two tops at the Sallies, neither of which need ironing which mean they will get worn a lot. I bought a brand new shirt at Postie Plus which may well need ironing which means that it will get worn crumpled or not at all except when my Favourite Handyman irons for me. One of my two skirts which I sewed myself this summer is work-suitable so really we are making a lot of progress.
I have begun to re-sew the buttons on my new shirt. It is just a shade taut which is not my preferred look, and moving the buttons over a smidge should sort that nicely. So I feel rather clever just because I am altering something myself. Meanwhile I am trying to forget that this morning when I cleaned out the boy's drawer (the Great New Year's Cull isn't quite done with), I took the buttons off two pyjama shirts and sat bemoaning the state of the world, frivolous over-consuming outlaws (due in a very short number of days), Haiti, sweatshop labour, the under-appreciation of the skills of pyjama shirt sewing... in short feeling both deep and depressed about the state of the world as expressed in two perfectly good pj tops with worn out bottoms which I put in the rag bag as I couldn't do the bin just yet.
And then tonight when I was being a person of tidy virtue and folding the washing, I found that one pj top had matching bottoms in the basket in perfect order. Quite how I am to feel about the bigger stuff I am not yet decided, but next time I'll leave the scissors in the drawer a bit longer when it comes to symbolic pieces of fabric.
Back here, Favourite Handyman is sanding down the window frames outside the study. Given the paint flakes involved and the garlic, irises and roses growing outside the study, I got digging this morning. The garlic harvest is mostly smaller than last year. There is now a tarpaulin spread over the vacated soil to protect it, as I want to use it in winter (the brick wall holds heat and makes it a good spot for year long growing).
I decided to harvest all the garlic. The garlic which was growing where I dumped all of Raelene's chook house litter is enormous. Probably the biggest garlic outside of elephant garlic I've ever seen. I know what to do next time.
It's been a dismal season in the garden. Almost everything had run to seed while I was away. I dug some Maori potatoes the other day and while they tasted divine, out of two plants I got enough for three super sized marbles each for our family of four. Bit grim.
This tidy house lark takes a bit of time doesn't it? But I can report that the couch has been available all week for sitting on. As in sitting on without having to sit on clean washing or remove clean washing first (the short people fling it with gay abandon).
Still. It's all in the name of being in control of my life in 2010. Also in that name I have been scouting round for something to wear to work. The last lot of things must have fallen apart or something - maybe I should make a list of things to wear. I bought two tops at the Sallies, neither of which need ironing which mean they will get worn a lot. I bought a brand new shirt at Postie Plus which may well need ironing which means that it will get worn crumpled or not at all except when my Favourite Handyman irons for me. One of my two skirts which I sewed myself this summer is work-suitable so really we are making a lot of progress.
I have begun to re-sew the buttons on my new shirt. It is just a shade taut which is not my preferred look, and moving the buttons over a smidge should sort that nicely. So I feel rather clever just because I am altering something myself. Meanwhile I am trying to forget that this morning when I cleaned out the boy's drawer (the Great New Year's Cull isn't quite done with), I took the buttons off two pyjama shirts and sat bemoaning the state of the world, frivolous over-consuming outlaws (due in a very short number of days), Haiti, sweatshop labour, the under-appreciation of the skills of pyjama shirt sewing... in short feeling both deep and depressed about the state of the world as expressed in two perfectly good pj tops with worn out bottoms which I put in the rag bag as I couldn't do the bin just yet.
And then tonight when I was being a person of tidy virtue and folding the washing, I found that one pj top had matching bottoms in the basket in perfect order. Quite how I am to feel about the bigger stuff I am not yet decided, but next time I'll leave the scissors in the drawer a bit longer when it comes to symbolic pieces of fabric.
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